Rishi Sunak’s delicate dance on China as tourist chiefs push to welcome Chinese visitors back to UK ✈️ West End and luxury retailers are calling for more flights to help reinvigorate tourism 🔴 janemerrick23 and HugoGye
, the Prime Minister said his premiership would make an “evolutionary leap” away from the “grand rhetoric” of criticising Beijing to a “robust pragmatism”.
In 2019, before the pandemic hit, Chinese tourists spent £1.71bn in the UK, a significant increase of 13.92 per cent on the year before. If travel gets back to pre-pandemic levels, that number is expected to rise even further. Retailers agree that it is going to take time for travel to return to where it was in 2019. But there are also concerns that not enough is being done to encourage Chinese tourists – beyond the new testing rules for travellers.
They are also calling for a return of tax-free shopping, which was paused by Mr Sunak as chancellor in 2021, temporarily reintroduced by Kwasi Kwarteng in his mini-Budget in September, before being axed altogether by Mr Hunt in October. Exhibitions such as the V&A’s Chanel will be a “massive draw” for those tourists into the UK, she added.
“However, how long it will take to get to pre-pandemic volumes of Chinese shoppers is going to be greatly influenced by the availability of flights.
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