This morning saw David Cameron live streamed from the Serpentine Gallery in London talking about the government’s plans for a new UK tourism strategy (you can read a transcript here). A number of times he mentioned the significance of the Chinese tourism market and the impact it could have on UK tourism, saying:

“Currently we only have 0.5 per cent of the market share of Chinese tourists. If we could increase that to just 2.5 per cent this could add over half a billion pounds of spending to our economy and some sources suggest this could mean as many as 10,000 new jobs. Currently we have 3.5 per cent of the world market for international tourism.”

Cameron also acknowledged that getting a tourism visa from China is far from simple and straightforward and talked about streamlining the process with a view to helping achieve the aim of increasing Chinese visitors to the UK.

Chinese tourists come to the UK for a variety of reasons from their interest in UK heritage to the shopping opportunities, presenting many types of UK business with the chance to benefit from some of that extra half a billion pounds.

Tourism businesses which are serious about attracting the Chinese visitor can make themselves more attractive by communicating in Chinese, whether by translating their marketing material or including Chinese in the audio resources at tourist venues and SanTranslate can help with translation and interpretation, as well as provide vocal artists for voice overs. The more authentic these are, the better your Chinese visitor’s experience will be and the more they will recommend your services to others.

A web presence in Chinese will be a great help too. It’s worth bearing in mind that Chinese web users have different search habits to UK users so it’s best not to make assumptions about what will work. At SanTranslate we understand Chinese search habits and trends so talk to us to make sure that your Chinese language web presence is fully fine-tuned to attract the Chinese tourist market to your business.