The Marketing Tools to Attract Chinese Tourists
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There are mainly two solutions to attracting Chinese tourists: online solutions and off-line solutions.
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%.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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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.
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!
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 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.
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)
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Read more article about Chinese tourist :
- Chinese Tourist differences
- China medical Tourism
- Chinese tourism : special markets
- tourist form China special
- Chinese tourist Shopping
- Stars promotion for tourist
- tourist for golden week
- senior tourist
- Chinese tourist interests
- Attract Chinese tourists
- Chinese tourism is booming
- Chinese Old tourist market
- how Chinese tourist choose their hotel
- Chinese Student Tourist
Hi Philip,
Very interesting your page.
I am a professor in a Canadian University. I am interested in contcating as many chinese citizens as possible to invite them to participate in a study about comparative advertising.
I have an online questionnaire already available in Chinese.
Would you be so king to advise me what is the best way to contact “normal” chinese respondents?
Woul you be interested in promoting my survey in your page?
Thanks in advance.
Please reply to [email protected]
Regards,
Jose
I’m Philip from China, glad to read your comment. If you want to get opinions from Chinese netizens, you can go to some websites who are specialized in online survey like 问卷星(www.sojump.com), they may offer you help.
Hello Philip
I work in Volunteer Support Services for a charity called Thrive Africa. We work in Ghana with projects based around building libraries for schools, disaster prevention and working with orphans in the Kumasi and Bolgatanga regions (see http://www.thriveafrica.co.uk for more information).
Due to the saturation of the British volunteer market with many charities looking for volunteers, we are looking to other countries to recruit volunteers to assist on our projects.
Firstly, with the Chinese people acknowledged for their volunteering nature as a big part of their culture, is there much motivation or interest in Chinese nationals to volunteer outside of the country in Africa, South America, etc?
Secondly, are you aware of many international charities/volunteering organisations that advertise in China? By what means do they go about advertising such opportunities (e.g. Television, targeting Universities…), and are Chinese nationals very much aware of such organisations?
Could you email me back with any answers you may have to [email protected]
Very interesting blog, I’ve enjoyed reading your articles, keep up the good work!
Regards
Fin Stannard
Thrive Africa
We already send you an email.
Dear ,
We are a destination management company in Dubai, we attract tourist in Dubai and Abu Dhabi . We are very much interested in Chinese markets . However we don’t understand why we don’t see Chinese in Dubai already.
Is there a limitations ? Is this destination known by Chinese ?
I would like to attend COTTOM 2013 in Beijin in April 2013 . Any advices ?
I also would like to deal with travel agencies directly as we don’t speak chinese. We prefer to sell our products to tour operators in China.
Any help ? tips ? will be much more appreciated .
Thanks
Linda
Dear Linda,
We already answer to you by Email. Let s speak by skype and via email about your project. 😉
Hello Philip & co,
do you have any information about the Chinese tourists’ interest towards Finland and to Scandinavia?
What do they expect to experience when travelling here, except the “ordinary” things. We have good direct flight connections between our countries and we see quite many visitors comint but often only for transfer onwards.How to make a stop over in Finland for a night or two more attractive?
Br, have a nice evening
Ari
Hi Ari, The two words linked with Scandinavia and Finland for most Chinese tourists are arctic and Viking. What’s more I want to say is what’s interesting for them now is not important. what’s important is what you can show to them.Then attract tourists to your place.
hi philip,
could u join me on skype so we can discuss more about it…………..
pls join me …….gaurav_sijwali (skype)
regards
gaurav sijwali
Hello Philip
I would like to promote my guest house for Chinese tourists can you please advise me since I don’t speak chinese?!?
many thanks with kind regards
Thierry
Hi Thierry, would you mind eamiling me about your project? you can send email to oq.philip[at]gmail.com
Hi Philip,
We are A tourism marketing company in Ethiopia.
These days China is No 1 trade partner to Africa, especially to Ethiopia.
The Ethiopian tourism industry needs to attract more Chinese tourists.
We need to get advice how to attract Chinese tourists to Ethiopia?
I look forward hearing from you.
Ermias
Hi Ermias,
glad to see your comment. I’ve just sent you an email regarding that.
Looking forward to your reply.
Merry Christmas!
Philip
Good Morning,
Im a small photography business looking to get into the Chinese market and Im looking for an e-commerce website, im hoping you can assist.
Please reply to [email protected] or phone me on +447852667744
clearphotos is not the name I wish to register
I look forward to your earliest reply