Students have been sharing their insights into the behaviour of Chinese tourists with a local retailer.

The three Chinese Masters students from Lancaster University Management School have been working with retailer Lakeland Leather as part of their dissertation project.

They collected data from questionnaires in the Lakeland Leather Bowness store and around Bowness town.

There were 122 international respondents: 89 per cent of whom were Chinese.

The phrase “local culture” was an important theme, with over half of respondents indicating they would be most attracted to a store that showcases local culture.

Translation and miscommunication was also highlighted as an issue.

For example, in China promotional messaging is written the opposite way to the UK, so '30 per cent off” in the UK would read 'pay 70 per cent' in China.

Without additional translation this is often confusing and can be a barrier to purchase, something which can be overcome by using translation services or having a Mandarin speaking member of staff.

Their observations also found Chinese tourists tended to navigate the store clockwise, as opposed to the majority of shoppers who looped anti-clockwise.

Fiona Wright, head of retail at Lakeland Leather, said: “This gives us something to think about regarding the layout of our Lake District stores and how we position our promotional offers.”

At the same time, they found tourists wanted experiential shopping which incorporates learning about the brand story and heritage.

The research found over half of tourists were visiting for the day, with over a quarter staying in Edinburgh and the same for Manchester.

The students said this creates time constraints and so an experiential shopping experience would increase time spent in store and help increase sales.

In addition, the students highlighted the importance of the most used social platforms by Chinese tourists - WeChat and Weibo - which they use to research what to do when visiting the Lakes.

Martin Foster, Lakeland Leather managing director, said: “The student’s findings are useful to us and extremely beneficial in better understanding the way Chinese tourists shop.

"Hopefully we can make some impactful changes to create an easier and experiential shopping experience for all tourists to showcase our Lake District heritage.”