Before leaving on a trip, most travelers use the Internet to look up what they want to do, what they’re going to eat, and where they’re going to stay at their destination. Attract China, through its Chinese-language website XiaoYaoDao.cn, hopes to provide that service to the Chinese travelers who travel to North America, including Hawaii.

Attract China currently covers Boston, New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Honolulu’s portion of the website launched in August. The company was founded in 2011 with offices in Boston and Beijing. In each city, Attract China seeks local restaurants, hotels and tourism companies to list on its website.

On each city page, users can see descriptions of hotels and restaurants, as well as contact information and outbound links to that company’s website. Users can create an itinerary and plan their trip. One hundred different businesses are listed on the website.

“There’s nothing like this in China,” said Elizabeth Carey, vice president of sales and marketing at Attract China, said.

The site hopes to be a resource for the emerging Chinese FIT (Free and Independent Traveler) and repeat visitors. The company brings together focus groups in Beijing to see what kind of information they want from the website. Carey said people in China know broad and general stories about North American cities, but they are slim on details.

In addition, Attract China can run promotions for its clients. Carey said the company has 1 million subscribers on Chinese social media platform Sina Weibo.

Carey said the company hopes to open an office in Hawaii and hire sales representatives for the region. The company had a booth at the 2014 Hawaii Tourism Conference held at the Hawaii Convention Center last week.

Attract China is expanding rapidly and will cover Vancouver, Toronto, Dallas, Houston, Toronto, Philadelphia, Orlando and Miami later this year.

Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/blog/2014/09/attract-china-wants-hawaii-tourism-companies-to.html?page=all