Zhonghua Shao of Shanghai, at right on United Nations Plaza, warned that some Chinese visitors may be culturally insensitive.

A pact between China and America should mean more Chinese shopping for luxuries in New Yo

By GLENN COLLINS

A growing wave of prosperous Asian tourists may soon be posing before New York City’s monuments, marching in and out of buses and photographing everything in sight.
While Japanese tourists were once ubiquitous in New York City, the oncoming wave of visitors is from mainland China. City officials, hospitality merchants and culture executives see them quite simply as the golden future: a rare growth sector in a cooling economy.
Last year Chinese travelers spent $2,204 per visit in New York City, in contrast to $1,807 for some 283,000 visitors from Japan, according to NYC & Company, the city’s tourism and marketing bureau. Though the number of visitors from Japan dwarfs the 160,000 visitors from China, a new agreement between China and the United States has, as of late June, permitted travel agencies for the first time to offer packaged tours to New York and other American cities, tourism officials say. Since previously only business and government travelers were approved, the accord is likely to significantly increase the flow of visitors.
“All the Chinese want to come here,” said Charlie Shao, president of Galaxy Tours, which brought in 1,082 business tour groups with more than 10,000 Chinese last year. “We think it will be a very big market and the airlines will need to fly very big jets.”
George A. Fertitta, the chief executive of NYC & Company, said:
Chinese tourists could absolutely become the new Japanese tourists, in sheer numbers, in the excitement they bring to discovering New York, and in their interest in purchasing things.”
Growth in the Chinese economy and the falling United States dollar have made New York a buyer’s market for Chinese tourists, who have their eyes on luxury brands unavailable in China because of supply and import restrictions.
Many Chinese tourists encountered in recent days at Rockefeller Center, the United Nations, the New York Stock Exchange and other landmarks declined to be interviewed. “So many are very shy and conservative - millionaires and party officials who don’t want publicity,” said Jane Soong, 46, a guide who also leads tours in Mandarin for Gray Line.
Chinese tourists sightseeing in Manhattan often ask about the property values in the neighborhoods they pass through, Ms. Soong said. “They’ll ask, ‘How much would that building cost?’ And when I give them an estimate, sometimes they say, ‘That’s not so expensive.’ ”
So far, few of the Chinese tourists speak English, Mr. Cho said, “but they have all seen New York on television and they all want to go to Wall Street first, to see the stock exchange.”
This was true of Jeanne Lin and her husband, Tony, who had arrived the previous night. “We’re jet-lagged,” Mrs. Lin said. “But we were awake for our first stop - Wall Street!”
But some of the trailblazers caution about future waves of tourists. “There is a good side and a bad side to new tourists from China,” said Zhonghua Shao, 47, an engineer from Shanghai who was touring New York with two business associates. “Many more people will be able to learn about the United States, which will benefit from their visits. But some of them will not be as knowledgeable as the previous tourists, and they might be littering - and spitting.”
Only two decades ago, mainland Chinese were all but prevented from leaving the country as tourists. But since 1997, the government has increasingly permitted travel abroad, though only for business and government officials. Last year, 539,000 visitors arrived in the United States from China, according to the Commerce Department.
This was far fewer than the 3.5 million visitors who came from Japan last year. In 1986, more Japanese visited New York than tourists from any other country, but by 1992, those numbers began declining as Japan entered a long recession.
According to a study by the Travel Industry Association, New York is the top destination for Chinese. “There is a tremendous amount of curiosity about New York in China,” said Fred Teng, a vice president of Sino Television Inc., which is producing a new television show about New York that will air in Shanghai. “Chinese know about New York restaurants and museums.”
Mr. Fertitta said that in Shanghai, “we get a lot of questions about ‘Sex and the City,’ ” adding, “It’s not impossible to imagine tours in Mandarin of ‘Sex and the City’ locales.”