With Twitter and Facebook blocked in China, Ctrip, the Shanghai-based online travel agency, is ramping up its social-media efforts as it targets inbound travelers from places like the U.S., the U.K., Singapore and Hong Kong.
The dominant OTA in China, Ctrip will soon launch its first blog, to be called Ctripper, says Coley Dale, Ctrip's business development manager for its English-language website.
The blog launch in a couple of weeks will roughly coincide with a new company slogan, "Your China Your Way."
"China can be a lot of different things to a lot of people," Dale says, adding that the Ctripper blog will feature guest bloggers writing about their impressions of traveling in China.
The blog will be handled by some interns based at the company's headquarters.
Ctrip, which launched its Twitter account "on a whim" in early 2009, has been using Twitter to engage with customers and to promote its Mustache Summer photo contest, says Dale, who works in Shanghai.
Ctrip's Twitter account and Facebook page are handled by one employee in Shanghai and she uses support staff from various departments.
"When you talk to us on Twitter, you are talking to a real Ctrip employee," Dale explains.
For Mustache Summer, Ctrip sends an orange mustache to anyone who gets a ticket delivery or anyone who requests one, and recipients are asked to take a photo of themselves wearing the mustache and to send it to Ctrip.
The entries will be whittled down to 50 and will be displayed on Ctrip, Dale says, with voting to begin in a few weeks. The winner will receive RMB20,000 (around $2928) in travel credits.
"We want our customers to have fun and travel," Dale says.
The tagline for Mustache Summer is "What have you done with our 'stache?"
Ctrip has decided to increase its efforts to attract inbound travelers, who have a different way of doing things than domestic travelers.
While 65% to 70% of customers in China booking over the phone, about 80% to 90% of foreign customers book online, Dale says.
So Ctrip has put a lot of effort into revamping its English language website to increase conversions.
The OTA, for example, relaunched its hotel pages in February, adding user-generated reviews and ratings from Ctrip.com and ChinaTravel.net, a Google Maps locator and red tags to designate low-price deals.
Dale says adding Google Maps and the user reviews is very important in driving conversions.
"You want to see where your meeting is the next day, if it is near to the hotel, especially if you are not familiar with the city," Dale says.
Dale says that Ctrip's biggest challenge outside of China is that people don't know its brand, and using social media and e-marketing are great ways to rectify that.
"We are a big player here and we hear them out," Dale says, referring to social media dialogue with customers.
One thing inbound travelers have to get used to is that they don't need to fill in credit card information when booking a hotel in China through Ctrip, Dale says. Instead, users merely provide their names and cellphone numbers.
If you are not used to that process, "you are probably worried -- is my booking going to be there?" Dale says.
In China, guests pay for the booking at the hotel and Ctrip collects a commission after checkout.
Twitter provides an effective way for Ctrip to explain some of these procedures to customers, Dale says.
With Twitter and Facebook blocked in China, Dale says Ctrip is ahead of a lot of its competitors in its social media efforts, but also is learning as it goes.
"You always hear about social media experts," Dale says. "I think they don't exist -- it is all so new."