The Roman Baths are helping make Britain the most welcoming destination in Europe for Chinese visitors.

The tourist attraction has joined forces with the Celtic Manor in Wales, John Lewis and Harrods along with several other big names as part of VisitBritain’s China Welcome campaign.

As part of Prime Minister David Cameron’s three-day visit to China, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Maria Miller, announced the initiative to make Britain the most welcoming destination for Chinese visitors.

 

 

According to VisitBritain spend by Chinese tourists was up 132 per cent to £181 million.

The China Welcome programme aims to secure 650,000 Chinese visits a year by 2020, worth nearly £1.1 billion annually to the UK economy.

Cabinet member for sustainable development, Councillor Ben Stevens (Lib-Dem, Widcombe), said the Roman Baths became the first visitor attraction to include Mandarin in its foreign language audio guides seven years ago.

“Since then, the Roman Baths has gone from strength to strength; with the number of Mandarin-speaking visitors increasing five-fold – from around 12,000 in 2005 to over 61,000 in the first 10 months of this year. This huge rise now accounts for almost a quarter of all the foreign language-speakers who visit the Roman Baths and they now outnumber visitors from France – our nearest neighbour.

“Last year Bath and North East Somerset Council rolled out the successful Mandarin audio guides to one of its other heritage attractions – the Fashion Museum – as a way of enticing Chinese visitors to enjoy their stay in Bath even longer. Mandarin immediately became one of the most frequently requested languages at the Fashion Museum as well. We believe that offering more incentives like this, to encourage more overseas visitors to come and stay in the area for longer, can only be good for the local economy.”

Related News in Chinese: 罗马浴场将成中国游客进英游览一大推力