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Mobile Marketing is Key to Attracting Chinese Visitors
“The use of mobile phones has surpassed the one of PC/tablets and is now the core of e-commerce, and the entire user’s behavior is around mobile phones, at least in China.” —-Kevin Guo, General Manager Strategic Cooperation & Marketing Innovation at Ctrip.
It has been quite clear that mobile marketing is becoming more and more important in attracting Chinese visitors, especially free independent travelers (FITs). When interviewed by Traveldaily.cn recently, Kevin Guo,General Manager Strategic Cooperation & Marketing Innovation at Ctrip, China’s biggest OTA, said, “the use of mobile phones has surpassed the one of PC/tablets and is now the core of e-commerce, and the entire user’s behavior is around mobile phones, at least in China. Over 70% of Ctrip bookings are done by mobile. Convenience is what consumers are always pursuing. Mobile phones are so convenient and we haven’t yet seen a tool that will replace them in the near future.”
To help travel and tourism businesses leverage the advantages of mobile marketing, Ctrip has developed different mobile marketing channels, including:
1) Ctrip WeChat public account, which has 100,000 followers and enjoys an average of 5,000 to 6,000 views for each update;
2) Ctrip Weibo account, which has over 1.32 million followers;
3) WeChat Guide, a new marketing product developed by Ctrip in which travelers who booked airline tickets or hotel rooms on Ctrip are invited to join pre-trip WeChat groups. Ctrip will be able to post concerned promotional messages in these WeChat groups.
4) Ctrip APP, which has an accumulated downloads of 3.0 billion. Ctrip APP ranks 50th among all APPs on Apple Store in China and 3rd in the category of travel and tourism APPs.
Digipanda Marketing is recruiting UK inbound travel and tourism businesses to join the “UK Discount Guide for Summer Season” campaign, to be launched jointly by Digipanda and Ctrip in July and August. The campaign will leverage all the above mentioned mobile marketing tools, and target on Chinese FITs. Interested parties may reach to Digipanda