Money trumps politics. That rule is being proved again as more Chinese venture abroad—and countries seek to capture that tourist spending by making the visa process easier.
So for China's richest man, Wang Jianlin, the formalities ahead of a trip to the U.K. earlier this year didn't include lining up at the U.K. Embassy in Beijing. Instead, the U.K. visa service went to him with the equipment to take his application, fingerprints and photograph.
The visa service's efforts paid off: Mr. Wang, the chairman of China's largest commercial property developer, Dalian Wanda Group, went on a shopping spree. He bought British yacht builder Sunseeker for £300 million ($478 million), and plowed another £700 million into a London site to build Western Europe's tallest residential tower.
That's more than most Chinese spend on a trip. But in the aggregate, Chinese tourists have now passed Germans and Americans to become the biggest spenders abroad. About half of the 83 million Chinese who traveled outside the mainland in 2012 spent more than $5,000 per trip, according to British payment processor WorldPay.
Chinese tourists are world-class shoppers, WorldPay said, accounting for a quarter of sales of luxury goods around the world.
To woo the Chinese big spenders, governments all over are changing their policies. The VIP visa service that Mr. Wang got isn't available to everyone, but select Chinese tour groups will be allowed to apply for a U.K. visa using the same form they use to apply for a Schengen visa, which allows travel to 25 other European countries.
This should shorten the wait time for those tour groups and give the U.K. a shot at some of those tourist yuan. In 2012, the U.K. attracted only 180,000 Chinese visitors—compared with 1.2 million who went to France, which uses the Schengen visa.
The U.S. is also streamlining the process for Chinese visitors. Until this year, Chinese seeking just to make a visa appointment needed to call a dedicated line that required first purchasing a special phone card, which inevitably seemed to run out of cash while the caller was on hold. Now Chinese can make appointments online. The U.S. also dramatically increased its visa-processing capacity for Chinese travelers. In 2012, it processed 1.4 million non-immigrant visa applications in China, 80% more than just two years earlier.
Ease of getting a visa counts for holders of Chinese passports because they face more limits than travelers from 85% of the 200 countries tracked by consulting firm Henley & Partners. They need to apply for visas in advance to most developed countries and Asian neighbors, and even the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau.
Uncertainty over visas is a constant complication for Chinese business travelers, leaving them with little control over their own schedules and forcing last-minute travel decisions depending on whether visas come through.
And though many wealthy Chinese also have foreign passports, that doesn't always make travel simpler. Chinese like to make trips in groups, with extended families and business associates, meaning the destination must often be determined by where the group members with only Chinese passports can obtain visas.
Some destinations with less-stringent visa restrictions have enjoyed windfalls from the growth in Chinese traveling overseas. South Korea's Jeju Island has allowed Chinese travelers without visas since 2008, and last year they accounted for two-thirds of the 1.68 million foreign visitors. China has also grown to be the biggest source of tourists for the Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean. Mauritius, another Indian Ocean island nation, received 20,000 Chinese visitors in 2012, 77% more than in 2011.
This freedom can be abused, though, partly explaining why some countries have been reluctant to open up to the Chinese quickly. Saipan, a U.S. territory in the Western Pacific Ocean, doesn't require visas for Chinese, but it is now seeking to limit the entry of pregnant Chinese women after some tried to take advantage of the ease of entry to gain U.S. citizenship for their newborns.
China itself is starting to show signs of loosening up its visa regime, after making it harder for some foreigners to get visas in recent years. Thailand eased restrictions for the Chinese about five years ago, and now China is proposing a bilateral visa exemption. Also, starting this year, foreigners from 45 approved countries passing through China are allowed to stay in Beijing without a visa for 72 hours.
Chinese authorities expect the number of travelers going overseas to hit 100 million next year. But that will still leave 93% of the population at home—potential travelers. The travel industry, hoping that the number of Chinese travelers keeps climbing, is preparing to serve the next wave.
"All the loosening up of visa restrictions is positive for our business," said Jane Sun, chief operating officer at Chinese travel agency Ctrip.com International Ltd., which recently raised $800 million from a bond sale. "The business prospects for China's industry look great now, so we want to get prepared for new investments."
Source: Wall Street Journal by Wei Gu
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