News & Notes - October 2015

L.A. Tourism announced the return of its annual fall program L.A. Museum Season in September. Visitors who book a minimum of two nights at a Los Angeles hotel from Oct. 5 through Nov. 15 can save more than $450 in admission fees or gift shop discounts at 25 of L.A.’s top museums. Highlights of museum savings and exhibitions include the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, Los Angeles Zoo & Botanical Gardens and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, among others.

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Consumers are now able to access discoverLosAngeles.com in two additional languages: French and German. Users can access each version of the website from the homepage by selecting the appropriate language drop down. The sites feature engaging Los Angeles content that has been translated into each language weekly. discoverLosAngeles.com is now available in seven total languages including Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese and Korean in addition to the new French and German sites.

L.A. Tourism has been selected as one of the “Top 10 Best WeChat Marketing Destinations” by Best of Travel, a leading trade media publication in China. Los Angeles is the only city-destination to win the honor, joining countries such as Canada, Japan and Germany, among others. L.A. Tourism currently has nearly 10,000 followers on the social media platform.

L.A. Tourism’s China office launched a new online agent training program, L.A. Destination Specialist Program, as part of their travel trade outreach. The L.A. Destination Specialist Program is a new B2B and B2C mobile training platform to better reach and train travel agents effectively. The training program aims to equip travel professionals with detailed and up to date information about L.A. and its tourism resources. This innovative mobile platform enables agents to learn anywhere and any time.

In order to encourage and reward the participants of the training, L.A. Tourism China is seeking sponsored gifts for participants who successfully complete the training. If your business is interest in participating, please contact Kate Chang at KChang@Latourism.org with sponsored gift descriptions and quantities available.

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Los Angeles World Airports reported passenger volume in August grew to 7.1 million, up 5.8 percent from the 6.7 million passengers of the same period a year ago. Domestic passenger volume grew to 5 million, an increase of 3.9 percent. International passengers grew 2.1 million, a 10.8 percent increase. These numbers put LAX on track to exceed last year’s record of 70.7 million passengers.

According to the Wall Street Journal, China’s outbound traveler numbers continue to grow and are poised to double by 2020 to 234 million passengers, from more than 100 million in 2014. This year, Chinese tourists’ spending is expected to jump to $229 billion, up 23% from the previous year. By 2020, their total overseas spending is expected to reach $422 billion.

The US Department of Commerce announced that total travel and tourism-related employment rose 1.7 percent during the second quarter of 2015, now accounting for more than 8 million US jobs. More than 33,000 jobs were added during the second quarter alone, bringing the number of jobs added in 2015 to more than 75,000 year to date.