Curious tourists seek out local tales

CHINESE tourists want to know more about Tasmania’s university, weather, native animals and people, according to online searches they do before travelling to the state.

Digital marketer and Chinese social media expert Benjamin Sun told a packed auditorium at the State Tourism Conference in Launceston yesterday that Chinese people spent at least one to two months researching a trip before committing to travel.

And that’s where WeChat comes in. It’s a social media app taking the Asian continent by storm.

Mr Sun, who has marketing offices in Sydney, Shanghai, Qingdao and Hong Kong, said the free WeChat app was the best marketing tool for tourism operators once they knew how to use it.

“It has created an unprecedented business environment,” he said.

The instant messaging app, with almost one billion users worldwide, is used in every aspect of people’s lives in China.

More than 1.2 million people visited Tasmania on scheduled air and sea services during the year ending December 2016, not including cruise ships.

Free independent travellers represent the biggest opportunity for Tasmanian operators, rather than organised tour groups because their number is growing by more than 20 per cent each year.

“They have more freedom in shopping and they want to have different experiences.”

By using WeChat the operator connects with hundreds of millions of Chinese, 2.5 million Australian Chinese and tens of thousands of international students in Australia.