The Biggest Insight We Got from 200+ Chinese Tourism Campaigns

We have run over 200 campaigns for tourism clients across 30 countries. Hotels, resorts, lodges, ski areas, urban destinations. Different budgets, different markets, different starting points. One thing we see again and again: the best-performing campaigns all share the same core quality. It has nothing to do with budget.

The insight that changed how we work

The biggest insight from 200+ campaigns: the clients who understand their own product best get the best results. Not the ones with the biggest budget. Not the ones on the most platforms. The ones who can tell us, in one paragraph, why a Chinese traveler should come to them instead of somewhere else.

Chinese travelers, especially the high-value FIT segment that most tourism clients want, are sophisticated. They research on Xiaohongshu for 2 to 4 weeks before booking an international trip. They read reviews, compare photos, look for genuine stories. Generic content does not work on them. “Beautiful views and excellent service” gets scrolled past. A post about the local ingredient your chef sources every morning from a specific market gets saved.

The clients who know their story at that level of specificity get better content. Better content gets better saves. Better saves build better organic reach. Better reach drives bookings. It starts with knowing your product.

What separates top-performing campaigns from average ones

We track performance across our campaigns. Here is what the top third have in common, compared to the bottom third:

• Faster content approval: Top clients approve content within 24 hours. Bottom clients take 5-7 days. The algorithm punishes slow posting.
• Specific product knowledge: Top clients give us stories, details, staff profiles, local suppliers. Bottom clients give us a press kit.
• Clear KPIs from the start: Top clients know what success looks like at month 3. Bottom clients want “more Chinese tourists” with no baseline.
• Trust in the platform mix: Top clients let us run Xiaohongshu for 3 months before asking why it is not converting. Bottom clients cut it after 6 weeks.
• One internal contact: Top clients have a single person who owns the campaign relationship. Bottom clients have 3 people approving content with conflicting opinions.

From the field: a Moroccan riad that taught us the specificity lesson

One of our best-performing campaigns was for a small riad in Fez, 8 rooms, family-owned, no marketing budget before us. The owner sent us a 4-page document about the building. Which century each tile came from. The family who built it in 1640. The specific tea they served every afternoon and where the mint came from. The neighbor who taught the cook how to make pastilla the traditional way.

We built a Xiaohongshu content series around that material. No stock photography. Just the real stories with real details. The third post in the series got 8,200 saves in two weeks. Organic, no paid boost. The riad went from 0 to 23 Chinese bookings in four months, at an average of $280 per night for 3 nights. Their total spend with us: $14,000 over 6 months. Revenue from those Chinese bookings: $57,960. That is a 4.1x return. And it started because the owner knew their product well enough to tell us something specific.

We still talk about that campaign internally as the benchmark. Not for the numbers, but for the lesson: specificity beats everything else.

What we got wrong at first

In the early years, we used to do a lot of the content ideation ourselves. We would arrive at a new client, look at their website, pull some angles, and start posting. It worked sometimes. It failed more than it should have.

We once ran a campaign for a ski resort for three months using generic ski content: powder days, mountain views, equipment shots. All beautiful. None of it specific to that resort. The Xiaohongshu account grew slowly. The saves were low. When we finally sat down with the resort’s team and asked what made them different, they told us about a local ski instructor who had been there for 28 years, a specific off-piste route that was a local secret, and a warming hut that was only accessible on foot and served homemade soup. Three posts about those three things outperformed three months of generic content. We had wasted those three months. The client was right to push back.

Now we run a product discovery session in week two of every campaign. One hour with the client. We ask: what do you know about your property that is not on your website? What do guests mention in reviews that surprises you? What would you show a Chinese guest on day one that no brochure mentions? That hour changes everything.

What our campaign quality process looks like now

1. Product discovery session: Week 2, one hour, client talks, we listen and document
2. Content angle bank: 20 to 30 specific story angles extracted from the session
3. Specificity test: Every post idea gets tested: could this apply to another property? If yes, it is not specific enough
4. Local supplier map: Who does the client buy from, eat with, work with in the local community
5. Staff story shortlist: 3 to 5 people at the property with a genuine story for Chinese audiences
6. Quarterly story refresh: Every 90 days, we run a mini discovery session to find new angles

What the top 10% of campaigns have in common

Factor	Top 10% of campaigns	Bottom 30% of campaigns
Content approval speed	Under 24 hours	5+ days
Product specificity	Deep, unique stories	Generic, website-level
KPI clarity	Set at brief stage	Vague or missing
Platform patience	3+ months before adjusting	Changes after 6 weeks
Internal contact	One named person	3+ approvers
6-month ROI	4-6x	1.5-2.5x

Need help with your China campaign?

If you want to know how your property’s story translates for Chinese travelers, we can help you find it. Start on the contact page or see what a full campaign includes on our services.

About Alex: Project manager at Chinese Tourist Agency, Shanghai. 10 years running digital campaigns for tourism clients. Has seen 200+ briefs. The good ones all start the same way.