In a move that will delight British owners of holiday homes on the US West Coast, California’s Tourism Board has announced that the state’s tourism budget has increased from $50million to over $100million this year.
The budget has benefited from increased revenues from the small percentage that the California Tourism Board takes from tourism-related transactions from hotels, car hire and attractions, though the doubling of promotional expenditure is part of the ‘Dream Big Dividend’ process adopted by Visit California that it hopes will more than double visitors over the next few years.
Visitors spent a total of $109.6bn in California in 2013 and over $117bn in 2014. The state is already ranked the number one tourist destination in the USA as well as being one of the top three international destinations.
The top countries for inbound travel to California include Mexico and Canada, followed by China, the UK, Australia, Japan, Germany, South Korea, France, Scandinavian, and India and tourism chiefs expect to see the greatest increase in global tourism from Asian countries in the coming years. There is also significant tourism from with the USA itself, particularly from states such as Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Texas, and Utah.
