Articles tagged “tencent”

As Tongcheng Travel waits for China to relax restrictions and open travel, the online travel company has used the downtime to diversify its user base. Now if only the borders would fully reopen!

Roles are changing fast in the hotel industry. Some are gone, or going, like the chief marketing officer. Others require new skill sets. Even those at the top aren't spared. IHG's latest Asia changes remind us of this.

Chinese travelers are the world's largest outbound travel market. With the launch of Helsinki's WeChat collaboration, it seems the days of asking them to pay cash in a destination are numbered.

It appeared several years ago that Ctrip had locked up the Chinese online travel market when it took control of Qunar and Elong, but that ship has sailed. The emergence of Meituan and now Tongcheng-Elong's initial public offering make it clear that many players will scramble for market leadership.

China’s number one super app, WeChat, has helped its parent company, Tencent, become the most valuable social network company in the world. With this upward momentum, the app shows great potential for travel brands looking to enter the China market, as long as they formulate a thoughtful strategy going in.

WeChat may be key for travel brands and destinations looking to appeal to Chinese outbound travelers. However, brands need to go beyond simply copying and pasting content from western social media to see the kind of payoff they are hoping for.

Ctrip – with the help of some useful allies – continues to dominate China's fast-expanding travel industry. It will be interesting to see whether 2018 brings further expansion into Europe and North America.

Many tourism boards now have entire teams dedicated to China and WeChat. It's a very complex task for foreigners to get the content right, but it appears as though WeChat parent Tencent is trying to make the platform more accessible for tourism boards.

We've yet to see a content-sharing travel app catch on with consumers, no matter how much money has been poured into it.