Approaching travel as a two-way street
With an accommodating two-sessions blue, it's the perfect weather to talk about tourism. But first we detour to Wales where a village has a name that takes some beating. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. It means St Mary's Church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool of Llantysilio of the red cave. In Mandarin it is described as Healthy Lung village. Concise. And therein lies the tale. The Chinese have a way with words but it's not just the words, it's what they encapsulate. The US, in Chinese, means beautiful country. Conjuring up images of snow-capped mountains, lush valleys and rugged coastlines, it is simply put and simply brilliant.
The language will soon add a new meaning to many place names as the global tourism industry realizes the link between speak and spend and retailers the world over yearn for the yuan. With 190 billionaires and more than 2 million millionaires, China lags just behind the US in number of high-net-worth individuals, according to research from Forbes magazine and Boston Consulting Group.
The tourism agency, VisitBritain, has come up with one of those ideas that makes you ask why no one thought of it before but you can be sure more will follow.
