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Comment by jonah | Hacker News Reader

Has no one bothered to ask the visitors why they came?

I was kind of baffled by this too, does the BBC not have access to anyone that speaks their language?

Also, the article switches between them being Japanese & Chinese tourists.. is the BBC even sure where the tourists are from?

I'm unsure as to why this is on Hacker News.

If the article is to be taken at face value, there isn't even a consensus on when are the tourists from ;)

Shortly after this story broke, I spoke to someone at Into Japan Specialist Tours, who are actually based in Kidlington. They would have been informed if the tourists were Japanese. The woman I spoke to doesn't think they're Japanese, and are more likely Chinese, based on how they were dressed. Also, it is not far from Bicester Village, a shopping centre popular with Chinese.

They did:

> Michelle Young, who lives in The Moors, Kidlington, says they did try to solve the mystery.

> "A neighbour did try to ask them where they were from but they didn't speak any English and we didn't get very far," she said.

> Baz Daniels, who has lived in Kidlington for more than 20 years, said he had been in touch with a friend in China to try to get to the bottom of the tourist influx to his village.

> "Kidlington is apparently being marketed by Chinese tourist agencies as a beautiful English village on the way to Bicester Village shopping centre," he said.

> "Many of the visitors live in cities, and love to see things like the hanging baskets and little flowers in people's gardens.

> "Visitors are now actively asking to add Kidlington to their tour itineraries," he added.

It sounds like the real mystery is how it got started and why it hasn't stopped.

Once a place becomes part of the tour packages, it apparently becomes a fixture and people ask for it. At least that's what I've been told by tourists about my current hometown Heidelberg, which is about as nice as a hundred other similar places in Germany and yet receives almost every Asian tourist in the country on a 10-day Europe package tour. Apparently the location is convenient too.

Altstadt (historic city centre) associated with the period of Romanticism with historic buildings and an old stone bridge with mediaeval bridge head, a castle with a wine cask several metres in diameter, a Nazi-era outdoor amphitheatre, a lively student body, and all contained in a compact town near the Rhine in an area surrounded by wooded hills and quaint wine villages (e.g., Weinheim). So its popularity is not really surprising.

As far as cliché tourist destinations go you could do a lot worse. Certainly beats Frankfurt or Mannheim.

Also, there is a funicular. Tourists love funiculars.

That's a good start.

It looks like the link here on HN was changed to an expanded story.

The one I read this morning was: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-36706591

I'm reminded of a Woody Allen movie (which I can't remember the name of). It had the 4-5 subplots/different characters, the one being a random man from nowhere who suddenly (and for no real reason) becomes a giant celebrity. Everyone suddenly wants to know his opinions on everything (and/or to get to know him much much better).

That continues until after a while they pick someone else, and he just goes back to being a random nobody.

I believe he was called Mr. Pisanello (or some such); the movie also featured Penelope Cruz playing a prostitute, accidentally pretending to be a man's wife.

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