With warmer months just around the corner, Washington should be preparing for the usually busy summer travel season. But D.C. tourism officials say that one specifically lucrative segment of local tourism could be impacted by the growing spread of the coronavirus: international visitors.

And that’s especially the case when it comes to Chinese tourists, who make up the city’s biggest share of visitors from abroad. Of the 1.9 million tourists who came to D.C. from abroad in 2018, the last year for which data is publicly available, 226,000 came from China alone, outpacing the United Kingdom, India, Germany, and Brazil.

“The fact that the number one market for Washington, D.C. is China and nobody in China can physically fly out of the country is a big concern,” says Elliot Ferguson, president of Destination D.C., the city’s tourism-promotion arm.

The emergence of the coronavirus is posing another threat to Chinese tourism that has already taken a few hits in recent years. While 324,000 Chinese visitors came to D.C. in 2017, the number dropped 25 percent the following year, largely due to the trade war between the two countries.

Ferguson says the impact won’t be felt only on the leisure side, but also when it comes to business travel like attending conferences. He says the International Association of Dental Research’s planned conference in mid-March at the Washington Convention Center could see lighter attendance because of 700 members who live in China who may not be able to attend.

According to D.C.’s Chief Financial Officer, conference attendees this year are expected to spend more than $300 a night on hotel stays alone — and medical conferences are accounting for a larger share of all conferences in the city. And overall tourism contributed $851 million to the city’s economy in 2018 and supported almost 80,000 local jobs.

And the pain for D.C.’s tourism could continue to grow as more countries start dealing with coronavirus outbreaks. This week, the Centers for Disease Control issued additional travel warnings for South Korea, Japan and Italy.

“From Japan there’s a large number of individuals that will come to Washington, D.C. for the National Cherry Blossom Festival,” he says. “We’re looking at what’s happening in South Korea, we’re looking at what’s happening in Italy and other key markets as the virus has spread, and the key thing is how do we make sure it is contained? If it happens on the same level it happening in China there could be a concern or threat of flights not being able to leave those countries either.”

Overall, domestic visitors vastly outpace international ones in D.C. — just under 10 percent of the 23.8 million visitors to the city in 2018 came from abroad. But Ferguson says international tourists stay longer (6.2 nights to non-international tourists’ 2.6 nights) and spend roughly 27 percent more money on hotels, restaurants and other services. And because Chinese visitors spend more than other international tourists, D.C. officials have taken a number of steps to lure them to D.C. in recent years, including establishing a program that certifies businesses that welcome Chinese visitors.

Ferguson says that even if the coronavirus is contained or naturally dies off ahead of the busy tourism season, the overall impact on D.C. tourism could be felt for a while.

“Even though we may see the virus non-existent in the summer, it may take us six to 12 months beyond that to rebound,” he says.

This story was first published by WAMU.