On the eve of the state visit of China’s President Xi Jinping latest figures show a record number of visitors from China are coming to Britain.
VisitBritain reports that the number of visits from China from April-June this year was up 35% (to 50,000) on the same period in 2014; and comparing the first six months of 2015 to the same period last year the number of visits was up 28% (to 90,000), a record first six months of the year.
Figures also show that seat availability on flights from China up 16%* for October 2015, compared to the same month last year. Overall, international visits to Britain from China have more than doubled over the last five years from 89,000 in 2009 to 185,000 in 2014, with the country becoming one of the UK’s fastest-growing tourism markets.
The number of holiday visits were up by an even faster 48% compared to the first half of 2014 to 40,000 while spending by holiday visitors rose by a similar 43 per cent.
VisitBritain Chief Executive Sally Balcombe said: “China is the world’s largest outbound market and a huge tourism opportunity for Britain. Chinese visitors have very positive perceptions of Britain, they already stay longer here than in our European competitor destinations and are high spenders .We aim to double the current annual expenditure in the UK by Chinese visitors to £1 billion a year within the next five years.
“We are working hard to make sure that Britain is the destination of choice for the rapidly-growing Chinese market, further increasing their desire to travel here through high-profile campaigns in China, as part of our GREAT campaign.
“The state visit of the President of China Xi Jinping this week, and the accompanying international media exposure and visibility, is a fantastic opportunity for us to inspire more international visitors from China to come and explore all the nations and regions of Britain.”
Chinese visitors are also some of Britain’s highest spending, spending an average of £2,688 each, and four times more than the average. The total spend of Chinese visitors to Britain in 2014 was £497.47 million. Over the last five years spend has increased by 326% (comparing 2009 at £117 million to 2014 at £497.47 million).
They also stay longer with an average holiday length of 10 nights compared to six across all inbound visits. British fashion brands are particularly popular with the Chinese, and visiting a luxury store is also reflected in high-spend across the Chinese market, with almost 40% of Chinese visitors heading for shopping at luxury stores.
Inspiring more Chinese visitors to come to Britain and experience what makes it a GREAT destination was top of the agenda as VisitBritain’s Chief Executive Officer Sally Balcombe welcomed Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne at a reception in Chengdu, China in late September alongside a number of Chinese media, travel and trade representatives.
The Chancellor launched the next phase of VisitBritain’s Culture is GREAT campaign to promote memorable moments visitors can only get in Britain. The £1.3 million social media campaign, which gets underway on 26 October, will invite Chinese visitors to create, share and upload images of their own experiences. Known in China as ‘Enjoy the GREAT fun times in Britain,’ these images will be shared globally by VisitBritain to inspire fellow travellers to come and experience all that is GREAT about Britain. The campaign aims to reach more than 100 million people.
The campaign builds on VisitBritain’s GREAT China Naming campaign earlier this year, where Chinese people were invited to suggest new names for British landmarks. Some of the classics included Savile Row named “The Street for the Tall, Rich and Handsome,” Sherwood Forest named the “The Forest of Chivalrous Thieves,” the Highland Games was “Strong-man skirt parties” and Llanfairpwll in Wales “Healthy-lung Village.” More than 300 million people saw this campaign across VisitBritain’s global social media channels and it won Lion d’or awards at Cannes, amongst others.
VisitBritain is also working hard to promote travel to all the nations and regions of Britain. Chinese visitors already have a relatively high propensity to explore beyond the capital with 50% of holiday visitor nights spent outside London.
VisitBritain is engaging with the travel trade to ensure that these numbers continue to grow, with a visa refund scheme that refunds the cost of the visa to Chinese visitors who spend at least eight days in the UK, four of which have to be out of London, and a China Welcome programme, now signed by more than 300 British businesses, to build Britain as the most welcoming destination in Europe for the Chinese.
The UK and Chinese Governments also recently signed a new Memorandum of Understanding to hold annual talks on tourism with the China National Tourism Administration. The aim is to increase strategic co-operation on tourism through improving travel connections between the two countries and promote relationships between the UK and Chinese travel trade.
Overall inbound tourism, Britain’s third largest service export and one of its fastest growing, was worth more than £26 billion to the UK economy in 2013. The industry is also a major job creator, for example every 22 additional Chinese visitors that come to Britain create an additional job in the sector.
*Source: capstats.com
