Kidlington, England is not a particularly notable place.
It’s got 13,723 people, seven pubs, and one Domino’s Pizza that, according to reviewer
Keepsimiling2014, has “shocking service and cold food.”
It’s a place so un-notable that about 40% of the Creative Commons pictures I could find
of it are all from the same local 5K.
But in 2016, Kidlington became a tourism hotspot.
Groups of Chinese tourists began descending on the village, taking pictures of all the
exciting sights: sights like… random people’s houses, nondescript gardens, and whatever
this is.
They actually ignored the village’s only notable piece of architecture, this 13th century
church, instead opting to jump on residents’ trampolines and ask if they could mow their
lawns.
And it wasn’t just a one-off: week after week, the tourists kept coming, taking selfies
in front of unremarkable two-bedroom houses like they were Cinderella’s Castle.
And nobody, least of all the people of Kidlington, could figure out why.
Quickly, a number of theories developed.
One claimed that Kidlington had been falsely advertised as the location of 4 Privet Drive,
the canonical home of the beloved character Vernon Dursley.
Another claimed it was because Kidlington was featured in an episode of the TV show
Inspector Morse—after all, nothing drives Chinese tourism quite like British detective
shows from 1987.
The BBC attempted to get to the bottom of things by handing a survey to tourists, but
the tourists’ only explanation was that they were there to experience “the true
sense of this country.”
Residents began discussing the matter at length on the Facebook page Spotted: Kidlington,
which I tried to look at for research, but it turns out it’s been taken down and the
fascists who run the new page refused to let me join.
Now at this point of the video, I have good news and bad news.
The good news is that I know exactly why these Chinese tourists showed up in Kidlington,
and I’m going to tell you.
The bad news is that first I’m going to put that reason in context by explaining the
phenomenon of Chinese tourism.
Sorry folks, we’ve got to teach you something, otherwise we lose our educational non-profit
status and I have to start paying taxes.
Now, if you’ve ever been to a major city, or listened to your racist grandparent go
on a rant, you probably know that Chinese tourism has exploded in the last few decades.
Before 1995, tourism was functionally illegal for Chinese citizens, who weren’t permitted
to leave the country apart from a few narrow exceptions.
But around the mid-90s, the whole “communist countries preventing their citizens from going
places” thing started to look like it may not be the surefire political masterstroke
everyone thought, so China introduced its “Approved Destination Status” program,
allowing citizens to take guided, group trips to government-approved countries, because
nothing says freedom quite like chaperoned field trips with government permission slips.
This relaxed travel policy, and the emergence of the Chinese middle class, has turned China
into the biggest tourism spender in the world: in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year, Chinese
tourists spent $260 billion abroad, nearly double the next highest country, the United
States.
And destinations across the world have had to adapt to their new customers: in Las Vegas,
for example, nearly every premiere hotel now has a Chinese restaurant, has begun putting
kettles into hotel rooms for tea drinkers, and placing slippers at room entrances so
guests can take their shoes off immediately.
Hotels around the world have even begun taking mirrors down and re-arranging beds away from
the door so that the rooms align better with feng shui principles.
At Bicester Village, the biggest outlet mall in England—which now generates 40% of its
revenue from Chinese tourists—you’ll find a Chinese-style noodle stand in the village
center, Chinese New Year sales, and a Pret a Manger with Mandarin menus to provide Chinese
tourists with an authentic taste of fake French food.
Bicester Village, by the way, just happens to be eight miles from, you guessed it, Kidlington.
And I know what you’re thinking: wow, nice job, Sam; you managed to tie the end of the
educational section into the beginning of the answer to the Kidlington mystery.
But the truth is, while its proximity to Bicester Village is part of the explanation behind
the Kidlington tourism mystery, the bigger reason has to do with this place: Blenheim
Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill and the answer to the question “should there
be a wealth tax?”
It turns out that Chinese tour companies were charging $68 for an optional Chinese language
tour of Blenheim Palace.
The trouble was, the tourists who hadn’t paid for the tour, who were dropped off nearby,
had figured out that they could just walk to the palace and buy their own tickets for
$25, thus saving $43 while providing equal opportunity to hear how Winston Churchill
overcame his humble beginnings of being born in a quarter-billion dollar castle.
And so, Chinese tour companies needed a place to stash the tourists who hadn’t paid for
the tour of Blenheim.
A place far enough away that they couldn’t just walk to Blenheim, but still nearby enough
that they could easily drop them off on the way to the palace, and then pick them up on
the way to Bicester Village.
A place they could sell to tourists as an authentic slice of English life.
A place… like Kidlington.
Okay, so, if you just watched this video and thought, “hey, that video was just a bunch
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