Chinese Digital Marketing hacks for China outbound tourism industry

July 17th, 2019

Below are 10 tips on Chinese digital marketing hacks to attract more Chinese tourists to your destination.


For anyone who is interested in the digital marketing hacks topics but can’t attend the event, here is the event summary of some tips and advice:

Identify the taste of “HIGH spenders” and deliver “SOMETHING UNIQUE”

Know what high spenders are looking for and offer something UNIQUE and one of the kind to them. The online travel marketplace has a lot of product and services in common, so differentiating your travel product with others is the KEY!

Create a compelling story for your hotel & travel products

Spreading 10 sec-1 minute mico-video in Chinese social media allows travelers to quickly learn about the positive travel experience that we can get from you.

Multi-channel touchpoint, single tracking system

Tourists are used to checking travel product/service at multiple channels, the lack of a completed digital marketing tracking system and analytics will be a waste because if you don’t or can’t track what you are doing, then you don’t know what you are doing!

One of the important metrics is not just about acquiring and tracking new users, but also users retention. Because China digital marketing and adverting is very expensive, and you want to make sure that the marketing budget spent doesn’t only lead to one-off short-term users’ growth, but also about long-term users base, thus, users’ retention metrics needed to be monitored over a quarterly and yearly period.

Tracking is not enough, you also need “growth hack”

Growth hack is a concept of continuous experimentation by twisting the existing promotional offers, be it landing page, mobile app page, or e-commerce site to get a better result, so that is why continuous improvement is the key!

Never, never stop TESTING

The best thing about growth and digital marketing hack is about testing, and use “data” to learn about your audiences, what’s work, what’s does, what they do, the users’ behaviors and journeys, etc. Online advertisings in China is very expensive and before any online advertising is kicked off, proper tracking metrics must be in place. Embrace a "growth" mindset rather than presuming a “fixed” mindset about what must work and doesn’t.

Leverage “Travel influencers”, but DON’T rely on “influencers”

Travel influencers are great to leverage by speeding up your brand awareness, but DON’T relies on influencers. Owned media is still the key hub because it is where customers can go to get the latest information, updates, and offers!

Use Social media monitoring to know what is happening

Travel trend keep changing and getting to know “the trend” is important to ensure that you can leverage “the trend” to promote your product or services by developing collaboration with different travel partners and cross-over etc.

Deliver partnership that pushes your travel offers exponentially

Making partnerships with travel OTA and content partners means that you can leverage their existing customers, database and fans to promote your travel products and services.

Deliver a “consistent & user-friendly” experiences across all digital channels

Delivering a consistent & user-friendly experience (i.e. price, offers, T&C) to online buyers are critical to avoid losing trust and price, product and services disparity.

Travel reviews matter A LOT, especially for the travel industry

Listen to all customers’ reviews, comment, and feedback, especially in the hospitality and tourism industry were "delivering good services" is critical. One or two good news might not necessarily create a big impact, but BAD news would create A LOT OF NEGATIVE IMPACTS on your travel brand.