What's Your L.A. Story?

The “What’s Your L.A. Story” campaign is up and running and the Expedia portion of the effort has generated more than 17,000 room nights in its first few weeks! TMD member hotels are offering special deals such as 40% off a stay, complimentary breakfast and more. For a look at our custom landing page with more information click here.

Air China

Air China will add a third nonstop flight between Los Angeles and Beijing beginning May 2 with four days a week then becoming daily starting July 1. The Boeing 777-300ER airliner for the route has eight luxury suites in its “Forbidden Pavilion” first-class cabin, 41 business-class sleeper seats and 259 economy seats equipped with TVs.

Jobs in the travel industry are growing according to the US Travel Association. The travel sector has added a total of 800,000 jobs since the recession. These jobs include: hotel workers, travel agents, airline workers, other passenger transportation service workers, workers of restaurant and leisure activities who serve visitors, tourism marketing and promotion, aviation, administration, security services, resort area security, resort area sanitation, food and cleaning services employed by hotels, fuel and catering services purchased from airlines, and more. The U.S. travel industry now employs more than eight million workers and as of 2013, the industry has recovered 138% of jobs that were lost during the recession. This growth can be attributed to the dramatic increase in inbound international travel (9.1% in 2013).

The U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade announced last week that a record 75 million international visitors traveled to the United States in 2014, a seven percent increase from 2013. Tourism is America’s largest services export and these exports support 1.1 million U.S. jobs. Highlights of the report include: the top inbound markets continue to be Canada and Mexico as Mexico grew 19 percent, surpassing the record arrivals seen in 2007, reaching 17.3 million visits in 2014; annual overseas resident visitation (excluding Canada and Mexico) set a new record in 2014, reaching 34.4 million visitors, up eight percent from 2013; travel from overseas markets accounted for 46 percent of total international arrivals to the United States in 2014; all top inbound overseas regional markets surpassed 2013 levels, all registering record level visits in 2014; sixteen of the top 20 countries registered increases in non-resident visits in 2014. Eight of the top 20 countries registered double-digit increases, with 12 of the top 20 inbound countries registering record level visits in 2014.

There couldn’t be a better time for L.A. Tourism members to post special offers on our website. L.A. Tourism is experiencing tremendous growth on the website DiscoverLosAngeles.com, and research studies indicate travelers base much of their decision-making on best deals and discounts available. If you are interested in posting a special offer, you can do so by accessing the member extranet via the re-launched portal. Click on the tab “web” and then “coupons” to enter special offer information. Special offers can be posted specific to travel trade professionals, meetings & conventions, and consumers. Please note that offers geared toward travel trade professionals and meetings & conventions should have at least a 12-month cycle as they will be made available to tour operators, as well as citywide and convention groups arriving to Los Angeles for as long as one year out.

Be sure to keep your listings up-to-date by logging in to the extranet frequently. Here, you can upload new photos, change your description and more! For questions on how to log in to the extranet, contact the Membership Team at membercommunications@latourism.org.