How to efficiently promote your hotel to Chinese tourists

Hotels today are competing with one another to meet Chinese tourists’ requirements. As the number of Chinese tourists increases, more and more hotel chains are making an effort to draw in this exclusive customer, which has surpassed the benchmark of 100 million visitors annually.

Shorter visa processing times and a growing middle class in China lead to a sharp surge in outbound Chinese travel.

Ways to adopt to Chinese travelers

Famous hotel chains like Hilton and Marriott have created Chinese welcome programs to minimize cultural gaps. These hotel chains have staff members that understand Mandarin and even cater hot tea in the rooms. The hotel staff is also aware of Chinese cultural norms. For instance, the sound of the number four in Mandarin is comparable to the word for death, hence no Chinese people should be allowed on the floor or in room number four.

Additionally, well-adopted hotels serve several Chinese breakfasts based on the visitor’s location. For example, among the various items offered for breakfast Marriott also serves salted duck eggs and dim sum.

Major hotel chains are in fact educating their staff members to avoid cultural blunders that can insult Chinese visitors.

When choosing a hotel, Chinese travelers have certain criteria. They are conducting extensive web research to identify those that may satisfy their needs. Additionally, they place a lot of weight on the advice of their friends and relatives. As you may see, the significance of an effective web marketing plan is clear to observe: If you are a 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?

Sources:

• Forbes
• All  you need to know about chinese tourist trends.