Chinese tourists are increasingly venturing beyond Berlin’s cultural attractions

Focus on what is new and provide travelers with good reasons to spend more time at your destination. Chinese tourists are increasingly drawn to enjoying local experiences when traveling abroad. Berlinische Galerie, Berlin’s Museum of Modern Art, is tapping into this desire by offering Chinese visitors exclusive 90-minute guided tours and workshops in Mandarin.

Visit Berlin

Berlin was one of many cities that benefited from the EU-China Tourism Year 2018. The city has used its $1.1 billion cultural budget to push into the Chinese market. With a thriving art scene, three world-class opera houses, over 1500 theatres, and more than 175 museums, the stature of Berlin as a European cultural hub, the German capital continue to rank among Europe’s top three destinations, thus grow in popularity with Chinese travelers.

Berlin’s official Tourism is using Chinese social media channels WeChat and Weibo, to connect with Chinese travelers. The DDR Museum in Berlin has a Chinese-language website and promotes itself across Chinese travel websites such as Mafengwo, Qiongyou, and Ctrip. Language factor is key for businesses and cultural institutions seeking to attract and retain Chinese visitors.

Weibo has long stood as an important platform for Chinese millennials to plan trips

Weibo’s ease of multimedia sharing, live-streaming, and community building makes it a go-to source for trip planning. with 465 million monthly active users, Sina Weibo (China’s Twitter) has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years by becoming the go-to destination for news and entertainment.

Weibo has evolved in the behavior of its users. The staple of any good social media strategy should be to highlight new activities, restaurants, hotels, parks. In terms of Weibo strategy, the key is to ensure each post contains a keyword feature hashtags This means the posts will appear on the Weibo feeds of the Chinese travelers as they research the keyword. Weibo allows users to search for trending hashtags and discover user-generated content.

Tap into KOLs: KOLs prefer the weibo platform to WeChat. Travel agencies should make KOL engagement a strategic focus for attracting the Chinese FITs that follow them. Choose the right KOLs with good areas of interest/expertise.

Harness User-Generated Content: KOL content helps to develop a brand, user-generated content is equally key as Weibo users are more likely to trust content created by individuals. Important actions include reposting user content, asking and answering questions, and creating genuine dialogues. Good topics are a hashtag and a community on Weibo that integrates fans and related content on a customizable landing page.

Alipay in Europe

69 percent of Chinese travelers used their mobile phones to make payments during overseas trips in 2018. According to the report, mobile payments accounted for 32 percent of transactions made by tourists abroad. Alipay integration gives Chinese shoppers a more comfortable experience at the checkout counter.

Alipay is expanding the ways in which it helps Chinese outbound travel. With over 900 million users, it is increasingly important for merchants hoping to cater to Chinese tourists to introduce payment services such as Alipay. The digital payment giant recently rolled out two major new initiatives in cooperation with its European partners so as to give Chinese travelers peace of mind and curb the need to withdraw piles of cash.