Britain delivers visas pledge to woo Chinese tour groups

The spending power of Chinese visitors has risen sharply in recent years. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization report in April, Chinese travelers spent a record $102 billion on international tourism in 2012, a 40 percent rise from 2011.

"In 2005, China ranked seventh in international tourism expenditure, and has since successively overtaken Italy, Japan, France and the UK," the report stated.

Li Mengran, public relations specialist at Beijing UTour International Travel Service, said simplified visa procedures will increase the number of Chinese travelers to the UK.

Harper said his team is fully aware of the economic argument for attracting Chinese visitors to Britain, but stressed it is important to maintain the country's immigration controls.

In December, the UK introduced measures to make the visa application process easier for Chinese visitors.

One change is the introduction of a service for applicants who want to retain their passports while their British visa applications are still being processed, to enable them to apply for Schengen visas simultaneously. Another is the introduction of a mobile biometric service for business travelers.

Li said these measures have contributed to strong growth in Chinese visitors to the UK, based on the number of applications for group tourists through UTour.

But she added, "First-time Chinese visitors often consider it easier to travel to multiple destinations on the continent rather than to the UK as a single destination."

Harper said he hopes the changes made will provide incentives for operators to include Britain in their package tours. He said his team is explaining the changes to tour operators, to ensure they are fully understood.

"Britain has so much to offer in terms of our tourism opportunities, our history, our modernity, our creative industries and our shopping, and we have to make sure people want to come here," Harper said.

About 150,000 Chinese tourists visit the UK every year, but Britain wants to raise the number to 500,000 by 2015, former culture secretary Jeremy Hunt said in 2012.

According to the China Outbound Tourism Development 2013 report, released by the China Tourism Academy, the number of outbound visits exceeded 83.18 million in 2012, and is expected to reach 94.3 million this year, a year-on-year increase of 15 percent.

Overseas spending by Chinese tourists is forecast to hit a record $117.6 billion this year. In 2012, the UK Home Office received 296,795 visa applications from Chinese nationals worldwide.

Wang Wen contributed to this story.