Surprising new information has come to light regarding the strange influx of Chinese tourists to the UK village of Kidlington, casting suspicions on last month's purported solution to the mystery.
The droves of unexpected visitors over the summer left residents of the village baffled because no one could figure out why they were coming to Kidlington by the busload.
The Chinese tourists wandered around the area taking pictures of homes and gardens while being seen as either a nuisance or a curiosity by locals.
A subsequent BBC investigation was heralded as having solved the mystery via a Chinese language survey provided to the tourists.
The visitors replied that they were coming to Kidlington because they appreciated the aesthetic of the English village which was unlike anything they had at home.
The seemingly tidy resolution no doubt became a point of pride for those who call Kidlington home, however a new report on the tourist mystery casts doubt on the visitors' innocent answer.
A Chinese tour guide told the New York Times that there is a rather elaborate economical reason for why Kindlington began being visited over the summer.
According to Sun Jianfeng, it all began when Chinese tourists started to outwit travel companies that were offering tours of Blenheim Palace, a vast estate owned by the ancestors of Winston Churchill.
The savvy travelers realized that they could pay far less for admission to the site if they got off their tour bus and walked to the palace rather than pay the travel company for a specialized tour.
It wasn't long before this trickery was noticed by the tour companies and they came upon a creative solution.
Anyone who didn't want to pay extra for the tour was dropped off just far enough away that walking to the palace was possible: the village of Kidlington.
While Jianfeng was sure to emphasize to the Times that the tourists really did enjoy the unique nature of the village compared to life in China, the reasoning becomes rather specious now that we realize these were actually people that were left to wait around in Kidlington because they didn't want to spend extra for a tour.
Source: New York Times