NTA's Lisa Simon and Cathy Greteman (centre) accept award from US Commercial Services' Laura Gimenez (left) and OTTI's Isabel Hill (right).

The U.S. Commercial Service has awarded international tour association, NTA, with a Certificate of Appreciation for Achievement in Trade following NTA’s “exceptional contributions to U.S. travel and tourism exports in the China market”.

NTA’s Visit USA Center in Shanghai and its China Inbound Program has helped meet the call of President Obama to double exports by 2015, the U.S. Commercial Service’s Laura Gimenez said.

“In a short amount of time NTA’s efforts have facilitated an increase in group leisure travel to the United States from China. This has amounted to 221,000 visitors and translated to an export value of over US$1.3 billion.”

e-Travel Blackboard was on location at the recent NTA convention, where the association was surprised by the presentation of the award.

According to the Office of Travel and Tourism Industries acting director Isabel Hill, the Chinese government typically looks to the host government to qualify inbound tour operators to work with their travel agencies and their travel agencies are “not allowed to work on selling outbound travel unless you have a memorandum of agreement”.

“The United States is not prepared to identify which companies can and cannot do business with Chinese travel agencies. That is just not part of what we consider our mandate to be,” Ms Hill said.

It was at this point that NTA stepped up and offered its services, the acting director said.

And just over a year ago, the association opened its NTA Visit USA Center in Shanghai, aiming “to promote travel to the U.S. by educating both the U.S. and Chinese trade about quality product and best practices, and by linking them with registered tour operators in the United States”.

Since then, travelers who have participated with China Inbound Program operators has increased by 286 percent.

“China is an incredible growth market for the United States, and NTA is proud of our work to help increase exports through international inbound travel to the U.S.,” NTA president Lisa Simon said.

“We so appreciate the support of Commercial Service, OTTI and the Department of Commerce, as well as those NTA tour operators who are facilitating the leisure group market as part of the MOU between the U.S. and China.”