WHEREAS, On September 25, 2015, the United States and China announced an agreement for each country to participate in a year of tourism cooperation, known as the 2016 U.S.-China Tourism Year, designed to effectively position themselves for increased trade in travel services by enhancing visitors’ travel and tourism experience, cultural understanding, and appreciation for natural resources; and

WHEREAS, The United States Department of Commerce and the China National Tourism Administration have been supporting the 2016 U.S.-China Tourism Year by developing and deploying programs that focus on new and better travel itineraries, hosting workshops at various international travel trade shows to share best practices to improve the visitor experience, working with relevant authorities to improve signage and other translation and interpretation services to benefit visitors, communicating travel and entry requirements to the United States and Chinese travel industries and making this information accessible to visitors, promoting training of industry personnel to enhance understanding of cross-cultural issues, communicating the needs and preferences of United States and Chinese visitors to the tourism industry, and creating programs to increase visitor interest and traffic to natural resource sites and leveraging these sites as tourism assets for both countries; and

WHEREAS, California’s contribution to the mission of the 2016 U.S.-China Tourism Year is represented by, among other things, the first flight between Los Angeles International Airport and a tier II Chinese city, Changsha; the Disneyland Resort and Universal Studios Hollywood hosting of Lunar New Year festivities; Californians’ participation in the “1,000 Americans Visiting the Great Wall” event in Jinshanling, Hebei Province, on March 25, 2016; the production, hosting, and distribution of various informational resources designed to ensure China’s and California’s respective travel industries’ readiness to effectively welcome visitors; and the California Travel and Tourism Commission’s ongoing efforts to directly reach Chinese audiences through localized media; and

WHEREAS, California’s tourism industry is a vital part of the state’s economy, with over 80 tourism business districts located across all regions of California. This industry is an important hedge against economic downturns and labor market changes as jobs in the industry are largely hands-on and cannot be moved overseas or replaced by technology; and

WHEREAS, In 2016, total direct travel spending in California was $125.9 billion, which supported 1.09 million jobs with earnings of $44.3 billion, and which generated $4.9 billion in local taxes and $5.4 billion in state taxes; and

WHEREAS, China is the world’s largest source market for outbound travel, and is California’s fastest growing market, experiencing double-digit percentage growth in terms of visitation and economic impact over the last six years; and

WHEREAS, During the 2016 U.S.-China Tourism Year, California welcomed an estimated 1.3 million Chinese visitors who spent approximately $2.9 billion in the state, representing an 11.9 percent increase in visitors and a 13.9 percent increase in spending from 2015, and a 30.5 percent and 20 percent increase, respectively, from 2014; and

WHEREAS, The California Travel and Tourism Commission projects that, by 2018, two million Chinese visitors will spend $5 billion in California; and

WHEREAS, An increase in visitation and spending from Chinese travelers will help support travel and tourism industry jobs throughout California, and increase the amount of local and state taxes generated; now, therefore, be it