BAA supports London business lobby's plans to lure Chinese

BAA announced (02-Mar-2011) it support calls by London First, a business lobby group, to streamline the visa process to encourage more Chinese visitors to travel to the UK. London First, in its White Paper on growth, stated 54 million Chinese went abroad in 2009, spending USD42 billion, but in 2009 only 110,000 of those visitors went to the UK. London First stated China will be the world's largest outbound tourist market by 2020, with more than 100 million tourists. [more]

London Heathrow: 

"We need to prove Britain is really open for business by getting rid of needless red tape and ensuring we don't isolate ourselves from the emerging world. Right now, it's far cheaper for Chinese tourists to travel to competing hub airports like Paris or Amsterdam. China's massive expansion in aviation is a huge opportunity for the UK and small changes could have a significant impact on UK jobs by bringing in more tourists from China and elsewhere." Nigel Milton, policy director. Source: BAA, 02-Mar-2011.

London Heathrow: "The current system is broken and doesn't encourage collaboration, which is why you get fall outs between airports and airlines. For example, when baggage is delayed passengers don't care if it's the airline, airport or ground handler's fault - they just want better service. To make this happen, we need all parties to work together more with increased transparency allowing customers to see how well each performs. If this approach fails to improve outcomes for passengers, then there may be a role for the regulator in making parties work together more effectively." Nigel Milton, policy director. Source: BAA, 02-Mar-2011.