How US hotels are wooing the Chinese tourists

 

Nowadays, China is one of largest world’s markets of outbound tourism and hotels are trying to attract them.

 

China’s outbound traveler numbers are still growing and are supposed to double by 2020 to 234 million Chinese tourists, from more than 100 million last year.

 

The Choice of the hotel depends on a lot of caracteristics

 

 

Before choosing a hotel, chinese tourists deliberate on a lot of things as most of those travellers are going abroad for the first time.

One of their priority is the safety of the place they are going to and the place they are staying in. As every tourist, the prices and the location are also important factors.

Even if some tourists prefer to stay at a Chinese-style hotel when traveling abroad, the most part want a more authentic and local experience ; and few say that eating Chinese food matters to them.

 

But you must ease them their journey

As the Chinese travelers won’t necessarily speak another language Chinese-speaking staff at the front desk or via 24/7 phone support will be easier for them.

In addition, guides, maps and all kinds of information that hotels provide to the tourist must be also in Chinese.

It is important also to allow them payment through Chinese credit cards, therefore hotels must accept payments with UnionPay. 

 

Everything is in the details

 

The best thing to do is to meet the needs of the modern day Chinese traveler, while maintaining the comforts of their home too.

So, the hotels trying to attract Chinese tourists must adapt their services to them. Knowing and understanding their culture is a factor which plays an important role in order to satisfy them.

You need to think about little details, hotels need to make Chinese travelers feel like at home. For example, these details include a Chinese breakfast, some disposable slippers, an electric kettle, as they are usually drinking hot water and tea. Also Chinese-language television or Chinese TV channels in their room are a welcome comfort.

For example the Hotel Hilton offers a program named the Hilton’s Huanying (Mandarin for “welcome”) all over the world and its hotels saw a 12% year-over-year bump of Chinese tourists

 

Understand Chinese culture so important ! 

 

The Chinese have superstitious culture, many of them are tetraphobic (fear of four).

Indeed, it is important to not give to them rooms or floors with number 4 because for Chinese, this number is related to death. It is better to accommodate them in a floor or rooms with the number 8 because is considered a lucky number in China.

For example, many Chinese buildings, offices, hospitals, hotels, apartments and skyscrapers are built without a fourth or fourteenth floor (The Vision City in Hong Kong is missing floors 40 through 49).

The Rio Las Vegas went so far as to skip floors 40 to 49 altogether to put at ease superstitious Chinese gamblers.

Go Online 

Being caring, and attending to the needs of your Chinese guest is not only to satisfy them in the short term, but also to have them publish a good review about your destination and your hotel on the Chinese social network.

Now, more than ever, it is crucial to know how to market your hotel cleverly and effectively to the Chinese tourist to capitalize upon this trend. With e-commerce growing and 60% of people making hotel booking online digital marketing is the key to your success.

Digital is the most important transformation in the tourism industry in China

Most of successfull travel/hotel players already have invest a lot in their traffic acquisition and their reputation to get leads, asking and visibility.

Ctrip, Qunar, elong, Airbnb…

More information on this article. 

 

About Gentlemen Tourism Agency

Contact us if you need a digital agency to market your hotel. We are ROI company (Return on Investment ) at the top edge of the best practices in Tourism in China , and we are friendly, because it is always better to work with nice people. 

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