LIVERPOOL -- Figures released on Friday showed the number of visitors from China last year to a museum in Liverpool, The Beatles Story, has exceeded visits from tourists from Australia and Germany.

The Beatles were a home-grown pop group from Liverpool who in the early 1960s changed the face of popular music in the western world. And Friday is the 50th anniversary of their flight across the Atlantic to the United States, exporting so-called Beatlemania on its journey across the world.

The Beatles Story on Liverpool's waterfront, is a publicly owned museum and shrine to the Beatles, attracting around 300,000 world-wide visitors a year.

Figures from the museum showed 5 percent of all visitors there last year were from China, up 1.3 percent than the number of 2012.

The number of visitors from China has especially delighted the museum's director Martin King. "It is just great to see so many visitors from China coming into the Beatles Story. It seems Beatlemania is finally catching on in China. "

"We have noticed a gradual increase in Chinese visitors over the past few years. Our figures show tourists from China have overtaken those from a number of other countries, including Australia and Germany. What is interesting is fans from those two countries have followed the Beatles since those early days. Chinese people are only now discovering the music and talents of the Beatles," he said.

"Our belief is the number of visitors from China will continue to grow as the UK welcomes more tourists from China as that country's economic growth continues," he added.

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