The British tourism authority VisitBritain signed a strategic partnership agreement with the Shanghai China International Travel Service Ltd on Friday in hopes of attracting more Chinese tourists to Britain.

The two sides will launch a project titled "Great Britain, You're Invited" over the next four years. Both will invest 2 million yuan ($324,600) in the first year of the project to promote British tourism, said Cang Dingyu, general manager of CITS.

"The agreement is an initial journey to the collaboration with Chinese travel agencies," said Christopher Rodrigues, chairman of Britain's National Tourist Board.

He said more efforts will be made to establish strategic partnerships with travel agencies in major Chinese cities.

"Our objective is to increase Chinese visitors to Britain from last year's 179,000 to half a million by 2020," Rodrigues said.

Statistics from VisitBritain showed that Chinese tourists to Britain in the first three months of this year increased by 30 percent from the same period last year.