Theresa May simplifies visa rules for Chinese tourists Chinese shoppers are currently the world's most valuable tourist market, spending $102bn while travelling internationally in 2012. At present Britain attracts 7pc of the total number of Chinese visitors to the EU. France receives 25pc more Chinese tourists each year than the UK. The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, said earlier this month that Chinese tourists and businesses were so annoyed by the "hassle and humiliation" of trying to visit Britain that they were "taking their money to Germany and France instead." A recent report by shopping consultancy Global Blue found that nearly €200m (£168m) of potential retail purchases in London's West End were lost last year due to the UK's complicated visa policies for Chinese tourists. However, recent figures from the Home office claim that Britain is starting to regain the trust of Chinese visitors with the number of visa applications rising 40pc between April and June this year. One of the main issues for Chinese visitors looking to visit Britain is that the country is not covered by the European Union's "Schengen" visa. However, Ms May, whose joint visa announcement has been released ahead of Prime Minister David Cameron's planned trip to Beijing, insisted, "We are not going to join Schengen." "We're looking at the process of application for our visas and for the Schengen country visas in China to see if there's more that we can do to streamline those processes for people," she told the Financial Times.