Direct flight from Beijing to Shakespeare’s airport this summer.

Birmingham, the second biggest city of Great Britain has decided to rename his airport “Shakespeare’s airport” in order to attract Chinese tourists in middle England. A new route between Beijing and Birmingham will be set up this summer and allows the chinese tourists to go to Straton-Upon, the Shakespeare’s birthplace very close to the airport.

The airport has created a partnership with Hainan Airlines and the chinese tourism agencyCaissaTouristic. This new partnership will be establish this summer and 17 flight will carry 4000 chinese tourists who will be able to spend their holidays in Shakespeare’s footstep.
The airport has invested £40 million to create a new extension which will open next month.
The airport intended to use his new name as an ad slogan in China, in order to develop the tourism in the Midlands.

Birmingham Airport supervisors said the agreement with Hainan Airlines could inject 30 millions dollars in Birmingham and West Midlands’s economy. According to the leader of Birmingham city council, the Chinese in the Midlands spend 8 times more than the average overseas visitors estimated at £57 million each year.

Then, we better understand why the England secretary of State for culture said that « China is a vital trade and tourism partner and that the new route will provide great investment and job opportunities for businesses in Birmingham and the Midlands. »

In the coming years, they planned to set up flight from Shanghai and Guangzou.

The first flight will leave Beijing on the 3rd of July. Then, a Boeing 767-300 aircraft will take off every Mondays and Fridays and carry 32 passengers in Business class and 191 in economy class.

What consequences?

One of the main factor that will influence Chinese tourists, one way or another is how easily they can go between two cities. They like to optimiz their time in order to make the most of their very short holidays.

Birmingham has here a golden opportunity to attracting more Chinese tourists as long as the Great Britain stays coherent with that kind of measure regarding visas regulations and possible length of stay.

Showing another England, outside of London and the City may definitely allow the UK to develop its tourism industry.

How to benefit from it?

Setting up tours and packaging promoting those new destination with this direct flight as one of the made arguments would be a first step. However, what matters most is the communication solution :

You must go all digital for Chinese tourists are digitally oriented.

• More than 80% will check information out online and around 60% will book online.
• With 100 million Chinese tourists, go digital, learn more about it there 
• If you’re not sure whether Chinese tourists truly want to go to UK read our previous article about the topic
• Check 5 travel trends on Chinese outbound tourism here