UK targets China's big spenders

A delegation of about dozens of retailers and leisure companies, ranging from Arsenal Football Club to Harrods and Selfridges department stores, will travel to Shanghai in November on Britain's tourism mission, to beckon more Chinese tourists to British shores.

Organized by VisitBritain, the trip will last three days, and is mainly structured around one-to-one meetings with individual tour operators and networking sessions. "We will be meeting many top Chinese tour operators and hopefully convince them to include Westfield as a stop in their tour packages," said Myf Ryan, UK marketing manager of the shopping center Westfield.

Although Westfield has already geared a considerable number of its marketing ideas toward Chinese residents and students in the UK, such as discount passes for VIP card holders and goodie bags for new students, Ryan said it is important to reach out to China's domestic market.

Selfridges also underlines the importance of conducting one-to-one meetings with tour operators in China.

"Consumers (in China) still rely heavily on agents and tour operators to book every part of their trip, from flights and accommodation to leisure activities," said a Selfridges spokesperson, adding that face-to-face meetings work best with Chinese tour operators.

"The face-to-face culture is very important in China, so conducting meetings in person is highly valued. Also, the effort to make the journey to China is appreciated and shows how serious a company is about doing business there," the spokes person added.

Like Westfield and Harrods, Selfridges also started to recruit more Chinese shop assistants and install China UnionPay terminals in recent years.

Despite these efforts, the road ahead is still bumpy.

Some industry insiders believe Carrick's views are too optimistic. "The changes being asked for are particularly significant ones," said Andrew Osborne, a partner at the UK law firm Lewis Silkin.

"The UK government wants to be assured that people coming here on tourist visas will eventually leave, but once they are in the UK it is difficult to monitor them. So it is easier to check people before they come to the UK," Osborne said.

The proposal would bring the UK's tourism visa policy closer to that of Schengen countries, which is a situation the British government has been trying to avoid. "The British government wants to maintain control of its own policies. They don't want to rely on other countries to control their borders," Osborne explained.

Experts noted that even if the plan is agreed, the new streamlined application process is likely to take months to introduce. In the meantime, tourism bodies say they want to see other improvements, such as forms that can be filled out in Chinese and speedier handling of applications.

Contact the writers at zhangchunyan@chinadaily.com.cn and cecily.liu@chinadaily.com.cn