Exciting times ahead – from May, Air New Zealand is resuming daily direct flights between Shanghai and Auckland, and Air China will fly between Beijing and Auckland seven days a week.  

Historically Aotearoa’s highest-spending visitor market, Chinese travellers have long been intrigued by ‘hallmark’ Kiwi destinations and attractions. They join the approximately 300k Chinese expats who reside in New Zealand and spend big while exploring their new home.

We’ve partnered with Tony Boot of BTM Translation & Marketing to compile some key tactics and tips for tapping into the huge potential of this audience. Knowing the travel research behaviour of Chinese travellers is key and will help guide you to make the right digital marketing choices.

Update your listings with Tourism New Zealand

Add Chinese translations to your product listing to be inclusive and inviting.

Fold new platforms into your digital marketing mix

WeChat is an effective way to get in front of your Chinese customers while they’re still at home, and Little Red Book is growing in popularity. If you’re new to one or both, reach out to Tony for assistance in getting started – he can help with strategies around gaining and building an audience, setting things up properly, and making sure your translated messaging is all on-brand.

Up your Facebook advertising game

We’re seeing more and more flexible itineraries as our Chinese visitors land. They may have been pushed into unknown products while booking at home, and then learn about what’s actually hot and reputable once on Kiwi soil.

This means that tried-and-true Currently Travelling campaigns work well to show off your epic offering. Set up a separate Facebook account in Chinese so that you can run translated ads, rather than having two languages of similar ad types running from the one account, which could confuse domestic audiences.

Boast about your on-site multi-language services!

Do you have bilingual guides on staff? Or perhaps you even use multi-language apps to narrate your tour experience. However you take your Chinese guests’ experience to the next level, shout about it on your website, your social media channels and in your translated ads!