George Osborne has urged the Home Office to make UK visas more accessible to high-spending Chinese tourists who are increasingly shunning London and visiting European capitals such as Paris and Berlin.
Theresa May, home secretary, has been under pressure to streamline the system since the summer, when Jeremy Hunt, the former culture secretary, announced an ambitious plan to treble the number of Chinese tourists coming to the UK by 2015. At the moment just over 80 per cent of Chinese visiting Europe get a Schengen visa, enabling travel across continental Europe, 11 per cent get a UK visa and only 7 per cent get both.
While the Home Office has resisted calls to relax visa rules, the Treasury fears that an uncompetitive Chinese tourist market could impact growth. Chinese visitors are particularly sought after since they spend on average £1,618 on a trip to Britain, which is three times more than the average spend by other international tourists.