Tourism body VisitBritain welcomed the first-ever leisure tour group from China this week in a bid to boost tourism from the world's fastest-growing economy.

The trip follows Britain's award in January of Approved Destination Status by the Chinese government, which had previously allowed only business and study trips to the UK.

Now groups of five or more people can secure travel to the UK through selected agencies.

"With an increasingly prosperous population of 1.3 billion people, China will undoubtedly be a huge growth market for UK tourism in years to come," said Tom Wright, chief executive at VisitBritain.

Visitor numbers from China were up by 41% last year and contributed £131m to the £74b tourism pot.

Fact file

• China's economy has trebled in size since 1991 and is growing by 9% a year.
• In 2003, 20.2 million Chinese people travelled abroad.
• China is forecast to generate 100 million international travellers a year by 2020.