Nowadays, hotel brands are fighting to cater to the needs of the Chinese travelers. With the rise of the Chinese tourist wave, more and more hotel brands try to attract this premium clientele that has gone beyond the 100 million/year landmark
Shorter visa processing time and rise in Chinese middle class results in a massive increase of outbound Chinese tourism
Ways to attract Chinese travelers
Prestigious brands hotels as Hilton or Marriot have designed ” Chinese welcome programs” in order to avoid the cultural differences. Hotel chains offer hot tea in the rooms and even have some employees speaking Mandarin.
Hotel’s staff know Chinese cultural rules. For example, number four in Mandarin has a similar sound like the word for death, that’s why no Chinese should be accommodated on floor number four. Besides, Marriot hotels offer different Chinese breakfasts depending of the tourist’s region. Marriot’s breakfast includes dim sum and salted duck eggs among many others.
It is a reality that major chains are teaching their employees in order to avert cultural mistakes that could offend the Chinese tourists.
Chinese tourists have particular requirements when they choose their hotel. So, when they book online they try to find those meeting their demand through an exhaustive online research complemented by the opinion of their family and friends. You can easily see the importance of a well developed online marketing strategy :
If you are an hotel meeting all the Chinese tourist needs you still have to stand out and tell them that you have what they need using the medium of communication they know and use best: Internet
Although Chinese tourists spend a lot of money in accommodation during their holidays, it is an important point to consider. Another factor could be the transportation and closeness to the places that they are interested to visit.
Since most Chinese don’t speak or read English well enough, you must have a mandarin version of your website.
Furthermore this website must not simply be a copy-paste translation of your original website but also hosted in China or Hong Kong. Your website must also respect the type of designs Chinese tourists want to see : Most information available at a quick glance, quick to load, and high quality pictures are some of the element that your Chinese website must have.
Several tools in order to promote hotels in the Chinese market
On-line Promotion
More and more Chinese are using online platforms during their daily life. Having a important presence on internet, Chinese consumers could have a easy access to hotel’s information.
Social Networks
Social media have an enormous influence over Chinese population. They are using social networks like Wechat and Weibo, very similar to Facebook, Twitter and the likes in the West. Given that Chinese spend a third of their time online on social networks, a skilled use of social networks by a Hotel company will result in a sizable increase in asking about the hotel and in trust of the brand. Why trust? Simply because when an important number of people start sharing content about your brand it implies that they vouch for it, something Chinese consumers trust a lot : user experience and reviews
Multimedia
Multimedia such as videos and pictures are used by travel agencies in order to attract consumers. Showing destination’s images would help tourists to give them a feel of the place they want to visit, something very important here since what matters is the affect to have a consumer book your resort.
That is why you have to have pictures showing the best part of either your hotel or the land nearby. It will have an even stronger impact on the Chinese clientele since they enjoy multimedia content very much.
Press Relations
Press Relations are based on contents, pictures and comments about your hotel and would help to gain more customers. Doing Online PR allows you to receive a much welcomed expert support in a market with the most distrustful customers, Chinese people. Indeed, for your brand to be acknowledged as a good brand, one of the many strategies is to have content about your hotel published in online newspapers. This will make you benefit from their already established readers community and reputation. Online PR is particularly effective in China since it is twice as effective as traditional PR. A great tool indeed for hotels wishing to attract outbound Chinese tourists
Product Placement
Create an advert for mass media like TV or film it is a good way to increase the brand’s presence
Further reading
How to attract Chinese tourists using digital marketing?
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