A short drive to the west of London, designer fashion outlet Bicester Village is becoming the shopping destination of choice for tourists to the UK. Emily Johnston, editor of style blog Fashion Foie Gras reveals why it’s now one of the UK’s top attractions

Can you name the three of the top attractions in the UK? Here’s a clue: they all begin with ‘B’. Buckingham Palace, do I hear? Tick. Plus a gold star if you said Blenheim Palace, too, but Oxfordshire’s Bicester Village, the shopping outlet teeming with designer boutiques in New England-style clapboard houses – this might not immediately spring to mind.

Yet for many visitors to Britain – especially from China, Russia and the Middle East – packing in by the coachload to snap up Burberry bags and Prada pumps at huge discounts, it’s all in a tourist day’s work: 60 per cent of visitors to the outlet are now international tourists. It helps explain why Bicester Village is one of the UK’s most lucrative shopping venues, with sales averaging £2,100 per square foot in 2012, more than three times the amount brought in by Selfridges.

On a recent trip there, I witnessed the ‘Bicester effect’ first hand. In addition to the hordes of tour coaches, the opening times in some boutiques were printed in Mandarin, as well as other languages. For many visitors, it’s the main attraction after a quick ‘detour’ at Windsor Castle – and probably a big reason behind the decision to take the concept to China, where Suzhou Village, will open near Shanghai in 2014. So what’s making tourists spend it large here rather than Bond Street’s boutiques?

For starters the tax refund policy and current exchange rate mean that many luxury goods actually end up costing about 30 per cent less in the UK than they do in China – even if the label reveals it’s actually ‘Made in China’. They also get peace of mind knowing that the goods aren’t counterfeits or cheap imitations.

And let’s face it, everybody loves a bargain, no matter where you’re from. Around a third of the shoes sitting in my closet are from BV – which has become more than just a Mecca for Kate Middleton wannabes wanting to bag a reduced Reiss piece. Pop-ups by Harper’s Bazaar and the British Designers’ Collective have even attracted fashionistas such as Alexa Chung and Rita Ora.

The London Designer Outlet recently opened near Wembley Stadium with the promise of 70 per cent discount on mid-market products. Whether they’ll grab the same hold that BV have over tourists remains to be seen. They have some pretty big designer shoes to fill.

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This article has been tagged Fashion + Style, Destination