Chinese tourists plan their photo stops before they book their hotels. This is not an exaggeration. The term is 打卡 (daka), which literally means “to punch in” or “to check in,” and it describes the act of visiting a specific location to take a specific photo. A destination without strong photo content on RED or Douyin does not exist in the planning phase for a large part of the Chinese travel market. According to a 2024 study by the China Tourism Academy, 68% of Chinese outbound travelers said a destination’s presence on Chinese social media influenced where they decided to go.

What 打卡 culture actually means for your property

Daka is not about vanity. It is social proof, personal narrative, and group identity all at once. When a Chinese traveler posts a daka photo, they are telling their social network: I was here, I experienced this, here is the proof. Properties that appear in many daka posts develop a reputation. Properties that don’t appear don’t exist in the conversation.

This creates a concrete opportunity for tourism businesses. If you identify the 3 to 5 most photogenic spots at your property and position them with the right visual framing, lighting context, and signage, you become part of the Chinese travel photo culture without any paid marketing. Guests who visit those spots will post. Posts generate reach. Reach generates more visitors who want to recreate the same photos. The cycle feeds itself.

Read how we integrate daka strategy into broader Chinese social media setups on our Xiaohongshu marketing page.

Designing for the photo moment

This sounds like it should be obvious, but most properties have no designated photo spots. There is no thought given to where a guest with a phone stands to get the best shot of the view, the pool, the lobby, or the food presentation. Chinese travelers will find these spots themselves if they are good enough, but you can accelerate the process significantly by designing for it intentionally.

A few practical things that drive daka behavior: a framed view through an arch or window, a spot where the background lines up correctly for a portrait, a food presentation that looks distinctive and specific to your place, a signage element with your property name that reads clearly in a photo (Chinese characters help enormously here), or a seasonal installation that is only available at certain times. None of these require major renovation. They require intention.

Some properties go further and create a “photo guide” in Chinese that they share on RED before guests arrive. The guide shows the 5 best photo spots, the best time of day for light at each one, and how to frame the shot. Guests arrive knowing where to go. They post. The brand account reposts with credit. Each cycle builds more content and more social proof.

From the field: a Tuscany farmhouse

A small farmhouse in Tuscany with a vineyard hired us partly because they couldn’t understand why a larger hotel 10 km away was generating so much Chinese social media traffic despite similar facilities. When we audited the competitor’s RED presence, the answer was clear: the competitor had one post from a Chinese travel blogger 18 months earlier that showed a specific photo spot, a vine-covered stone arch at sunset with the Tuscan hills behind it. That single image had been saved 1,800 times and replicated by dozens of subsequent guests.

We went to the farmhouse and identified 4 natural daka spots: the morning terrace with vineyard view, the stone doorway entrance, the wine tasting setup on an old wooden table, and a small hillside path with cypress trees. We photographed each one at the correct time of day and published a RED guide titled: “The 4 photo spots at this Tuscany farmhouse that everyone is missing.” Within 3 months, all four spots had been recreated by real guests and posted on RED. The account gained 900 followers from organic content alone. No paid promotion.

Using your own channels to seed daka culture

The most direct way to start this cycle is to produce the first daka content yourself. Post your own “photo spots” guide on RED. Show each location with a real photo taken there. Use search-friendly titles like “Tuscany farmhouse photo guide” or “Best photo spots in [destination name] for Chinese travelers.” These posts get saved and shared at a high rate because they are genuinely useful to someone planning a visit.

Then encourage guests to share their photos by making the experience easy. A small card at check-in with your RED account handle and a prompt to post their favorite photo works better than a digital request form. Personal, simple, low friction. Repost guest content with explicit credit. Build a content archive of guest daka moments. This becomes your social proof library and your most convincing content asset. Our Douyin marketing guide also covers how to adapt this approach for short video formats.

What we got wrong at first

We used to present daka strategy as a paid content play: hire a Chinese photographer, produce the daka posts yourself, push with paid promotion. It works, but the cost is high and the results feel slightly artificial to RED users who can tell the difference between a polished brand post and a genuine traveler recommendation. The real power is in seeding the behavior among actual guests. Organic guest posts carry 5 to 10 times more credibility than brand-produced content on RED. We shifted the approach to focus on guest enablement first and brand content second. Results improved and costs dropped.

Summary table

Tactic	Cost	Effort	Impact on Chinese bookings
Identify and optimize 3 to 5 daka spots	Low (staff time only)	Low to moderate	High if spots are distinctive
Publish Chinese photo guide on RED	Low (copywriting)	Moderate	High (gets saved, drives search)
Add Chinese property name signage	Low to moderate	Low	Moderate (visibility in posts)
Repost guest content with credit	Zero	Low (15 min per week)	High (social proof cycle)
Seasonal photo installation	Moderate	Moderate	Very high if timing is right

Start building your daka presence

If you want to understand how to position your property for Chinese travel photography culture, contact our team here. We can assess your property’s visual potential and build a RED content strategy around it. You can also see how daka strategy fits into our broader offering on the services page.

Alex is a project manager at Chinese Tourist Agency, based in Shanghai. She has helped tourism properties across Europe and Africa build organic Chinese social media presence through guest photo culture and RED strategy.