Tapping into the New Wave of Chinese Travelers

The Chinese outbound travel market is experiencing a significant resurgence, with the number of trips projected to reach 130 million by the end of 2024. As Gen Z emerges as a major force and retirees seek fulfilling experiences, the demand for unique and immersive travel experiences is soaring.

In this post-event narrative featuring insights from the panel session on Decoding Chinese Traveller Preferences, we hear from Anthony Lu, Regional Director, SEA & China, Booking.com and Baidi Li, Senior Vice President, APAC, Go City on capitalising on the travel boom, unleashing latest trends emerging from the travel industry in helping you promote experiences that resonate with the next generation of travel enthusiasts.

Local Experiences Take Centre Stage

With localisation becoming a winning factor for customers as more and more seek for authentic and immersive experiences, Baidi believes that cultural city walks, food tours, cooking classes are gaining more traction amongst younger generation. As marketing efforts by local governments and travel agencies intensify, many flock to social media-worthy tourist spots to visit. When they experience hidden gems, commentaries from Chinese-speaking guides during guided tours and neighbourhood walks can be a huge game-changer.

The Booking.com Travel Predictions report unveiled 83% of Chinese travellers are interested in learning about the origins of local food, and 70% prefer to venture off the beaten path (out of which 48% want to experience this with a local).

Chinese tourists have also shown a growing interest in immersive local experiences beyond traditional sightseeing. Go City is witnessing a similar shift in preferences among their Chinese customers, with increased redemptions for experiences like desert excursions and sand boarding in Dubai, pizza making experience in Rome or wine and cheese tasting in Paris.

Apart from this, many Chinese tourists are embracing in sustainable travel. They will be more conscious of where they spend their money and want to make sure every yuan spent is worth it. Therefore, crafting product offerings and narratives that cater to these priorities will help your brand appeal to this new wave of travellers.

Booking.com Travel Predictions 2024

Navigating the Chinese Digital Landscape

With the surge in relevant all-in-one apps for customer reviews and booking convenience, they have transformed the way brands leverage on their social media presence to capture attention. For travel brands, setting up an official account helps to authenticate their identities, enhance their branding and optimise their digital footprint. Nevertheless, to reach a broader target audience, they first need to understand the significant opportunities these platforms will bring and push customer engagement to the next level. Depending on their marketing strategy, it’s crucial to cater to their ever-evolving preferences and capitalise on the growing surge of tech-savvy customers processes by impacting their decision-making processes.

Baidi stresses on the need to ensure that the product search matches up to the experience. A good tourist spot or an impressive hotel stay will likely be on consumers’ own pages as a social recommendation even when brands do not actively promote their products on their social media or do not have an account. Apart from hoping to expand their digital presence, they can consider collaborations such as working with KOLs and other brands to drive traffic to other channels.

To gain entryway into their digital ecosystem, she insists that it is paramount for travel brands to comply with government regulations and restrictions to be accessible within China. However, in recent years, user search behaviour has significantly shifted from dominant search engines like Baidu, Bing, and Sogou to social media platforms such as XiaoHongShu and Douyin. To effectively penetrate the Chinese market, it is advisable to concurrently build a website that meets these regulations and establish a presence on local social media platforms to engage with customers throughout their entire journey.

Maximizing Customer Engagement

Anthony noticed that guests prefer to hop on search engines as well as OTAs to look for individual airlines or hotels for comparison of prices and offerings. As digital-savvy and price-conscious consumers, they navigate through different sources of information (both local and global sites) value deals once an opportunity for outbound travel arises. He reminds us that Chinese consumers based outside of China can have access to and are used to searching via global platforms. It is useful to do an analysis of your property’s own inbound data to see where your guests are booking/coming from to inform your paid search marketing strategy.

By utilising enhanced filters and the expansion of one-stop shop apps that allow customers to plan their entire itinerary within the same platform, travel companies can target on these to capture the unshaken interest of travel whilst heightening customer engagement.

The user interface of the Go City App for itinerary planning and city sightseeing

Social Media Savvy: Building Brand with Content

With superapps such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin dominating the social eCommerce space, Chinese travellers are planning and booking their next vacations online. Baidi firmly believes that this all comes down to the content, which can be broken down into three main components:

1. Content Creation: The fundamental step is to produce a substantial amount of high-quality content, both for the official account and by collaborating with influencers. This content should include a mix of static and video formats to engage the audience effectively

2. Content Amplification: Ensure your content reaches the right audience by using paid advertising to boost its visibility.

3. User-Generated Content: Word-of-mouth marketing remains highly effective due to its authenticity. Be innovative in your product design to inspire users to naturally share their experiences and reviews on social media. This approach can be a highly cost-effective way to enhance your brand’s visibility and influence.

When it comes to brand awareness and marketing, social validation is key. Generic brand campaigns are secondary to authentic guest reviews and in-network recommendations. Working with a global partner such as Booking.com, who generates millions of verified global guest reviews, can help you identify insights specific to your brand and help differentiate and personalize your marketing strategies towards Chinese travellers.

Understanding Customer Preferences

According to Xiaohongshu (RED), the superapp witnessed a consumer trend towards products that provide emotional value. Food, travel, fitness, mental health, and beauty topped the list of categories where users were willing to invest. Chinese travellers, when planning their trips, prioritize not only cost-effective options but also experiences that create lasting memories.

For Go City's social media content on Xiaohongshu, Baidi mentions that they focused on showcasing how their passes can facilitate meaningful travel experiences. She states that, “we curate tailored itineraries targeting specific traveller groups and popular trends, such as 'city walk' itineraries for FIT travellers and 'family-friendly' itineraries for families with children, which consistently generated positive feedback and discussions within RED community.”

On the other hand, Anthony believes that the Chinese wish to get the most value out of their purchases. At the end of the day, the value-driven Chinese consumer look at the intrinsic value of the product you are offering in relation to the number of yuan they are willing to spend. For example, you may offer a bundle deal that includes F&B options on-site, special weekend rates or exclusive collaborations with other brands that are only available at your property.

How Go City taps into the localised ecosystem of RED to expand the reach of Chinese travellers

Meeting Evolving Needs

Since opening of the borders, Chinese outbound tourists primarily visited visa-free countries like Japan, South Korea and Singapore. These cities offer easy visa entry, favourable currency exchange rates, and are deemed more Chinese-friendly in terms of societal preferences and tourism policies.

However, based on data by Fliggy, the online travel platform under Alibaba group, there is a trend of outbound travellers opting for destinations farther away, extending from 4-hour flight range to 12-hour flight range. According to China’s OTA Qunar, destinations with flights of over 10 hours, such as Melbourne in Australia, London in the UK, Auckland in New Zealand, became popular cities for Chinese tourists during the Spring Festival Holiday in Feb 2024.

Similarly, among Go City’s Chinese customers, they observed steady growth in Europe cities, like London, Paris and Barcelona. While US cities are seeing a slow recovery, likely due to the long visa application time and limited flight capacity, they are seeing exceptions for Oahu pass, which takes approximately 10 hours flight from tier 1 cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

Our Contributors:

Anthony Lu, Regional Director, SEA & China, Booking.com

Baidi Li, Senior Vice President, APAC, Go City