The United Kingdom today opened its new flagship visa application centre in Beijing, to provide a better and more comfortable service for the ever increasing number of Chinese visitors travelling to the UK. It aims to provide the same experience visitors to the UK will have.

British Ambassador Sebastian Wood

In the first nine months of this year, demand for UK visit visas in China has grown by nearly 50 percent compared to 2009. With more Chinese opting to travel abroad, the UK is keen to continue to grow as the tourism destination of choice.

Prime Minister David Cameron said “I want to see the UK in the top five tourist destinations in the world. Currently we only have 0.5 percent of the market share of Chinese tourists. If we could increase that to just 2.5 percent this could add over half a billion pounds of spending to our economy”

The centre opens just weeks after a major campaign was launched by Visit Britain to entice more tourists to the UK. By September this year over 130,000 visit visas had been issued in China.

British Ambassador Sebastian Wood said “The UK has so much to offer, from great heritage to modern art, from national parks and historic gardens to some of the world’s most popular museums. “

"The UK is a leader in cutting edge technology, in the field of sport and entertainment we are world renowned. I believe we have something to offer everyone. With the Olympics in 2012 and a royal wedding in 2011, we hope to welcome more and more Chinese visitors.”

Between January and September this year, nearly 42,000 student visas were issued to Chinese nationals, a rise of 20 percent on 2009. Around 85 percent of those visas were issued to students going to university, underscoring the very high calibre of Chinese students.

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英国在京设立新签证中心 日接待量翻番