Now is the time!

It’s important for Western brands to start planning ahead now. A 2016 WorldPay study found that over 90% of Chinese outbound tourists book their flights and accommodation within three months of their travel date.

Why do Chinese tourists matter so much?

Western leisure, retail, tourism and services brands, in particular, will want to engage this growing audience. Chinese tourists spend more when they travel overseas and they seek out high-end products, accommodation, experiences and dining. They love city trips, and the top 10% will spend up to US $2,225 daily during their tips. Younger Chinese travellers are also looking for authenticity, independence, discovery and fresh content for their social media!

How does Ctrip digital marketing help?

Ctrip is the biggest Online Travel Agent (OTA) in China, with 65% of the country’s online travel market. In the West, it is better known under its Trip.com brand.

How should you prepare?

Once you have defined your target audience, take your time to:

– Localise your brand (if necessary), your website and your content.
– Consider your Chinese new year campaign strategy, combining OTA use with online marketing, such as Baidu PPC, social media and KOL engagement, and other activities depending on your goals and budget.
– Add visual Chinese New Year specific campaign elements, such as graphics, competitions, digital red envelopes and so forth.

If you want to do this quickly and effectively, but don’t have native in-house Chinese marketing professionals, a Chinese marketing agency can help. The right agency will smooth the process, avoid any cross-cultural issues and ensure that you stay in line with China’s strict advertising and content publishing rules.

Using Ctrip

This Chinese OTA is so powerful that around seven million Chinese outbound tourists used it to book their Chinese New Year trips this year. The platform is particularly popular amongst young, trendy and aspirational middle-class travellers who like to put together their own trips and itineraries, rather than relying on guided tours. In fact, 70% of Ctrip’s users are these Free Independent Travellers (FITs). Ctrip users can use the platform to book everything from their hotels and flights through to entertainment, dining out and travel services.

Who should you target on Ctrip?

Western marketers should look at travellers who have booked (or are looking to book) overseas travel services such as flights, car hire, holidays and WiFi. The powerful capabilities of Ctrip’s big data means that Western brands can benefit from precise targeting. For example, you might search for Chinese outbound tourists who have already booked their flights to the UK within the next five days, or you might search for Chinese travellers who are already touring the USA.

Using Ctrip to market for Chinese New Year

Ctrip offers a number of key benefits to Western tourist, retail and destination brands; primarily its AI, big data and cloud deployment which provides incredibly targeted, advanced marketing services. User preferences and online behaviours are recorded in minute detail and then mined to generate rich insights for customised marketing campaigns. For example, you can create highly targeted push adverts for your target customer group, according to their key user periods and the drivers that will result in a purchase.

Choose your type of advertising

Ctrip ads are placed throughout the website / app and in line with the customer’s user journey – beginning as they carry out research for a planned trip and through to their review of the experience. Western marketers can choose:

1. Retargeted banner displayers, with precise targeting against buyer behaviour
2. Hero apps – which again, drive conversions through varied channels and offer precise targeting by demographics, travel habits and buyer interests.
3. Brand placement – putting your brand in front of your target audience as they carry out their searches (and remembering that Chinese audiences find online advertising to be useful and informative, in contrast to Western audiences who often see it as a nuisance.)
4. Trip moments – which is akin to Instagram and which offers marketers the chance to place branded content against product placements, keyword searches and native feeds with discovery and city categories (bearing in mind that Ctrip Moments span 16,000 destinations with over 1.5 million posts!)
5. Joint promotion opportunities  with WIFI/car rental: O2O, target real-time, destination-oriented tourists effectively.
6. VIP Club promotion to high-end travellers and business travellers.
7. Sponsorship and advertising on official Weibo and WeChat Ctrip accounts.
8. Partner arrangements with KOLs for Trip Moments.

How to get real value from your Ctrip marketing campaign

As mentioned, the true power of Ctrip lies in its high-tech algorithms and precise targeting which are based on incredibly rich data insights from their user’s behaviour. If you can fully leverage this data for your own targeting, your budget will go much further and your adverts will actually get in front of your target audience. If, however, you don’t precisely target, you risk wasting precious digital marketing budget on adverts which are either crowded out by competitor brands or which are never actually seen by the right customers.

At Market Me China, we have the digital expertise and native language skills that you need to master Ctrip. We can help with every stage of your Chinese New Year digital marketing campaign journey, such as:

– Chinese New Year digital marketing strategy on Ctrip
– Identifying your target audience
– Curating, repurposing and creating content that makes their needs
– localising your website and the Chinese New Year visual assets that will bring it to life for the occasion – think red envelopes, celebration graphics, competition popups and so forth!
– Engaging with the right KOL for your brand to sponsor and promote your content in the right way.
– Organising, managing and evaluating the right type of Ctrip advertising campaign for your objectives

Contact us today

Interested in knowing more about Ctrip and the value it can offer to your Western brand for Chinese New Year? Our team of experts are here to help. Please contact us to find out how we can assist your brand, whether you are new to marketing in China or keen to build your brand presence further within your Chinese outbound tourism market.

The post Ctrip Digital Marketing to attract Chinese outbound tourists during Chinese New Year appeared first on Market Me China®.

Why Chinese outbound tourists are so attractive to Western destinations

There is plenty about the Chinese outbound tourism market that appeals to Western destinations and tourist services. For example:

– China has a population of almost 1.4 billion and its middle classes are growing fast. Chinese outbound trips are growing at a CAGR of 15% according to McKinsey, and this is expected to grow further as incomes continue to rise.
– Chinese outbound tourists like to spend more when they travel abroad – on hotels, services, experiences and dining out. The top 10% will spend US $2,225 daily, seeking prestige in the products and services that they buy.
– Chinese outbound tourists particularly love fine dining and city trips – which is good news for Western metropolitan centres.
– Younger Chinese travellers are ready to seek out smaller and less known destinations which are less known for their prestige and more suited for authenticity, independent travel and the experience of local customs (all of which they can then share as engaging content on their social media!)

So how can Western brands use Ctrip to market their destination services to Chinese outbound tourists?

Get your preparation work in place

Before using Ctrip, it pays to have done your leg work. So, make sure you have:

– Defined and narrowed down your target audience (ensuring that your product or service fits their needs, or repurposing / re-presenting it accordingly to do so.)
– Localised your brand and content (including your website) in a way that will appeal to your target Chinese outbound tourists
– Created a Chinese channel strategy, which combines the use of your OTAs with social media and other online channel platforms.

Many Western travel brands will deliver these activities with the support of a Chinese marketing agency for fast, effective results and an excellent ROI. Access to native Chinese marketing expertise also avoids the risk of cross-cultural gaffes, administrative delays or falling foul of the country’s strict content publishing and advertising rules.

What is Ctrip?

With 20 years of successful operation under its belt, Ctrip is the biggest online OTA (Online Travel Agent) in China. Based in Shanghai, Ctrip is responsible for 65% of the online travel industry in China. Ctrip invested in Tuniu & Tongcheng, and is the largest shareholder of eLong & Qunar. It also got investment from Priceline. Baidu holds 25% of Ctrip share. It owns Sky Scanner and is known more familiarly under its Trip.com brand in the West. (Source: Ctrip)

Travellers can use the platform to book flights, hotels, travel services, entertainment and more. There is a vast travel journal section filled with inspiration and KOL content, and users can share their own journals and trip moments. Business travel services are also provided for over 5,000 multinationals. (Source: Ctrip)

Who uses Ctrip?

In 2019, around seven million Chinese tourists booked outbound trips using Ctrip for Chinese New Year alone. It has 20 million daily active users, 70% of which earn 12,000 RMB or more a month. It’s particularly popular amongst the trendy, young and aspirational middle-classes aged from 20-45, most of whom are keen to move away from the group tours of old and to organise their own travel experiences, booking flights, accommodation, restaurants and services separately and independently. (Source: Ctrip)

Ctrip insights of Chinese outbound tourism

In 2018, the total number of Chinese outbound tourists reached 15 million, increasing by 15 %, compared with 2017. In contrast to group tours, 70% of users are FITs (Free Independent Travellers) who will book travel products separately and combine them according to personal interests, so as to maximise flexibility.(Source: Ctrip)

The top 20 countries in 2018 included Thailand, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, Korea and Indonesia, by volume. Every one out of five Chinese outbound tourists booked on Ctrip.(Source: Ctrip)

How can Western destination brands use Ctrip digital marketing?

For Western destination and tourist brands looking to appeal to Chinese outbound tourists, Ctrip digital marketing is essential. The platform invests heavily in its big data, AI and cloud deployment offer valuable and heavily informed marketing services. It uses its big data capabilities to record minutely detailed analytics about user preferences and behaviours, generating insights which can greatly assist with targeted, effective customised marketing campaigns. These include tightly targeted push adverts for customers and tools which allow business users to predict key user periods and service purchase drivers.

Types of advertising available on Ctrip

There are various features on offer in the ‘one-stop-shop’ which offer value to Western destination brands – from hotels and restaurants through to retail outlets and tourist services. The most obvious, of course, is the range of advertising options provided. Ads are placed to touch users in every stage of their travel – from pre-trip research through to post-trip evaluation. Different ad types are offered accordingly – such as:

1. Retargeting Banner Display

Retargeting adverts are targeted precisely according to buying behaviour on the platform, for the best possible results.

2. Hero Apps

Ctrip affiliates with Hero apps to drive potential customers through multiple channels. For example, the advertiser can request the targeting of Chinese outbound tourists who travelled to Thailand more than once in a certain year and stayed at a 5* hotel.

3. Brand Placements

These place your brand in front of target customers at the search stage, providing a natural point of influence to buyers which remains relevant and welcome. (Remember, Chinese customers are not averse to online advertising in the way that many Western customers are, and they view it as a source of information to help their decision making.)

4. Trip Moments

Ctrip has its own integrated platform within Ctrip APP which is like Instagram and which boasts an incredible 1.5 million posts that span 16,000 destinations. This offers the opportunity for branded content and integration with multi placements, such as Discover/City page native feeds placement, keyword searching placement, and product placement in post.

Other types of advertising also exist in Ctrip, such as joint promotion, advertising within is VIP club and official Ctrip WeChat and Weibo accounts.

Need help to get started with Ctrip Digital Marketing campaign?

To see the right results from your Ctrip Digital Marketing campaign, you must expertly leverage the platform’s rich analytics and select the right kind of advertising for your brand, audience and offer.

A Chinese marketing agency can fast-track your success in the Chinese online marketing field, supporting everything from your Ctrip campaign set-up (which is done in Chinese) to your post-campaign analytics. At Market Me China, our native Chinese marketing experts can create impactful integrated marketing campaigns which make the most of Ctrip digital marketing capabilities, and maximise leads to your tourism business. We are knowledgeable, flexible, friendly and helpful – acting as a natural extension to your own team to provide the skilled support that you need for Chinese digital marketing success.

Ready to find out more?

Contact us today for a no-obligation chat about your Western travel brand’s needs and the ways in which we can help you.

(Image source: Ctrip)

The post How to use Ctrip Digital Marketing to attract Chinese outbound tourists appeared first on Market Me China®.