How to Promote Your Hotel to Chinese Tourists?

Chinese tourists are back to international travel. Are you ready to catch them?

In 2025, more than 130 million Chinese travelers went abroad, with full recovery to pre-pandemic levels confirmed across most markets. The numbers from UNWTO are clear: Chinese tourists spent over $277 billion on outbound travel globally, which is nearly double what US travelers spend. The market is real, it’s big, and most of those travelers are actively looking for places to stay. One in three Chinese outbound travelers books a 4-star hotel. One in ten books a 5-star property. The question is not whether this market matters. The question is whether your hotel shows up when they search.

According to Xinhua’s 2025 Tourism Data, Chinese outbound trips grew 22% year-on-year in 2025, with Europe, Southeast Asia and Japan leading destinations. The recovery is not a blip. It’s sustained growth and it’s accelerating.

Understanding Chinese tourists

Who they are and what they want

Chinese tourists present a broad demographic: young solo travelers, families, and older generations. A growing segment is the affluent middle class, who want unique and high-quality experiences. Millennials and Gen Z travelers are digitally active and look for destinations that are both photogenic and culturally rich. They plan everything on their phones, research on Xiaohongshu, book on Ctrip, and share the whole trip on Douyin. If your property doesn’t look good on those platforms, it doesn’t exist for this audience.

Cultural expectations you cannot ignore

Language is a primary consideration. Many Chinese tourists appreciate Mandarin-speaking staff, or at a minimum signage and key materials in Mandarin. They also expect Chinese food options or at least familiarity with Chinese dietary preferences. Payment is critical: if you dont accept WeChat Pay or Alipay, you’re creating friction that will cost you bookings. Know the major Chinese holidays: Chinese New Year and Golden Week (October) are peak booking periods and require specific promotions and availability planning.

Practical tips to promote your hotel to Chinese travelers

Adapt your offer to Chinese clients

Chinese travelers choose hotels based on their own research, recommendations from their social network, promotions, and what they find online. Safety is a priority, especially for first-time international travelers. Make it clear your property is in a safe area. Transportation convenience matters too. A hotel that offers shuttle services or clear public transport directions in Chinese will convert better than one that doesn’t bother.

Here are four quick wins for hotels trying to reconnect with Chinese guests:

1. Make sure your Mandarin website works properly and loads fast in China (host it on a Chinese server or use a CDN).
2. Check your Ctrip and Qunar listings and run targeted promotions for key holiday periods.
3. Offer discounts on your WeChat and RED accounts for existing subscribers and their referrals.
4. Build a program to re-engage past Chinese guests with a direct offer.

Price and discounts

Chinese travelers are price-aware even when they’re spending a lot. They’ll compare two hotels with similar quality and choose the cheaper one. This doesn’t mean you need to discount aggressively. It means you need to be visible on the right platforms and offer clear, competitive pricing with no hidden fees. Chinese travelers hate surprises at checkout.

Have a website in Chinese

Having a website in Chinese is the first step to being visible in the Chinese market. Most Chinese travelers cannot read English. Translate your key content, make sure it loads in China and host it properly so Baidu can index it. This is basic. If you’re working with a China digital marketing agency, they should handle this as a starting point, not an afterthought.

Partner with Chinese travel agencies

A large number of Chinese still travel in groups, especially older travelers and families. Reasons include language barriers, visa complexity, price (group travel is cheaper) and cultural habit. Connecting with Chinese travel agencies that sell group packages to your destination is a valid distribution channel. It requires some effort to find the right contacts but the volume can be significant.

Chinese social media: your main visibility channel

Xiaohongshu is where Chinese travelers go to discover new properties. Douyin is where they get a feel for the experience before booking. WeChat is where they communicate and where you can build direct relationships. Being active on all three is not optional if you’re serious about the Chinese market. Our Xiaohongshu marketing service is built specifically for hotels and hospitality brands targeting Chinese travelers.

What Chinese travelers check	How your hotel should respond
Safety of the destination	Mention it explicitly on your Ctrip listing and website
Price vs. competitors	Competitive OTA pricing, clear inclusions, no surprises
Mandarin language support	Chinese website, Chinese-speaking staff or hotline
Mobile payment options	WeChat Pay and Alipay at minimum
Social media presence	Active RED and Douyin accounts with real content
Transport convenience	Shuttle service or detailed Chinese transport guide

How GMA Helps You Reach Chinese Consumers

Douyin (TikTok China): We create video content for hotels that shows the real experience: the rooms, the food, the location, the atmosphere. We work with travel KOLs to distribute it at scale and run paid campaigns to reach travelers planning trips to your destination. Douyin is how Chinese travelers feel out a property before they click “book.”

Xiaohongshu (RED): We manage your RED Official Account, run KOC seeding programs and produce lifestyle content that gets saves and shares. RED is the first place most Chinese travelers look when they want to know “is this hotel worth it?” We make sure your answer is yes, backed by real guest content.

WeChat: We build and manage Official Accounts, set up WeChat Pay for direct bookings, create mini-programs for loyalty and repeat visits, and run CRM campaigns that keep your past guests engaged. WeChat is where the long-term relationship lives.

See all our China digital marketing services

Olivier Verot is the founder of GMA, a digital marketing agency based in Shanghai. He has been working in China since 2008 and has helped hundreds of Western brands grow their presence on Douyin, WeChat and Xiaohongshu. He writes what he observes, not what looks good in a PowerPoint.