The Marketing Tools to Attract Chinese Tourists

.

There are mainly two solutions to attracting Chinese tourists: online solutions and off-line solutions.

china tourist

As reported by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), 85% of the interviewees choose Internet as their choice for information, following with TV at 66.1%, newspaper at 61.1%.

source of information for Chinese

For companies who want to penetrate or expand in China tourism market, online marketing and branding is a suitable strategy. It has the following advantages:

  • cost efficient
  • precise marketing
  • easy reputation control
  • feedback from the market.

Besides, there are also other off-line methods to increase the influence of brand.

.

A website in Chinese

According to the introduction from Mr. Zhang, from C-trip, most Chinese tourists make decisions depending on the information online.

  • Over 50% of the tourists will compare the information from 2 websites;
  • 18% of them compare information from 3 websites;
  • 9% of the tourists would even check 4 websites.

So a company without a website, will probably be running behind the ones with web sites.

Homepage of Hilton hotel

What’s also important is to show your website to vast amount of Chinese tourists. The most popular solution is using SEO and SEM.

Social networks

Social Networking Service or Social Networking Sites (SNS) has become an important source for people to get information. Now 1 in 2 Chinese Internet users have Weibo (micro blog) accounts.
Weibo marketing includes opening an account, obtaining certifications, publishing interesting contents, and interacting with Internet users with the goal of building a community.

Westin weibo account
Westin weibo account

The benefits of promoting your company on SNS is that you can

  • build a community surround your company;
  • reach your target people precisely;
  • get feedback quickly from them;
  • creating a more friendly company image;
  • people are accept information from SNS more easily.

.

Cooperation

Many Chinese tourists, especially those interested in outbound traveling have limited information on airfare, hotel booking, and travel agencies. Due to the lack of information comprehensive websites offering all-inclusive packages are popular because there is less hassle. IResearch data shows the online travel booking marketing is increasing at 30% annually and the size of this market will expand to ￥2.46 billion by 2014.
However, with more and more tourists getting information from other sources, this kind of websites will meet their expanding limit in the future.

The Multimedia

The use of quality Multimedia is a particularly effective tool in the travel industry. Chinese tourists like to have a fantasy image and mental idea of the place they will be visiting. If in Europe they imagine chateaus with luxury cars, and white sandy beaches for tropical destinations. Attractive pictures and videos of ones travel destination are not only used to sell destinations but also to bring attention to their vacation destination.

Photo of tour in France

PR (Public Relations)

PR is a powerful tool to attract Chinese tourists. It allows you to communicate with potential customers with attractive visuals to get them to comment, share, and develop interest in your vacation destination.

A new article posted on Chinese news can get high quantity of views at a surprisingly fast rate!

News about French tour

The Opinion Leaders or Celebrities

KOLs (Key Opinion Leader) or celebrities can easily influence Chinese tourists with their communities and the secondary network of their fans. They are highly respected and their movements are followed by millions of Internet users.

New Zealand tourism promotion
New Zealand tourism promotion

New Zealand used Yaochen to bring attention to citizens in China and it worked wonders!

Magazine (not recommended)

Magazine is still an undeveloped industry in China. Most magazine quality are low and the information aren’t recent.
In the tourism sector, there are some interesting magazines, but the result is difficult to assess because the numbers are inflated. Publication costs are heterogeneous and sometimes abnormally high.

Product placement

Film and TV is a great form of advertising to present your product to the vast Chinese population in a soft unconscious way.
A Chateau Lafite for special occasions, a Mac for professionals, a Haagen-Dazs ice cream to seduce a beautiful girl. These are all products strategically placed in film and television to incorporate these products into Chinese culture.

TV series “Dreams Link”

Although it can possibly demand huge budgets, it’s still cost friendly considering its astonishing pay-off. That’s why brand or product placement in films is heavily used by all companies at the forefront of marketing (BMW, Apple, LMVH , etc)

.

Read more article about Chinese tourist :

  1. Chinese Tourist differences
  2. China medical Tourism
  3. Chinese tourism : special markets
  4. tourist form China special
  5. Chinese tourist Shopping
  6. Stars promotion for tourist
  7. tourist for golden week
  8. senior tourist
  9. Chinese tourist interests
  10. Attract Chinese tourists
  11. Chinese tourism is booming
  12. Chinese Old tourist market
  13. how Chinese tourist choose their hotel
  14. Chinese Student Tourist