Chinese Americans Think Twice About Visiting China（在线收听）

Over the last six years the Chinese yuan has risen in value against the US dollar by over 20 percent. This is making it more expensive for Chinese Americans to visit their homeland. Dominic Swire recently spoke to some members of the Chinese community in the US city of Philadelphia and brings us this report.

 
Roger Luo is a Chinese economist based in the US city of Philadelphia. Like many Chinese expatriates, he tries to visit his homeland at least once a year. But now he's having second thoughts.

"We used to visit China from 2001 to 2007 every year. Myself, my wife, two kids. We spend 3 weeks in China. At the beginning we spent about 12,000 dollars for 3 weeks. And the last holiday we spent 25,000 dollars just in 3 weeks. I told my wife, with that amount of money you can go anywhere. Why always go back to China?"

Roger's been living in the US for twenty years. As an economist, he keeps an eagle eye on the exchange rate.

"I came to US in 1991. Back then the exchange rate was 1 US dollar versus 8.2, 3 or 5. So it was very high. Today we're looking at 1 versus 6.5 or 4. So it's roughly 20% devaluation of the US dollar relative to Chinese yuan."

The increasing expense of traveling to China has persuaded Roger to make more family trips at home.

"Inflation is a factor and this year we think it's a lot cheaper to travel in the US because we live here and because the kids are growing up here we feel it's important to be involved in the US more because we're citizens now.

Other Chinese Americans seem to be thinking the same way. Figures from the China National Tourist Office show the number of US citizens visiting relatives and friends in China has dropped almost every year from over 20 thousand in 2006 to just over two thousand last year.

On the other hand the stronger yuan is making it cheaper for Chinese to travel abroad. Joan Yang is a Chinese American working for Siemans in Philadelphia. She used to enjoy cheap prices when visiting China. Now it's a different story.

"There are many times my friends come over here to visit us and I host a shopping spree in New York city. They're like, 'wow, it's so cheap!' They get so many bags and everything else. So it's upside down."

The US Travel Association suggests this trend is likely to continue. It says the number of Chinese visitors to the US in 2013 is expected to be over 60 percent more than in 2008.

For CRI, I'm Dominic Swire.