What Are Chinese Tourists Posting to Social?

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This post comes from our partner KAWO.
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Over 100 million Chinese tourists are expected to go abroad next year, and everyone in the tourism industry is scrambling to attract them. Especially as more companies and services move online, KAWO finds that social networking has become more important as a means for not only booking trips, but also sharing experiences.

This is doubly important as Chinese netizens are more likely to take recommendations from socially-active brands and their friends and families in their social network. Mobile technology has made it easier than ever to instantly share travel experiences

A closer look at social sharing apps’ usage in travel reveal that unsurprisingly, the most popular apps used to share travel updates are China’s leading social media platforms, Sina Weibo and WeChat. Although Sina Weibo’s user base is reported to have dropped this year, it still remains the preferred method of social networking. 91.7% of consumers said they had used Sina Weibo to share their information, while 72.9% used Wechat.

But what are they sharing exactly? The top 5 types of posts are pictures, reflections, location check-ins, comments, and recommendations for places:

Pictures are unsurprising, but feelings status seems a little unusual. A fascinating published dissertation from UC San Diego however, perhaps gives some insight into this phenomenon. It finds that young Chinese netizen use the as a means to navigate modern society and to create emotional connections – using themselves and each other. KAWO’s own experiences back this phenomenon up, compared to the West. Sentimental statuses or statuses with emojis tend to have 1.5x greater engagement than those without.

Make sure you’re part of the conversation with KAWO, a Shanghai-based startup whose technology takes your existing Facebook and Twitter social media content, translates and localizes it before putting it on Chinese social media.

This content is created collaboratively in partnership with our sponsor, KAWO.