Hawaii as a MICE destinations for China? Not true!

What about a free trip to Hawaii? It sounds like a big incentive for important clients of Nu Skin Enterprises from China and Hong Kong. For Hawaii receiving 6000 qualified distributors from China is big business.  For the Meeting and incentive travel and tourism market for the Aloha State having 6000 high spending tourists is a good reason to get excited. Nu Skin Enterprise is an American multilevel marketing company which develops and sells personal care products and dietary supplements. Nu Skin was founded in 1984 in Provo, Utah.

Marriott Hotels with their new Starwood group included was the big winner able to host 4000 out of 6000 guests. Other hotels now look at nothing, since the United States Consulates in China and Hong Kong refused visas for approximately 2000 of the qualified distributors, a true embarrassment for Nu Skin and their 2000 clients.

This is surprising after the Obama administration worked with U.S. Travel Association and the Chinese outbound visitors industry, to advocate improvements in tourist visas for Chinese nationals. Having numerous direct flights from Honolulu to various ports in China, the Chinese tourism giant had remained a challenging market for Hawaii. Visa rejection and anxiety about President Trump’s travel ban are encouraging many “want to be Chinese tourists” to look at other destinations – and there are plenty of them.

In person interviews, having to provide 11 supporting documents with a US Visa application, the need to take preparation classes, the US Visa rejection rate for the latest Nu Skin incentive group is extremely high. Perhaps busy Chinese executives don’t have the time to go through all the requirements the United States Government is putting on them, just to be able to enter the land of the free.

In the meantime,  Hawaii Tourism China is looking for new blood in reaching out to other MICE opportunities. They will market complimentary rooms for meeting planners, sponsored trips for decision makers. Let’s hope US Visas will be issued for the State of Hawaii marketing professionals to be successful in promoting its destination to remain on the radar for Chinese Meeting Planners.

Many Chinese opportunities are looking at destinations like Bali, where the welcome carpet is rolled out.

 

 

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Avatar of Nell Alcantara

Nell Alcantara

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