In the first few years following the December 2007 Memorandum of Understanding between China and the U.S. that authorized the marketing and promotion of Visit USA leisure travel in the country, the phrase “China Ready” meant that U.S. hotels and travel suppliers should furnish their guests with in-room tea kettles and slippers; provide Chinese language menus and brochures and have Mandarin-speaking staff and tour guides.
Clearly, the tour and travel industry has upgraded (or should have upgraded) to “China Ready 2.0,” which integrates the earlier features with readily available and free Wi-Fi everywhere and platforms for digital devices and apps that accommodate the 659 million Chinese consumers who rely on their smartphones to use WeChat in order to conduct all of their travel-related conversations, exchange messages and photos, conduct research and make and pay for their bookings. This is what Brian Chuan, the newly minted director of travel trade development at South Coast Plaza in Newport Beach, California—he joined recently from Macy’s—made clear to delegates at NAJ’s recent RTO Summit in Marina del Rey, California.
In keeping with the spirit of Digital Day—the first day of the RTO Summit dedicated to familiarizing international tour and travel professionals with digital techniques and applications—Chuan focused on the importance of WeChat as an international marketing tool that will help enable (or enhance the ability of) U.S. travel suppliers to penetrate the Chinese market. While there is an international version of WeChat, that version does not have the numbers or in-country possibilities that a Chinese hosted account does.
From Chuan’s notes …
WeChat is:
—Known as Weixin, the largest messaging app in China
—Developed by Tencent, released in January 2011
—Mobile text and voice messaging communications service
Its key functions are:
-Text
-Voice
-Walkie Talkie
-Stickers
-Others (includes photo, video, coupon, lucky money, GPS location, group chat)
—Public Accounts
—Moments
—Games
—WeChat Payment
—Shake
WeChat by the Numbers
| Category | Number |
|---|---|
| Number of registered WeChat accounts | 1.1 billion (January 2015) |
| How many people use WeChat | 650 million monthly active users (Nov. 2105) |
| Number of WeChat users that access it on smartphone | 639 million (January 2016) |
| Number of people who use WeChat outside China | 100 million (March 2014) |
| Average amount of time Chinese adults spend on WeChat daily | 40 minutes (April 2015) |
| Percentage of WeChat that use it more than 10 times a day | 55.2% (January 2015) |
| Ave. number of times WeChat users visit it daily | 7.8 (September 2015) |
| Percentage of WeChat users that purchase products online | 83% (August 2015) |
| Percentage of population in Tier 1 cities in China that user WeChat | 93% (December 2015) |
| Percentage of population in Tier 2 cities in China that user WeChat | 69% (December 2015) |
| Number of offline stores that accept WeChat payment | 300,000 stores (February 2016) |
| Percentage of WeChat usersmale : female | 64.3% male to 35.7% female (August 2015) |
| Percentage of millennials that use WeChat globally | 60% (February 2015) |
| Percentage of WeChat users that are between the ages of 18-36 | 886.2% (January 2015) |
| Source: South Coast Plaza | |
Comparison Monthly Active Users of Selected Sites
| Site | Monthly Active Users |
|---|---|
| 1.55 billion | |
| 900 million | |
| 860 million | |
| Facebook Messenger | 800 million |
| QZone | 653 million |
| 650 million | |
| Tumblr | 555 million |
| 400 million | |
| 320 million | |
| Baidu Tieba | 300 million |
| Skype | 300 million |
| Viber | 249 million |
| Sina Weibo | 222 million |
| LINE | 212 million |
| Snapchat | 200 million |
| YY | 122 million |
| VKontakte | 100 million |
| 100 million | |
| BBM | 100 million |
| 100 million | |
| Source: Statista 2016 |
How it Can and Will Work in the Future: To illustrate the latest application of WeChat, Chuan played a video explaining how Caesars Entertainment has partnered with WeChat with its “connected room” at its Linq hotel in Las Vegas. Everything from booking the room (from China) to setting the lighting, temperature and coffee timer for the room can be done through the app. There is more, which is explained in the three-minute video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CMDLPKWI1w
