Is your Brand Ready for the Chinese Golden Week?

While many brands are taking steps to address the tremendous spending power of the Chinese consumers domestically and abroad, the potential of this market is still has much room as the sophistication of the consumers is ever-changing. Furthermore, a large number of these consumers are still un-exposed to overseas traveling as according to Fortune magazine – and there’s huge room for further growth: only about 4% of Chinese citizens hold passports.

From the Marketing Week magazine article on “How brands should target Chinese consumers during Golden Week and Beyond“, some interesting highlights as follow:

Key dates for the calendar are China Single’s Day (11 November) and Golden Week (1-7 October), a week-long holiday established in 1999 by the Chinese government to boost consumer spending.
In 2016 alone an estimated six million overseas trips were booked by Chinese consumers during Golden Week, according to figures by Chinese travel firm Ctrip. A report by Ctrip and the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute also finds the average Chinese tourist spends over 8,000 yuan or £1,020 during their Golden Week trip.
According to survey of 1,000 respondents in mainland China conducted by survey specialist Toluna exclusively for Marketing Week focused on the UK –
- Over half of those questioned (54%) say TV advertising is the most common way Western brands communicate with consumers in China, followed by outdoor marketing (36%) and working with influencers (26%).
- Once in the UK, Western brands are adopting different strategies to communicate with Chinese consumers. Facebook is the most common medium brands employ (76%), followed by Instagram (51%), TV advertising (47%) and outdoor marketing (41%). Twitter (28%) and Snapchat (17%) are, by comparison, far less popular.
Being hyper-social…Having meaningful conversations with Chinese consumers… the key platforms Western brands need to look at are WeChat and Weibo.

Just for this most recent Golden Week in Oct 2017 – from the Straits Times’ “6 Million Chinese Set to Travel Abroad” –

What Chinese tourist want: exotic landscapes,ecotourism, immersive cultural experience. In fact, one in two Chinese is likely to be on the move…Some 650 million Chinese are expected to travel over the Oct 1 to 8 holiday period, Shanghai-based travel agency Ctrip.com International said in a recent report…According to the China National Tourism Administration, the 593 million Chinese who travelled during the Golden Week holiday last year generated 482.2 billion yuan (S$99.6 billion) in revenue across all areas, up 14.4 per cent year-on-year.

TPM was able to support our clients to reach these well heeled and well travel Chinese tourists looking to explore the world. These include Financial Service companies such as MasterCard, China Union Pay and VISA to advertise in the Jakarta Airport reaching inbound and outbound tourists to and from Indonesia.

VISA at the Jakarta Airport 2017 over the Oct Golden Week

The number of Chinese tourists coming to Indonesia is growing as illustrated with the SCMP article – “Charter Flights, Halal Tourism: How Indonesia is Wooing Chinese Tourists from Thailand’s Grasp” –

From 2 million Chinese visitors this year, to five times as many in 2019 of 10 million Chinese… Over a million Chinese tourists visited Indonesia in the first half 2071, according to the tourism ministry. That puts it on track to meet its 2017 target – that Chinese will account for 2 million of the 15 million projected international arrivals.

The Indonesia’s tourism ministry is offering incentives to national airlines to expand their services beyond China’s biggest cities to places such as Xian, Kunming, and Guilin. Also, Indonesia, a partner in China’s Belt and Road infrastructure development initiative to link Eurasia into a China-centred trading network, has also set itself a goal to be the top destination for Chinese Muslim tourists.

Making sure that Chinese tourists are able to spend freely in Indonesia, China Union Pay (CUP) has been making tremendous efforts in key cities such as Jakarta and Bali over the last few years to ensure their merchant network and popularity is high in Indonesia. One of next cities to consider for China Union Pay could be in the Sumatra area where Medan is being heavily promoted for tourism as well as in Palembang where the 2018 Asian Games will also be held!

China Union Pay – A global payment network 2017

Even the Chinese tourism boards are starting to attract Indonesians to travel to China and thanks to payment networks like China Union Pay, this will also ensure Indonesians have a more acceptable way of payment when in China. Where is one of the best places to visit in China? Aside from the Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu bigger cities, some of the specialty cities that advertised in Jakarta this year had been really interesting –

Hainan – beaches, golf, awesome weather and duty-free shopping, need I say more?!
Yiwu – commodities fair which is the most famous fair after the Canton Fair to attract millions of merchants from Indonesia for B2B marketing

China and Indonesia being the first and fourth most populous countries in the world – when these 2 economies and people come together it is a great combination of talents and goods and services that can flow between them. With the Asian Games in 2018 taking place Indonesia – Jakarta and Palembang, we foresee more international attention and regional cities rising up to promote each other’s branding via the Indonesia airport advertising.