In what could be seen as a indication of what’s to come at the London Olympics in 2012, Chinese tourists have been spending big at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Visitors from China earned a silver medal in consuming by spending the second-largest amount of any country on the first day of the Winter Games, Visa Canada said Tuesday. Chinese tourists and Olympians used their Visa credit, debit and prepaid cards to the tune of $395,000 US across the province on Feb. 12, the company said

“Chinese tourists the world over are great tourists. They’re good spenders,” Woodward said.  Visa’s head of marketing and sponsorship communications. “They’re getting things they can’t get at home.”

Tourist agencies such as Visit London are predicting as much as a 300% rise in Chinese  leisure and business travellers visiting London during the 2012 Olympics.