Douyin Marketing, The Best Way to Promote Destination Travel

Douyin is the television of Chinese people in 2026. They spend an average of 2 hours a day on it. “What is Douyin? It is the new TV of Chinese People, with an average of 2h per day per user” (Philip Chen, GMA CEO). For travel brands trying to reach Chinese consumers, this is the most important platform to understand.

Douyin Marketing for Travel: Key Insights and Strategies

---

Key Data: Douyin in 2025

• Over 700 million daily active users in China in 2025. Up from 600 million in 2023 (Statista).
• Average daily usage: 52 minutes per user, with some surveys showing much higher figures for heavy users.
• Travel content is one of Douyin’s top performing categories by view count and advertising spend.
• Douyin’s live-stream shopping GMV reached $150 billion in 2023, and travel experiences are a fast-growing product category within it (Jing Daily).

---

10 Key Facts About Douyin

1. Daily Active Users: Over 780 million users in China.2026
2. User Demographics: Primarily Gen Z and millennials (ages 16-35), but growing significantly among older age groups.
3. Video Views: Over 100 billion daily video views across the platform.
4. Engagement: Users spend an average of 52 minutes per day on the app.
5. E-Commerce: Douyin’s live-stream shopping GMV reached $150 billion in 2023. Travel is growing fast within this.
6. Travel Content: Travel is one of the most popular and most watched content categories on the platform.
7. Influencer Impact: Over 60% of users say influencer recommendations factor into purchase and travel decisions.
8. Algorithm: Douyin rewards engaging, high-quality, and trending content. Good organic reach is possible without a large following.
9. Authenticity: Chinese Douyin users prefer content that feels real. Over-produced, advertising-style videos underperform.
10. Mobile-First: Over 90% of users access Douyin on mobile. Everything needs to be designed for vertical viewing.

---

10 Best Practices for Travel Marketers on Douyin

1. Create viral challenges: “Show your best travel shot”, “First time in [destination]”. These generate user-created content you don’t have to produce yourself.
2. Work with KOLs: Travel influencers with relevant audiences. Smaller KOCs (Key Opinion Consumers) often outperform large accounts for trust and conversion.
3. High-quality visuals: Your destination needs to look genuinely good on a phone screen. Drone shots, sunrise clips, local food. Real visual quality matters.
4. Trending music: Using current popular sounds on Douyin increases your clip’s algorithm visibility significantly.
5. Keep it short and direct: 15-30 seconds. Hook in the first 2 seconds or users scroll past.
6. Live streaming: A live session from your destination, lodge, or attraction. Real-time exploration stops people mid-scroll.
7. Hashtag campaigns: Chinese-language hashtags specific to your destination or type of travel (#非洲旅游, #肯尼亚 safari etc.).
8. Interactive features: Polls, Q&A, stickers. Interaction signals boost algorithm visibility.
9. Localized content: Content made specifically for Chinese audiences, not translated from English.
10. Clear call-to-action: “Book Now” with a direct link, or “Save this for your next trip”. Make it obvious what you want them to do.

---

10 Travel Trends on Douyin (2025)

1. Micro-Vacations: Short weekend getaways. Content about quick trips gets huge engagement from urban Chinese users.
2. Eco-Tourism: Sustainable, nature-based destinations perform well with younger audiences.
3. Adventure Travel: Hiking, diving, paragliding. Content showing real physical experiences.
4. Cultural Immersion: Cooking classes, village tours, craft workshops. Authentic local experiences.
5. Luxury Travel: High-end lodges, private tours, exclusive experiences. This segment spends more per trip and produces more content.
6. Social Media-Driven Destinations: Places that look stunning in short video drive disproportionate search interest. Some destinations owe their entire Chinese tourism growth to a single viral Douyin clip.
7. Health and Wellness: Spa retreats, thermal springs, yoga destinations.
8. Family Travel: Multi-generational trips on the rise as Chinese grandparents travel more.
9. Digital Nomadism: Slow travel, work-from-anywhere destinations. Growing segment.
10. Personalized Travel: Custom itineraries and private tours. Content showing unique, off-the-beaten-path experiences outperforms generic tourism shots.

---

Best Practices for Tourism Marketers in China (2025)

1. Work with Douyin’s algorithm: Post consistently, use trending sounds, reply to comments. The algorithm rewards regular activity.
2. KOL and KOC partnerships: KOLs for reach, KOCs for trust. Both have their role depending on your objective.
3. Visual storytelling: Short clips that tell a story perform better than standalone product shots.
4. Show real experiences: Eco-tourism, adventure, cultural immersion. These categories perform well right now.
5. Live streaming: Especially effective for luxury destinations where showing the real product is the best argument.
6. Viral hashtag campaigns: User-generated content scales your reach without scaling your budget.
7. Localize: Not just language, but context, references, music, and cultural touchpoints.
8. E-commerce integration: Direct booking through Douyin reduces the conversion funnel significantly.
9. Mobile-first design: Vertical video, fast-loading content, clear text in Mandarin.
10. Stay current: What works on Douyin changes fast. Check trending content in your category every week.

---

Introduction to Douyin

Douyin is China’s dominant short-video platform. Over 750 million monthly active users, most of them under 35. For travel brands, it’s the most direct way to reach a young, mobile, and travel-hungry Chinese audience.

Douyin’s focus is entertainment, not lifestyle curation. Anyone can become a content creator. The algorithm surfaces good content to new audiences regardless of follower count, which means a well-produced clip from a small hotel in rural Kenya or a beach resort in Turkey can reach millions of Chinese travelers if it’s good.

Douyin is also an e-commerce platform. Live-stream shopping, direct booking links, flagship store functionality. Brands use it to raise awareness and close sales in one place. Industry projections put Douyin’s user base at 835 million by 2025.

Start with a Certified Douyin Business Account

To run ads, access analytics, and use e-commerce features on Douyin, you need a certified business account. A personal account is not enough for commercial travel marketing.

Who Can Get a Certified Account

Foreign companies, Chinese companies, and Chinese individuals can all apply. Foreign company verification is more demanding and usually requires the help of a certified agency that knows the process.

Requirements for a Foreign Company

• Legal business registration documents from the company’s country of origin
• Trademark registration certificate (Chinese or international)
• Application letter for the account
• Company logo and description

Requirements do change. Always verify with Douyin’s official channels before starting the process.

Steps to Set Up a Douyin Business Account

1. Download the App: From Douyin’s official website or app store.
2. Register: Click the person icon, register with a phone number.
3. Switch to Business Account: Profile > Settings > Switch to Pro Account > Business Account.
4. Submit Verification Documents: Fill in company details, upload required documents.
5. Wait for Approval: Review takes around 5-7 business days. Once approved, all business features are unlocked.

Setting up the account is straightforward. Managing advertising, content strategy, and KOL partnerships on Douyin effectively requires people who know the platform well. Foreign travel brands usually work with a local agency for this.

Why a Verified Account is Worth It

• Access to detailed audience analytics
• Longer video options (beyond 60 seconds)
• Targeted advertising by age, city, interest, travel behavior
• Integrated e-commerce and flagship store functionality
• Verification badge that signals legitimacy to Chinese users
• Access to live streaming with commercial features
• Custom branded stickers and effects

Best Practices for Destination Travel Marketing on Douyin

Content Creation

Video quality matters. A blurry, poorly lit clip will not perform on Douyin regardless of how good your destination is. Show panoramic views, local food, cultural moments, real experiences. Don’t over-produce: authenticity is rewarded.

Use Douyin’s editing tools: quick cuts, filters, music overlays, captions in Mandarin. Experiment and check your analytics to see what resonates with your specific audience.

User-Generated Content

Douyin thrives on real people sharing real experiences. A traveler posting honestly about your safari lodge or mountain resort generates more trust than any branded content you produce. Encourage this with branded hashtags and challenges. Make it easy for visitors to share, and feature their content on your official account when it’s good.

UGC also gives you free content at scale. One challenge or hashtag can produce dozens or hundreds of clips about your destination without any additional budget.

Branding and Storytelling

Tell a story on Douyin, not just a series of pretty shots. The history of a destination, the daily life of locals, a traveler’s first reaction to seeing wildlife up close. Stories stick. Promotional clips don’t.

Consistency is also important. Your tone, visual style, and content themes should be recognizable across posts. Chinese users follow accounts they feel they know, not brands they recognize from ads.

Power of KOLs

KOL marketing is very effective on Douyin. Travel influencers with loyal followers can introduce your destination to an audience that already trusts them. The key is matching the KOL’s audience to your target traveler. A wellness influencer’s followers are not the same as a luxury travel influencer’s followers.

Track every KOL campaign. Views, saves, profile visits, booking inquiries. If it doesn’t convert or build visibility, change approach.

Localized Content Strategy

Content that is clearly created for a Chinese audience will always outperform translated content. This means: Mandarin captions, Chinese cultural references, music trending in China, seasonal content that aligns with Chinese holidays. The Chinese New Year, Golden Week, and May Day are high-travel periods where your content needs to be specifically timed and targeted.

Douyin Campaign Tools

Travel marketers can use several Douyin-specific features:

• Daka (Check-in): Location-based check-ins that build your destination’s discoverability in Douyin’s geo-search.
• KOL and influencer content: Organic and sponsored posts from creators with relevant travel audiences.
• Viral hashtag challenges: User-generated content campaigns around your destination or travel experience.
• Short video series: Multi-episode content building interest over time for a destination or experience.

The Daka feature lets users check in at locations and their followers can see it. This creates a discovery chain: one visitor checks in, their followers see it, search for it, and eventually visit themselves.

Douyin Advertising Options

In-Feed Ads

Appear in users’ content feeds, looking like regular videos. They blend with organic content and can include interactive CTAs: “Book Now”, “Learn More”, “See Packages”. When the creative is good, they get high engagement because users don’t immediately recognize them as ads.

Brand Takeover Ads

Full-screen ads that appear when users open the app. Maximum visibility, premium placement. Good for major announcements, destination launches, or seasonal campaigns. Used by many luxury travel brands for high-impact awareness.

Branded Effect Ads

Custom stickers, filters, and effects that users apply to their own videos. When a user makes a video with your branded effect and shares it, your destination branding reaches their followers organically. Travel brands use this for destinations with strong visual identities.

Creativity drives performance on all Douyin ad formats. The more your ad stands out and prompts interaction, the better it performs. Monitor results, test variations, and optimize based on what your specific audience responds to.

---

GMA Services: Douyin Marketing for Travel Destinations

Douyin: We produce video content for travel brands and destinations, manage Douyin business accounts, run KOL campaigns, and handle paid advertising. Douyin is the platform we know best for travel marketing. Our work has driven measurable awareness and booking increases for lodges, tour operators, and destination boards. See our Douyin marketing services page.

Xiaohongshu (RED): We manage RED accounts and produce research-stage content that Chinese travelers save and act on. RED is the complement to Douyin: discovery happens on Douyin, research happens on RED. More at our RED marketing page.

WeChat: Official accounts, mini-programs, H5 campaigns. WeChat is where you build the relationship and close the booking. Details at our WeChat page.

Want to get started? Visit our services page or contact us directly.

We’ve run campaigns on Douyin for travel destinations across Africa, Europe, and Asia. We know what content formats work, which KOLs convert for different destination types, and how to get a foreign brand’s Douyin account certified and operational. Talk to us about your destination.

---

Oliver is the founder of CTA, based in Shanghai since 2012. He works with tourism boards, destination brands, and travel operators to build their Douyin and Chinese digital marketing presence. April 2026.