A delegation of Chinese tour operators arrives in Miami this week for some hotel shopping.

The wholesalers from Beijing and Shanghai will tour the Everglades, inspect the Four Seasons and other top hotels and generally hunt for the best vacation options they can sell travelers back home in the increasingly mobile nation. Tourism agencies, Continental Airlines and other local travel companies are sponsoring the trip.

It's part of a growing effort by local tourism marketers to attract the attention of a tightly controlled economy expected to become one of the world's largest sources of travelers.

On a recent South Florida visit by Chinese travel writers, Grace Zhong saw Fort Lauderdale mansions on a water-taxi tour arranged by the Greater Fort Lauderdale tourism bureau.

``If I had a lot of money, I could live there. I'd feel like a movie star,'' said Zhong, an editor at Voyage, a top Chinese travel magazine.

Last October, Bill Talbert, head of the Greater Miami tourism bureau, took a delegation of Chinese tourism directors on a bus trip from Orlando to Miami. From there, they toured Miami and Miami Beach, browsed the Aventura Mall and -- in a nod to China's basketball craze -- attended a reception starring the Miami Heat dancers.

``I can tell you how much they enjoyed that evening,'' said Rolando Aedo, head of marketing for the Greater Miami bureau.

On a recent Friday, Zhong and seven other Chinese travel writers visited Fort Lauderdale, taking a water taxi tour and shopping on Las Olas Boulevard, as well as sampling shrimp and steak at Shula's on the Beach restaurant, escorted by staff from the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Accompanying the group: Vicky Miao, a Chinese marketer who works for Visit Florida in Shanghai.

She touts the state to the estimated 300 million people in China's middle- and upper-income groups who might consider an overseas trip.

``We're really enjoying the sunshine here. It's cold in Shanghai and Beijing now,'' Miao said.

NUMBERS INCREASING

This year, the number of Chinese visiting the United States is forecast to jump 15 percent to 556,000, rising faster than any other major source nation though still comprising less than 1 percent of total foreign arrivals to the country, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

By 2020, the number of Chinese traveling abroad to all nations is set to double to 100 million a year, making China the No. 4 source of tourists to the world after Germany, Japan and the United States, according to the World Tourism Organization.

Even so, a plunge in the hotel and restaurant taxes that fund the Greater Miami tourism bureau prompted cutbacks in the prior Chinese strategy.

While the bureau used to send staff to Chinese travel shows, those trips stopped in 2008 as dollars were pulled back from emerging markets.

Visit Florida is taking the lead in marketing the state to the Chinese, participating in travel shows in China and distributing materials in Mandarin that showcase separate Florida counties.

The Palm Beach County Convention and Visitors Bureau collaborated on one recent promotion, and so was able to hand out local information in Mandarin to visiting Chinese travel writers when they toured the Flagler Museum, said bureau spokesman Kenneth Morgan.

Hotels keen on international guests also are eyeing China. But Walter Banks, owner of Fort Lauderdale's Lago Mar Resort & Club, said he's inclined to work initially through the tourism bureau and Visit Florida to reach Chinese travelers -- not market directly in China on his own.

``It's always good to start working on new markets ever so gradually,'' said Banks.

Just how many Chinese now visit Florida is not known, but the number may be approaching 10 percent of those traveling to the states -- which could mean maybe 50,000 this year, said Bruce Bommarito, executive vice president of the U.S. Travel Association and a China travel specialist.

CHANGE IN FOCUS

Florida focuses international marketing on Europe and Latin America, regions that long have been staples for Florida tourism.

But the state is increasing China efforts, leveraging Florida International University's four-year-old hospitality program in Tianjin that trains Chinese students, annual meetings that bring together tourism chiefs from U.S. states and Chinese provinces and a growing push from Miami that started in 2006.

Miami Herald business writer Douglas Hanks and Sun Sentinel writer Doreen Hemlock contributed to this report.