Weird, isn't it, that headline? Flat. And oddly ungrammatical? And yet, apparently they are most certainly welcome as Maria Miller launches the as-titled campaign to attract 650,000 visits per year from Chinese tourists by 2020, adding a whopping £1.1bn to the economy and at least 4 more Chinese takeaways to each village, town and city in the country. We are under instructions to help/make them appreciate our culture, heritage, food (!), sport (!!) and countryside, amongst other things that make Britain GREAT (as Ms Miller herself puts it).
Headed by VisitBritain, the campaign is signing up businesses to the torturously-named 'CHINA WELCOME', a process that will include encouraging businesses to train staff in Mandarin, translate websites and literature and raise cultural awareness generally. So far, they've got some heavy hitters: Virgin Atlantic (to ship them in and out again); Hilton Worldwide (to doss in); John Lewis partnership (for EXCELLENT guarantees on their own self-made products); Harrods (for essentials); The Lawn Tennis Association Wimbledon (*mystified face when pondering the 50 weeks of the year it's not in use*); and the Roman baths in Bath (history AND cleanliness). You will note these are all quite successful, high-earning businesses, all fairly happy with the spendy-spendy on fully bilingual staff and multi-lingual PR, rather than, say, Saffron Walden museum, or Betty's Caff.
To be fair, there's gold in them thar fake Chinese Louis Vuitton bags: spending from the Chinese soared in 2013 by 132%, much helped by the relaxing of visa rules, so you can see the point in making some kind of effort, but given we can barely muster a grunt from native speaking visitor information officials and public service across the board in many cases, we can't quite see them chatting up the Chinese.
And - *quiet panic* - what do we do about all our Chinese takeaways? Do we hide them? Cover up the store fronts and pretend they're Romanian (noting, btw, it's not "ROMANIA/BULGARIA WELCOME"... just sayin'...)? Or do they have to learn Mandarin too and translate their menus (which they would have to anyway, given no actual Chinese person would eat or comprehend battered sweet 'n' sour pork balls) or even take a crash course in ACTUAL CHINESE FOOD? Or do we steer them gently away, muttering soothingly about English tastes and direct them to the nearest pub ("So authentic... craft ales tasting like a badger's arse... spit on the floor... dead dogs (and owners)... salt 'n' vinegar crisps, just like sweet 'n' sour...").
It would be nice to think we would make such strident efforts to welcome visitors from the other side of the world, clearly just as long as they're here to spend money, not earn it or benefit in any way from our economy (ooh touchy...) and that the odd person here or there might spend 5 minutes learning Mandarin for "hello" or "toilets this way" or "we use forks here. FORKS!", but is it really feasible that cash-strapped struggling businesses in tourist destinations around the country (because obviously we're presuming they're not very interested in Milton Keynes, for example) would speculate to accumulate on the off-chance of a Chinese visitor when they pretty much stay in London anyway and might possibly be forced only where there are Hilton hotels?
Hmmm, maybe, maybe not. So how's your Mandarin coming along?
