Chinese traveller profiles - viewed through the lens of social media

Eye-watering stat time - China's tourism revenue has increased by 120% over the past five years and international and domestic tourism revenue is expected to hit around $490 billion in 2013.

GroupM China, a media investment group, and social business intelligence company CIC China conducted a detailed study on the Chinese travel industry by analysing about 30 million items of content related to travel (from sites like Mafengwo.com, Qyer, Flyertea, Ctrip, eLong, Tuniu etc), and about 1.5 million Weibo tweets. The study primarily focused on five types of Chinese travellers: business, package, self-driving, backpackers, and luxury shopping travellers.

Business travellers

Below are the four key airline attributes for business travellers. Top to bottom is in the order of basic needs (must have) to sophisticated needs (nice to have) :

• Flight time
• Ticket price
• Brand reputation
• Loyalty program/membership

The project found complaints from travellers and replies from airlines are the most important content for brand buzz on various social media channels. Interestingly, economic/budget hotels received more buzz than luxury hotels.

In the context of hotels, key attributes for business travellers in the order of must-have to nice-to-have: staff service, facilities, environment and amenities. Business travellers mention these four attributes (in order of low to high) in social media: loyalty program, local information, food and beverage, location of hotel. Learnings:

1. Business travellers value the achievable experience, rather than promising ideas. As a result, brands should take practical communication strategy in a real way, especially avoid exaggerations.
2. As frequent travellers, they leave feedback about hotels and airlines on review sites. They are used to reviewing key attributes which are set by online travel agencies. To improve the sentiment of online feedback, brands should pay more attention to the services related to these key attributes.

Self-driving travellers 

The timing of overseas road trips is directly related to price discounts offered by airlines. Middle-aged people prefer self-driving trips due to the following reasons:

• Making friends
• Freedom
• Family glee
• Enjoy the journey

Learnings:

1. Self-driving travellers are related to explorers/guardians as they keep their mind independent to explore life or they are ready to help others with family responsibilities. So, family gatherings could be a good touch point for self-driving brand marketing.
2. Automobile brands could incorporate travel as a theme in their promotions strategy.
3. As car enthusiasts, the group is interested in the discussion of the car driving joy and maintenance, as well as car rental services.

Package tourists 

Below attributes best describe a package tourist:

• Focus on the services: Travel agency, attraction tickets, tourist guide, one stop services, travel bus, optional expenses
• Lack the travel experience
• Make no detailed plans

In terms of online travel agencies that created buzz among this traveller segment, Ctrip leads the list followed by Tuniu.

Below image shows the destination buzz amongst package tourists. The major push for package travellers is due to the limits around visa policies in various country.

Package tourists are more concerned about the tour cost, safety and having a good experience with their family. Learnings:

1. Package tourist are the ones who enjoy an easy experience yet seek a certain comfort with travel. They are impressionable by the current hot topics on social media. So, travel brands should combine the brand attributes with the current trends in order to deepen the brand impression and broaden brand impact.
2. Since the group lacks travel experience, they value the agency’s reputation and would like to comment about its services.

Backpackers

Culture and natural landscape-focused destinations create the most buzz amongst backpackers.

Backpackers want to experience the local culture, long for freedom, and claim to explore the world and self. Learnings:

1. Backpackers are connected to heroes, outlaw or sage, who explore the life meaning consecutively. They are ready to take actions to prove themselves and break rules to discover the truth. For their inner needs, the self-worth realization and self-belief pursuit should be recommended as the key brand attributes.
2. Their original experience stories became an infectious power on social media to promote the ‘Gap Year’ culture.
3. User-generated content is the most important factor to touch this group of travellers.

NB: China travellers image via Shutterstock.