Related News
Britain to ease China visa restrictions to attract more Chinese tourists
Online Edition
Britain says it will make it easier for China's citizens to obtain visas, as it seeks a bigger slice of the multi-billion-dollar Chinese traveler cake.
Finance minister George Osborne, who is in China leading a British trade delegation, promised the new measures would help the tens of thousands of Chinese visitors hoping to visit Britain.
"Have announced new measures to simplify + speed up visa applications for visitors from #China," the chancellor of the exchequer wrote on his official Twitter account.
"Good for tourism and British business," Osborne said.
Under the proposals, Chinese tourists visiting the European Union using selected travel agencies will no longer have to file a separate application to visit Britain, which is not part of the EU's "Schengen Area" for border-free travel.
Business people will also be able to apply for a "super-priority" visa, which will be processed within 24 hours rather than a week.
Osborne also said the government was looking at a nationwide rollout of its "mobile visa service", which is currently being piloted in Beijing and Shanghai.
The service -- aimed at business executives -- enables visa teams to go to applicants' workplaces to collect their forms and biometric data.
Some 210,000 visas were issued to Chinese nationals in 2012, adding around £300 million ($480 million, 250 million euros) to the British economy.
But analysts say Britain has missed out on benefiting from Chinese tourists' spending power, partly because of its visa rules.
According to the UN's World Tourism Organization, China has become the world's most valuable source of tourists, with expenditure on travel abroad reaching $102 billion in 2012.
But France attracted 1.4 million tourist trips from China last year, around six times as many as Britain, Franziska Brandenburger of research firm Euromonitor International wrote in a recent note.
Among western European countries, Britain was also behind Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Spain, the company said, leaving it in sixth place.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 娌狪CP璇侊細娌狪CP澶05050403鍙-1
- |
- 浜掕仈缃戞柊闂讳俊鎭湇鍔¤鍙瘉锛31120180004
- |
- 缃戠粶瑙嗗惉璁稿彲璇侊細0909346
- |
- 骞挎挱鐢佃鑺傜洰鍒朵綔璁稿彲璇侊細娌瓧绗354鍙
- |
- 澧炲肩數淇′笟鍔＄粡钀ヨ鍙瘉锛氭勃B2-20120012
Copyright 漏 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
