LONDON Jan.28 —— According to the latest figures from VisitBritain, visits from China to UK were up 37% in the first nine months of 2015, smashing previous records. Chinese visitors are already some of the UK’s highest spenders, spending on average £2,688 a head.

There were 214,000 visits from China from January to September, beating the number of visits for all of 2014, with figures for the last quarter of 2015 still to come. Spend was up 4% over the same period, to £435 million.

As Chinese New Year approaches on 8 February, Britain could expect another boost from China. Britain is gearing up to host some of the largest celebrations outside Asia from lantern parades in Manchester and London’s Chinatown to festivals and events in Glasgow, Birmingham, Newcastle and Bristol, among others.

The new visitor visa pilot scheme for Chinese nationals introduced earlier this month by the UK Government looks set to further position Britain as the destination of choice for this rapidly-growing market.

VisitBritain Director Patricia Yates said: “China is the world’s largest outbound market and a huge tourism opportunity for Britain. Chinese New Year is traditionally one of the busiest travel times for Chinese travellers and we want Britain to be at the top of their list as a must-go now destination.”

Latest figures also show that last summer set a record for the number of nights that visitors spent in the UK with 97m nights, up 6% on July to September 2014 and the highest since 2006 for any quarter three. This equates to an average length of stay per visitor of 9.2 nights in the UK, compared to 9.1 in 2014.