British landmarks get Chinese names

The UK's national tourism agency VisitBritain has revealed on Monday new Mandarin names for fifteen London attractions and locations, as chosen by the Chinese public, in an effort to welcome Chinese visitors ahead of Chinese New Year celebrations.

The Shard, is named 'Lun Dun Zhui', meaning London cone, King's Cross St Pancras is known as 'Mo Fa Huo Che Zhan', meaning Magic station, in reference to Harry Potter, while Savile Row, the famous men's fashion tailoring street, is named 'Gao Fu Shuai Zhi Lu', meaning tall, rich, handsome Street, in refers to a phrase in China to describe the perfect man.

The 1.6 million pound 'GREAT Names for GREAT Britain' campaign was done over ten weeks of voting across China. It is VisitBritain's biggest ever marketing campaign in China, reaching nearly 300 million potential Chinese tourists via the national tourism agency's influential Weibo and WeChat platforms in China.

Over two million people visited the campaign pages and nearly 30 million Chinese watched thelaunch video, with 13,000 new names suggested throughout the ten weeks.

Savile Row had the second highest number of votes in the whole campaign - 30,039 - while The Shard received the biggest number of suggested names, a total of 406.

"We want Britain to be the most attractive and welcoming destination for Chinese travellers in Europe," said Joss Croft, Marketing Director at VisitBritain.

"We want Britain to be the most attractive and welcoming destination for Chinese travellers in Europe. The naming campaign has given these London locations and landmarks huge exposure across China and created a new affinity with potential tourists," said Croft.

The most recent inbound tourism figures show that in the first nine months of 2014, Britain welcomed 156,000 visits from China which contributed 411 million pounds to the UK's economy. Chinese tourists currently spend an average of 2,508 pounds per visit compared to the overall average spend of 640 pounds per visit.

"We hope the points of interest involved will embrace their new Mandarin name and attract more high-spending tourists from this rapidly growing market," said Croft.

Sally Balcombe, Chief Executive at VisitBritain said that Chinese visitors already stay longer in Britain than in other European destinations and are high spenders, which is great because statistically 22 additional Chinese visitors we attract supports an additional job in tourism.

"Digital engagement is one of our strengths and this campaign has been hugely effective at driving this with our potential Chinese visitors. We're working closely with the industry and hope to see some of Britain's most popular points of interest use these new Chinese names on their social media channels and websites to amplify that engagement," Balcombe said.