ON AN AVERAGE DAY in 2006 878 people from China visited the United States. This number represented a 62% increase over 1996. Roughly five times as many Americans visited China as Chinese visited the United States. This indicates the greater ease for foreigners to go to China and the greater number of Americans capable of affording overseas travel.
 
If the number of visitors from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan are added to the China figure, 2,085 arrived on the average day in 2006.
 
Though the population of China (1.3 billion) dwarfs that of Hong Kong (7 million), Macau (500,000), and Taiwan (23 million), China only surpassed Hong Kong as a supplier of visitors to the United States in 2000. It passed Taiwan as a supplier just last year.

The table above shows the negative impact of the 1997 Asian financial crisis on travel from these regions, but the September 11, 2001 attacks and the fear and tighter regulations they generated had a more profound effect. This coincided with an economic slowdown in the United States and in Taiwan. In 2006, the total number of visitors from these regions did not reach the number attained in 2001, let alone the significantly higher marks of 1997-2000.
 
In terms of sheer numbers, visitors from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan are not nearly as important to the American tourist industry as those from many other countries. The top ten providers of visitors to the United States are:

While a number of other countries already send more visitors than China and Taiwan do to the United States, it’s clear that increasingly affluent Chinese are eager to travel abroad. They are already heading in significant numbers to many places from the beaches of Fiji to the brightly lit streets of Seoul. The City of Los Angeles is among those eager to bring in more Chinese tourists. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa led a trade mission to China in October 2006. He and others met with officials in Beijing and officially announced Los Angeles would be the first foreign municipality to open a tourism office in Beijing. The Mayor’s office noted Chinese visitors were responsible for $78 million of the $12.9 billion visitors spent in Los Angeles in 2005. The biggest obstacle for expanding Chinese tourism to the United States has been the difficulty Chinese have in securing visas.

California is the most common destination for visitors from China and Taiwan. In 2005, more than 54% of visitors from China went to California. New York was the second most frequently visited state, with a 31% market share. Los Angeles had about one thousand more Chinese visitors than did New York City. Both received about 31% of all Chinese visitors.
 
In 2006, 59% of visitors from Taiwan went to California. Los Angeles had more visitors from Taiwan than any other city. Some 35% of all visitors from Taiwan came to Los Angeles. This represents a drop from the 45% market share Los Angeles had in 1997.

UPDATE (Dec. 2007): In December, the U.S. and Chinese governments agreed to permit tour companies to secure group visas for Chinese visitors, a change that should greatly increase the number of Chinese coming to the U.S. The agreement was signed by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez who said, "“Today’s agreement will open a large and growing market for the U.S. travel and tourism industry.”