Talking with international hoteliers during the recent ATM Dubai show,Dida’s CEO Rikin Wu drew special attention to the trend that “Chinese travelerdemand and the distribution landscape have pivoted significantly since before thepandemic”.
As a company founded and headquartered in China, Dida is intimatelyfamiliar with the Chinese distribution landscape and Wu went on to caution thathoteliers must “adapt to the new Chinese market needs or miss out on theworld’s biggest outbound market”.
This is because in recent years, the Chinese tourism industry hasundergone profound transformations driven by the explosive growth of Chinesesocial media and shifting consumption patterns among younger generations. Emergingtravel trends like “reverse tourism” (eschewing popular destinations forlesser-known locales) and “marathon-style check-ins” (rapid, densely packeditineraries) have gone viral on platforms like Douyin (TikTok’s Chinesecounterpart) and Xiaohongshu (Red Note), reshaping how Chinese travelersexplore the world.
Against this backdrop, global hoteliers face a critical question: how canthey capture opportunities in China’s dynamic, fast-evolving market? Explainingthis new era of Chinese outbound tourism the team at Dida have been drawing hoteliers’attention to three important factors:
1. B2B competition: from‘middlemen’ to ‘direct connections’
The traditional advantage of travel agencies — leveraging informationasymmetry — is fading. Customized and independent travelers now connectdirectly with brands via social media. While China’s outbound travel demandsurged 60% year-over-year in 2024, traffic sources have shifted fromtraditional channels to content platforms like Douyin (TikTok ChineseVersion) and Xiaohongshu (Rednote). For example, a Shanghai-basedtravel agency saw a 170% month-on-month increase in brand searches and a92% boost in customer acquisition after running targeted Xiaohongshucampaigns.
2. Hotel competition movesupstream: from ‘price wars” to “emotional battles”
At the discovery stage of the travel planning lifecycle the market isprogressively observing a shift away from hotel marketing via search enginesand OTA listings to the ‘content seeding stage’ of consumerdecision-making. Hashtags like #Citywalk and #ReverseTourism havegarnered over 100 billion views on Douyin and Xiaohongshu, with usersincreasingly swayed by influencer travel vlogs and brand storytelling.According to Dida, 74.3% of travelers rely on short videos for travel inspirationand discovery, and 53% are engaged by what social media influencers postonline.
“Brands now use authentic, relatable content to break through on socialmedia and funnel traffic into private communities for exclusive offers andtravel itinerary planning” said Xu Langui, Dida’s Regional Head for China.
3. Consumption drivers:From ‘functional needs’ to ‘emotional value’
In terms of travel discovery via social media, younger Chinese travelers areincreasingly no longer settling for ‘comfortable stays’ but rather seeking outthe latest, most novel trends or searching for more unusual ‘off-the-beatentrack’ destinations. During the 2024 Lunar New Year, bookings surged for tripsto chase the Northern Lights or explore niche cities. “Emotional value hasbecome the core driver of consumption. Users prefer brands that resonate withtheir aspirations,” noted Langui.
Dida’s solution: High-Value Chinese market reach via digital marketing + localization
To navigate China’s complex market, Dida offers two main services to helphoteliers globally reach travelers from the world’s biggest source market:
1. Deep ClientInsights: With over a decade of localization expertise, Dida covers 70% ofChina’s outbound travel buyers through regional teams in North, East,South, and Southwest China. In 2024 alone, Dida conducted 12,000+ clientvisits and deep-dived into 1,000+ top accounts.
2. Integrated marketing & sales model: Going frombrand awareness to conversion: Under traditional distribution models,hotel groups face a "brand-performance disconnect" - marketing teamschase visibility metrics while sales departments prioritize conversions, often drivingrising customer acquisition costs. Dida’s approach unifies these siloedobjectives under a single goal: market share expansion.
An example of thisapproach is Dida’s successful collaboration with ONYX Hospitality Group, a leading hotelmanagement company in Southeast Asia. Ms. Jihai Kim, Vice President GlobalSales at ONYX commented:
"The rapid evolution of the Chinese market and the shift in consumerdecision-making logic have posed unprecedented challenges for internationalhotel brands. Our partnership with Dida has unlocked a new pathway to preciselyreach the Chinese market.
Through Dida’s ‘integrated marketing-sales strategy,’ we’ve achieved aclosed-loop transition from brand exposure to sales conversion. Sincecollaborating with Dida, our market share in China has grown year over year,fully demonstrating the synergistic effects of Dida’s localized operations anddigital marketing. Moving forward, we look forward to deepening data-drivenrefined operations with Dida, particularly in tapping incremental opportunitieswithin niche markets, to continuously strengthen our brand’s competitiveness inChina.”
Summarizingthe importance of such massive shifts in consumer behaviour and thedistribution landscape, Rikin Wu highlighted that “there are 1.4 billionsocial media users and there’s a whole range of platforms they are on, but youmust unify this scattered digital traffic landscape into a cohesive strategy –those that do this, telling stories that appeal to Chinese cultural needs andviews, will be the real winners over the next few years, whilst those thatdon’t may very likely miss out”.
