Chinese tourists in the United States

The number of Chinese tourists in the United States has been increased this few years.

• 97 million international visitors came to the United States in 2016
• 6 million Chinese tourists traveled to the United States in 2016
• They spent a total of $33 billion, these figures are up 15 percent and 9 percent, respectively, from 2015
• When the Chinese tourists come to USA, each person spends on average at least $6,000 a trip.
• The United States wants to attract more than 23 million Chinese tourists by 2020

Overview of tourism in the United States

Tourism in the United States built quickly during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By the 1850s, tourism in the United States was well developed both as a cultural activity and as an industry. All major US cities such as New York, Chicago, California, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco attracted a huge number of tourists by the 1890s.

Tourism in the United States is a big market that helps millions of international and domestic tourists yearly. As one of the largest and most diverse countries in the world, The United States should be proud of its amazing quantity of tourist destinations ranging from the skyscrapers of New York and Chicago, the natural wonders of Yellowstone and Alaska to the sunny beaches of California, Florida, and Hawaii.

More than 23 Million Chinese tourists expected to visit the United States in the next five years

The rise of the Chinese middle class and new U.S. rules that help Chinese people to get a rapid visa have encouraged the growing number of Chinese outbound tourists headed to destinations outside of Asia highly like travel to the United States. It’s among Chinese travelers’ top “list destinations,” and they also are favorizing cultural experiences.

While visiting the USA, many Chinese tourists were spending a total of $26.9 billion, or $74 million a day. Almost 30% of that money was spent shopping. The Chinese are the world’s biggest luxury shoppers, spending $183 billion by 2016 to buy the world’s luxury goods.

The average Chinese tourist ended up spending over $10,000 while staying in the United States by 2016.  For a country with a per capita income of around $8,000, that’s rather impressive, and it’s thanks in part to a growing middle-class that wants to go abroad and see the world’s shopping malls.

The US tourism expects that in five years, more than 23 million tourists will have visited the United States, therefore, professional tourism and companies must get ready to lure them.

With nonstop flights to U.S. gateways from more Chinese cities, an increasing share of visitors will start their U.S. visit itinerary by connecting on to an interior airport.

Now the real question is:  what is the real secret to lure more and more Chinese tourists to the USA?

All the American travel agency is seeking these secrets and now we want to share this secret with the rest of the world. These secrets could give you a big share of Chinese tourism market. You should probably be in the process you ask what is this secret. Let’s me tell you!

There are 5 important secrets to lure Chinese tourists

Let’s start first with a definition of lead generation

 

Every marketing campaign starts with relevant leads. Every product or service can become successful when you target the right audience to promote it. The most efficient approach in order to reach this audience is to filter prospects until the most relevant remain which will turn into conversions.

Lead generation refers to the process of attracting visitors to your platforms and turning them into potential customers. For example, a lead would be for your company, a website visitor who asked for information about your product/service. It could also be someone who asked a callback. All these leads got this special thing: you have access to their personal information such as email address, name, phone number or even address. Thanks to all their information you can dive in deeper and to contact them with a tailored offer.

Lead generation in China is a big challenge if you don’t really know the Asian internet culture and habits (more details click here).To harvest leads it is necessary to understand your optional target audience.

Chinese tourist don’t buy travel agency they buy trust: Online Reputation

A good reputation about a company or their products and services is very important for Chinese decision. So keeping that reputation is the thing to do and every company tries hard to implement. Online reputation management is not just about damage control by erasing the bad contents on the web but it can take your business to next step if done at an early stage and properly.

Negative contents have the power to influence customers ‘decision and pushing down your travel agency image and you can lose your integrity and credibility among Chinese tourist. In today’s age of the internet where Chinese consume is filled with knowledge-based people gathering information about anything and everything through the internet, it has become necessary to listen to the conversation about your company and your product in all online Chinese platforms.

Developing the presence on the popular social media platforms and getting some attention from key opinion leaders will support your positive image. You need to make sure your potential lead in China won’t find any negative reviews and opinions about your product or company.

The most powerful engine: Baidu SEO

If you want to be present on the most popular digital platforms in China, don’t seek too much, one word: BAIDU. Yes! Baidu is the most popular search engine in China with 80% market share. The western search engines such as Google are not allowed by the China Great Firewall’’.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is seen as the best method in order to generate traffic and leads. This strategy will allow your website to get more visibility at the top of a search result page but it needs expertise and an effort to do so.

You have to create a unique and authentic content for your readers and users. Moreover, have good titles; be properly written with the right keywords and tags. It must attract for your readers.

You have to put the backlinks from some quality information websites that are also important for SEO, and then you can create partnerships with other reliable websites, in order to get more backlinks and increase visibility to your website.

All of this will also improve your website ranking (in Baidu) and your readers’ trust. A SEO optimized website and content will enable your website to be trustworthy and reliable (more detail read Baidu SEO). Finally, you can use PPC (pay-per-click) which is the fact of paying to rank higher on a set of keywords.

What’s the most powerful weapon Online: Social media

China is the largest world connected country, it is estimated that about 9 out of 10 Chinese internet users owns at least one account on social media. 99% of the western social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp is blocked by the ‘’great China Firewall’’. Just like search engines, China has its own version of social media platforms. The most famous social media in China are WeChat, Weibo, Qzone, QQ and Ren Ren.

WeChat is an audio/text instant messaging app which offers special features such as wechat account for the brand, Wechat pay, buys taxi, book reservation…There are more than 800 million WeChat users all around the world.

Weibo is a microblogging platform just like Twitter. They have more than 550 million active users. If you want to truly connect with Chinese customers you have to be present on WeChat and Weibo. You can create on both platforms an official account which will offer you special features.

On all these social media, you can send push notifications to your followers and share valuable content in text, video or images. In order to create leads, you have to publish relevant, interesting content that will push Chinese social media users to share, comment or like. Engage them and some of them may just be leads for your travel agency.

For being more visible in China the secret is Chinese website

Get more visibility in the most connected country in the world, the key is a Chinese website. With more than 900 million Chinese internet users, this latter spends more than 40% of their daily life on the Internet.

Your website should respect a certain kind of “protocol” to be ensured that it will be easily found and has a nice feel-and-touch for the Chinese visitor.

You should also, be available for your Chinese visitors. The best would be to have a 24/24h customer service able to reply to any queries anytime.

Now the secret is revealed,  you know exactly the 5 important things to do to lure Chinese tourists, but the fact is you can’t apply all these secrets alone.

You need a good tourist marketing agency, which has a right expertise and China market experience to help you to enter in the Chinese tourism market. This is what we are working for.

Let’s me introduce you GMA (Gentlemen Marketing Agency).

GMA (Gentlemen Marketing Agency)

GMA is a digital marking agency based in Shanghai, Beijing, and Shenzhen with seven years of experience in the China market.

Thanks to our international team composed of nearly 40 experts, we are your best solution to attract more and more Chinese Travelers.

We used to work with international brand; tourist agency over the world like Aiguemarine Paris, Bali Travel, Luxury Beach House Maldives… can be testified about our service and the result in their agency.

In China nothing is easy but everything is possible. So don’t miss the train, just contact us for better result.

Read also:

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• 8 Tips to Create a Successful Marketing Campaign in China