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UK urged to relax Chinese visa requirements

In today’s blog post we will examine the rise in Chinese tourists and business people visiting the United Kingdom and their economic impact on the country. Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, is currently on a state visit, the first to the U.K from a Chinese president since 2005, and the U.K and the British state is sparing no expense in rolling out the carpet to greet the Sino leader.  It is expected that trade deals worth over £30 billion will be signed over the next four days signaling a new dawn in Anglo-Sino business ties. It is hoped that within 10 years China will become the U.K’s second largest trading partner and one of the key objects of the visit is to further establish economic ties between the two countries.

According to the latest data, efforts to attract Chinese tourists have shown a year on year increase of around 33 percent as the U.K are keen to share the results of a booming Chinese economy. Chinese tourists are being targeted by campaigns by Visit Britain as, on average, they spend nearly four times more than the average visitor with £2,688 and spend around 10 nights compared to the average 6.

This October the government will launch a campaign to encourage Chinese tourists to share the photos of their time in the United Kingdom online. It is hoped that these photos will be seen by more than 100 million people if the campaign is successful. In the last five years other campaigns have seen the average spend by the Chinese increase by 326 per cent to £497.5 million.

Despite these record number the U.K is not one of the top 10 destinations that the Chinese visit. Current trends indicate that the majority of Chinese tourists visit other Asian countries. Within the 10 top destinations Germany, France, the U.S.A and Australia are the only non-Asian countries in the top 10 most visited destinations.

It is not only direct tourism that is seeing the benefits of the Chinese. The last quarter saw Chinese students reign supreme as the top nationality for Tier 4 student visas with 321,111 granted, nearly four times that of the United States in second place. In other visa categories, Chinese investors are firmly within the top 10 nationalities granted for both Tier 1 Investor and Tier 1 Entrepreneur business visas. Again, within the Tier 2 General working visa category the Chinese are also within the top 10 nationalities.

Calls from various tourist institutions to relax requirements for Chinese visitors,such as easier online applications, aim to attract more Chinese tourists. It is is hoped that the U.K can take advantage of the flow of Chinese Yuan which can boost the hospitality and retail industries. Other ideas including making it easier for Chinese students to stay in the U.K once they have studied and to encourage them to set up business.

For more information contact info@westkin.co.uk or call 0207 118 7868 today. 

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