Tourism from Asia. Is it a long shot?

By RICHARD QUINN
The Virginian-Pilot

VIRGINIA BEACH - Si-Jun Lee bought the Hells Point golf course four months ago, even though he knows making money off the links can be as hard as playing well on them.

Still, the self-made property manager who emigrated from South Korea 30 years ago said he sold strip malls he owned to help pay for the course.

Maybe, Lee thought, he could surround the course near Sandbridge with golf villas. Maybe he could restore the allure of Hells Point, which earned rave reviews when it opened 25 years ago. Maybe he could buy a second course, then a third. If he could tie the courses together, he might have a package deal to offer tourists.

Coincidentally, while Lee was making his plans, a much bigger South Korean developer jumped in with a $4 billion proposal to turn Virginia Beach into a tourist destination for visitors from the Far East.

And while Lee's purchase of one golf course is dwarfed by the far more ambitious proposal by Sun Rise Development Co. Ltd., the two share a theme: Both Lee and Sun Rise see the Asian tourist trade as an untapped market on which Virginia Beach could feast.

"I had that kind of plan," said Lee, who runs J&J Investment Corp. from a strip mall in Portsmouth. "I didn't have that kind of money. I wish."

Whether Sun Rise has the money is unclear, but these plans beg the question: Could Virginia Beach be a destination for Asian travelers?

Tourism experts say an expensive and years-long marketing campaign could put the city on the international map, but there are no guarantees.

"They have to fly across a lot of beaches to get here," said Ron Kuhlman, director of tourism marketing for the Virginia Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau. "To become just Virginia Beach as a sole destination would be very, very difficult."

The industry is abuzz these days with talk of how to turn Asia's 3.6 billion residents into tourists. Excluding Canada and Mexico, which are within driving distance of the United States, three of the top 10 countries that send travelers to America are in Asia.

Japan, South Korea and China sent 5 million tourists to the United States in 2005. By comparison, the United Kingdom alone sent 4.3 million, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. But in Virginia Beach, the only international market of note is Canada.

Vinod Agarwal, an Old Dominion University professor who reports annually on Oceanfront visitors, said 9 percent of the city's 2006 summer tourists were Canadian. Conversely, of the 1,200 visitors surveyed, only seven came from outside North America. That's 0.58 percent.

Agarwal's report helps explain why regional tourism groups such as Capital Region USA, which represents Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., and Travel South USA, a consortium of 12 Southern states, focus most of their advertising budget on domestic travel and Canada.

"That's the way it's got to be," said Diane Bechamps, a vice president at Virginia Tourism Corp., the state's marketing agency. "Eighty-nine percent of our visitors drive.

"When we have to prioritize the markets, we put the majority of our money into where the people are coming from. When you get down to places like Korea, you're kind of out of money. We think we should invest more - we just don't have the funds."

Sun Rise told Virginia Beach in letters that it would handle the international marketing to lure travelers and business workers here. In a poorly worded letter in English, Sun Rise Chief Executive Officer Ju Young Kang wrote, " the real demanders consist of tourists who are high educated and made much money in the special quality of Korea as the golf tourists."

Kang believes his plan will attract wealthy tourists with high-rise towers at the Oceanfront, a yacht club at Rudee Loop, and a luxury golf complex at the Tournament Players Club course near City Hall. The sites would be linked as a package deal.

Lee said Kang's plan could work because Virginia Beach has beautiful beaches and is within a day's drive of Washington, one of the country's most popular tourist destinations.

The region's inventory of golf courses also would be a major attraction to an Asian culture that reveres the American golf links. "Koreans and Chinese... they think of America as like Mecca," Lee said. "A lot of people, if they can, want to learn golf in America."

Dong Gyu Shin, another consultant for Sun Rise, said Virginia Beach's moderate weather also would be an attraction. Temperate seasons here are similar to those on Chejudo, a volcanic island off South Korea's southern tip.

But it's not weather, golf or history that draws tourists, Kuhlman said.

It's a long-term advertising campaign that gets pictures of Hampton Roads venues into Asian tour brochures. It's using buildings such as the new $207 million Virginia Beach Convention Center to host international events. It's having the patience to spend millions of dollars over a decade to carve out a reputation.

"It's not a fast-moving sort of market that you can just go in and see results in a couple of years," said Liz Bittner, executive director of Travel South USA. "It takes a fairly concerted effort over a long period of time. That means money."