Spending by Chinese visitors in the U.K. jumped in July, as the country’s shops and restaurants benefited from simplified rules on tourists applying for visas.

Chinese visiting the U.K. spent 50 million pounds ($78 million) on their credit cards in July, up 45 percent from a year earlier, Visa Europe said in a press release Monday. About 185,000 Chinese tourists came to Britain in 2014, and visitors from the country are now the second-highest spending tourists.

The surge in spending comes after efforts by the U.K. government to make it easier for the Chinese to visit. On July 1, Britain introduced a pilot program allowing Chinese citizens to obtain a tourist visa for the U.K. and the 26 European countries in the Schengen area simultaneously.

David Fuller's view

I find this interesting because we usually hear about China’s politics, military expansion, hacking, accidents and more recently, stock market mismanagement.  

There is also wealth creation because one sees plenty of tourists from mainland China in London’s West End and other fashionable regions, and most of them speak English.  This was far rarer only a decade ago.