Coachella Valley tourism officials reached out last week to what they hope will be a new market of visitors to the desert — and are eyeing more opportunities with a sales mission to China later this month.

A delegation of 52 Chinese tour operators and media spent three-plus days in the valley, checking out the shopping scene, lush green golf courses and the natural sand-swept beauty of the area.

“Palm Springs was off the radar,” said Jason Pacheco of the California Travel & Tourism Commission, which organized the familiarization tour.

Well, it's on their radar now.

Yang Da slipped promotional materials into his shoulder bag and chatted with local hospitality representatives and attraction business owners during a trade show Wednesday hosted by the Palm Springs Desert Resort Communities Convention and Visitors Authority.

As vice general manager of a touring company based in Beijing, Da has been to the United States before, but this was his first trip to the Palm Springs area.

“We all love (it) here, especially the weather right now,” he said of the delegation's impressions of the destination. “We'd like to tell more and more of our clients about it.”

Susan Wilcox, vice president of communications with the CTTC, expects the Coachella Valley to pop up as a featured destination on touring packages in the future.

“This is a great opportunity for this destination,” she said, gesturing toward the journalists from China Central Television, People's Daily, Guangdong Television and travel magazines who milled about the trade show floor in Indian Wells.

About 273,000 travelers from China visited the Golden State in 2008. Their economic impact was valued to be $400 million, according to the CTTC.

The state commission increased its presence in China earlier this year by opening three offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Building relationships on the ground in China is important if California wants to capitalize on the emerging outbound travel market there, Pacheco said.

San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas already are popular destinations for Chinese travelers.

State and local tourism officials hope to broaden their horizons during a sales mission later this month. It includes stops in Beijing and at the China International Travel Mart trade show in Kunming.

Woody Peek, vice president of tourism sales and membership development at the CVA, will represent the desert on the sales mission.

“I think one of the biggest things we can do is to prepare ourselves to receive the China visitors,” he said.

Rancho Las Palmas Resort & Spa did just that during the delegates' visit last week, receiving a standing ovation and some bookings right before Thanksgiving weekend.

Dan Keyser, director of sales and marketing for the Rancho Mirage property, said great pains were taken in serving an authentic, family-style Chinese dinner Tuesday night for the group. The chef received a standing ovation, he chuckled.

“At least, we think it was for the dinner,” he said, adding there was some lag time with the translation.

Keyser expects the 17 golf club managers that visited will bring group business back based on their enthusiastic reaction to valley golf courses.

“They absolutely love this location. There's so much golf available for them,” he said.

“Hopefully they'll get some people over here right away.”