Efforts by New York's Museum of Modern Art to accommodate Chinese travelers have paid off with a 45 percent increase in Chinese visitors for fiscal year 2015.

MoMA's fiscal calendar begins in July and ends in June. For 2014, it had just under 7,000 Chinese visitors, and that increased to just under 10,000 in 2015. For FY 2016, the museum is already on track to surpass that number, according to Kim Mitchell, the museum's spokeswoman.

"It's something we've been working hard on all year. We're seeing some nice results," she said. "In November, the number of Chinese visitors doubled compared to the same time last year."

"We're really pleased with the results. We've got more to go because overall - in the big scheme of things - MoMA welcomes 3 million visitors to the museum each year, and these are small numbers of part of that whole, but they're numbers that have a great growth potential and opportunity," Mitchell said.

The museum has been making itself as "China ready" as possible, which has included adding two Mandarin-speaking educators to give tours to visitors, and interacting more with Chinese media to make the museum more well-known within the Chinese community in New York and abroad. Earlier this year, the museum gave a tour to the mayor of Beijing when he was in New York.

The museum recently launched a WeChat account to better communicate with Chinese while they are in New York and back in China before they visit the museum, Mitchell said. The museum also offers Mandarin audio guides and printed materials online and in the museum with both traditional and simplified Chinese for visitors. It accepts the UnionPay credit card and is working with Visa China on a special yearlong promotion for cardholders that will provide discounts toward a membership or merchandise.

"I think we are seeing a lot more visibility in China, particularly in the arts magazines and we've also been doing some things in China," Mitchell said. "There's a lot more awareness among the mainstream media and also among the art world media in China."

A MoMA installation called the Rain Room was on display at the Yuz Museum in Shanghai beginning in August, and was covered extensively by arts publications.

The museum does not have any exhibitions planned with Chinese museums, but there is "constant conversation with the leadership and travel to China" and "all channels of communication are quite open and robust," Mitchell said.

amyhe@chinadailyusa.com