WeChat helps overseas businesses capture fast-growing opportunities with outbound Chinese travellers

Lionel Sim, WeChat Global Marketing (right) and Law Yock Song, Senior Manager, Southern China, Singapore Tourism Board, share with an audience of more than 150 Singapore businesses from the travel sector about how WeChat can facilitate businesses in capturing the thriving opportunities of Chinese tourism through its ecosystem as well as a range of features tailored for outbound Chinese travellers

Partners share successful case studies demonstrating WeChat’s effectiveness in better connecting with Chinese tourists and its capability to provide support in formulating in-market solutions and reach out to key target audience segments

WeChat, China’s largest mobile social communication platform developed by Tencent, is facilitating overseas businesses in capturing the thriving opportunities of Chinese tourism through its ecosystem as well as a range of features tailored for outbound Chinese travellers.

Recent statistics released by the China National Tourism Administration indicate that Chinese tourists travelled all over the world 131 million times last year, up by 7% from 2016. In line with this, the International Tourism Association shows that Chinese tourists’ overseas spending reached $ 261.1 billion in 2016, increasing 4.5% year-on-year and was ranked first among all tourists globally. These developments present significant opportunities for businesses as well as the global travel industry, with WeChat as an effective platform for tourism boards, local attractions and merchants to address the growth and demands of travellers from China.

To demonstrate WeChat’s effectiveness in better connecting with Chinese tourists and its capability to provide support in formulating in-market solutions and reach out to key target audience segments, a WeChat Workshop was held last week in Singapore together with the Singapore Tourism Board (STB). Selected successful partner case studies were showcased, including Changi Airport, Mastercard, NETS and StarHub, highlighting the WeChat ecosystem and its unique features such as Mini Programs and WeChat Pay.

Donovan Kik, Vice President of Segment and Marketing, StarHub said, “We are pleased to be partners with WeChat, leveraging its popular platform to serve the communication needs of WeChat fans and visitors from China. Through our alliance, which is in its fifth year, StarHub did a few firsts for customers, from launching unlimited WeChat plans and co-branded tourist SIMs to engaging customers over our WeChat Official Account. Customer experience is key and we will continue collaborating with strong partners to make our customers’ stay with us enjoyable.”

Alvin Seck, Head, Merchant Services and Solutions, Network for Electronic Transfers Singapore Ltd. (NETS) stated, “We are pleased to be able to share our expertise with STB’s partners. As Singapore’s largest payments network, NETS’ commitment to our merchants is to provide them with solutions that enable them to do business more efficiently. Our partnership with WeChat allows us to offer merchants in every segment (retail, transportation, supermarkets, convenience stores) the ability to tap into the growing Chinese tourist market more effectively and quickly roll out new payment services for their consumers’ convenience.”

Dominic Koh, Vice President, Consumer Marketing, Asia Pacific, Mastercard said, “Mastercard is honoured to have been a first mover to adopt the Mini Program initiative on WeChat. We are grateful to the WeChat team, who have been fantastic partners and have helped us significantly. WeChat has allowed us to further reach our cardholders and provide them value through a technology platform that is easy to develop, deploy and engage consumers with.”

With around 1.06 billion monthly active users as of Q2 2018, WeChat offers an excellent integrated platform for overseas merchants or service providers to raise brand awareness among Chinese travellers, and helps them deepen their understanding of Chinese tourists and visitors, for them to develop targeted marketing strategies that tap into travellers’ behaviours and preferences.