Douyin Marketing Strategies for Travel Marketers: How to Reach Chinese Outbound Travellers
How does Douyin influence where Chinese travellers go?
Douyin is especially powerful during the discovery stage, where short videos can introduce travellers to destinations, hotels and experiences they were not actively searching for. Research and booking often continue later on Xiaohongshu, WeChat or Chinese OTAs.
What type of travel content works best on Douyin?
Native videos with a strong opening hook, authentic experiences and locally relevant storytelling tend to work better than Western content simply translated into Mandarin. User-generated content, creator partnerships and seasonal travel content can also help build trust and interest.
Do different Chinese traveller groups respond to different content?
Yes. Gen Z travellers tend to respond to spontaneous and shareable experiences, families place greater emphasis on safety and child-friendly facilities, while older travellers often value comfort, cultural depth and practical information.
Can Douyin views actually turn into travel bookings?
Yes, but the booking may happen somewhere else. A traveller can discover a destination on Douyin, research it on Xiaohongshu and eventually book through WeChat, Ctrip or another OTA, so Douyin should be treated as part of a wider customer journey.
Douyin marketing strategies for travel marketers work best when you treat the platform as the start of a journey, not the whole journey. Here are key takeaways to get started:
- Douyin often sparks the initial desire to travel among one of China's largest short-video audiences, but Xiaohongshu, WeChat and OTAs such as Ctrip carry travellers through research and booking.
- Traveller segments behave differently: Gen Z wants spontaneous, shareable experiences, families prioritise safety and education, and travellers aged 50 and above are one of the fastest-growing outbound groups.
- Native, localised content consistently outperforms translated content, and creator selection should follow audience fit rather than follower count.
- Chinese Advertising Law bans superlative claims, and the Chinese Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) governs any traveller data you collect through mini-programmes or bookings.
- Create meaningful destination brand experiences across the full journey: awareness on Douyin, research on Xiaohongshu, and bookings through WeChat or an OTA.
If you market a destination, hotel, airline or tour brand to Chinese travellers, Douyin marketing strategies for travel marketers can no longer sit at the edge of your China plan.
Chinese outbound tourism spending climbed 30% to USD 251 billion in 2024, according to UN Tourism, and a growing share of that demand now starts with a short video rather than a brochure or a travel agent, exactly the shift Red Ant Asia has spent years helping travel and hospitality brands navigate.
Douyin is ByteDance's short-video and livestreaming app for mainland China and if you are new to it we recommend our blog post on this topic: What is Douyin, or Master Douyin Marketing, our more guide for experienced marketers In a nutshell, Douyin is China’s most popular short-form content sharing channel. It shares a parent company with TikTok, but runs on a different platform, with a different algorithm.
As travel is a visual, emotional experience, well-crafted video content is poised to perform well on Douyin. A video can show the view from a hotel room, the walk to the beach, or a traveller's reaction on arrival in a way a static photo or price list cannot, which is why China travel marketing on Douyin has become central to how destinations build early-stage demand.
A common mistake is expecting one video to carry a traveller from total unfamiliarity to a completed booking. Chinese travellers rarely move in a straight line: a traveller in Shanghai might spot your destination on Douyin, search for it on Xiaohongshu (more about our Xiaohongshu Marketing Services), compare hotels on an OTA, and book through WeChat, all before she speaks to anyone on your team.
Douyin tends to do its best work at the top of that journey:
- It creates desire. Douyin's algorithm can introduce a destination to someone who was not searching for it, based on their broader interests, such as food, football, or wellness.
- It builds emotional connection. Short, personal videos of real trips feel more trustworthy than polished adverts, and Chinese audiences respond to that authenticity.
- It rarely closes the sale on its own. Once someone is interested, they typically move to Xiaohongshu (related reading: Douyin vs Xiaohongshu) for detailed reviews and itinerary ideas, then to WeChat (WeChat Marketing Services) or an OTA to book.
A Douyin strategy that ignores the rest of this ecosystem tends to generate views without generating bookings.
Not every Chinese traveller uses Douyin the same way, and treating them as one audience is one of the fastest ways to waste a media budget. The Cross-Border Tourism Consumption Trends Report, jointly published by Mastercard, Trip.com Group and the World Tourism Alliance, breaks outbound behaviour down by generation, and the differences matter for how you brief your content.
Generation Z: Spontaneous and Digitally Driven
Gen Z travellers make quick decisions, value cost-effectiveness, and lean heavily on social platforms and digital tools to build their own itineraries rather than follow a fixed package. They also chase specific moments: Chinese bookings to Japan surged 57% week-on-week during K-pop group SEVENTEEN's Japan tour.
What this means for your content: give this audience a reason to act now, not just a reason to admire the view.
Families: Careful Planners Who Prioritise Safety
Families with children plan further ahead and compare more carefully, looking for safety, educational value and child-friendly hotel facilities.
What this means for your content: show family rooms, guides and facilities honestly rather than describing them in general terms. Many families will pay more for a Chinese-speaking guide.
Travellers Aged 50 and Above: A Fast-Growing Segment
Older Chinese travellers are frequently underestimated on short-video platforms, yet travel bookings from this group rose 34% year-on-year by the end of 2024, outbound travel orders were up more than 60%, and by June 2025 this age group accounted for over 18% of all outbound travel.
What this means for your content: favour comfort, cultural depth and off-peak travel, and answer practical questions about pace, rest and language support.
This is especially true for luxury and premium lifestyle brands, where affluent older travellers and high-spending younger travellers respond to very different creative approaches, a gap covered in more depth in our social media and luxury brands in China guide.
Once you understand your audience, the next question is what to actually put on screen. These content approaches consistently perform well for travel and hospitality brands on Douyin:
- Hashtag challenges and user-generated content. Invite travellers to post their own clips under a branded hashtag: this kind of user-generated content (The importance of user-generated content in China) feels far more trustworthy to Chinese viewers than anything branded, and it scales without you having to film it all yourself.
- Native, localised storytelling rather than translation. A video built for a Western audience and subtitled into Mandarin rarely performs as well as one localised from scratch, since the hook, pacing, music and cultural references all need to change, not just the language.
- KOL and KOC partnerships that match your target audience. Pairing a Key Opinion Leader (KOL) for reach with a Key Opinion Consumer (KOC) (Difference between KOL and KOC explained) for authentic, peer-level trust usually beats one big-name post alone, provided you match creators to genuine audience fit rather than follower count. Watch for inflated follower numbers (How to spot fake influencers) before you commit a budget, and consider a tool such as Kurator™ to help with the matching itself.
- Livestreaming from the destination or property. Douyin's e-commerce and livestreaming ecosystem is enormous. Jing Daily reported Douyin's e-commerce gross merchandise value at roughly 2.7 trillion RMB (around USD 374 billion) in 2023, and travel products are a growing share of that activity. A live tour of a resort, with real questions answered in real time, can do more to convince a buyer than any pre-recorded clip.
- Short, direct clips with a clear hook. You have a couple of seconds before a viewer scrolls past, so open with the moment that matters rather than a logo animation or a slow introduction.
- Seasonal content tied to Chinese holidays. Golden Week, Chinese New Year and other public holidays are peak planning periods, and content published in the run-up should reflect that timing.
- A clear call to action. Whether it is "follow for more", "save this for your next trip" or a direct link to a mini-programme, tell the viewer exactly what to do next.
Taken together, these form a practical starting point for Douyin content ideas for travel brands, whether you are marketing a single hotel or an entire destination.
You need a verified business account to run adverts, access analytics and use e-commerce features on Douyin. A personal account will not give you the tools a commercial travel marketing campaign requires.
Foreign companies can apply, though verification is more involved than it is for domestic Chinese businesses. In general, you should expect to provide:
- Proof of legal business registration in your home country
- Trademark registration documents, where applicable
- A formal application letter along with your company details and logo
Requirements do shift over time, so confirm the current process before you begin. Because setting up and running a Douyin business account for travel companies involves both paperwork and platform know-how, most international brands work with a local agency rather than attempting it alone.
Compliance is one of the most overlooked parts of Douyin advertising for travel brands, and getting it wrong can be expensive.
China's Advertising Law bans superlative and unverifiable claims such as "the best", "number one" or guaranteed results, and this applies fully to travel and hospitality messaging.
In practice: a line such as "the world's best beach resort" is not permitted in Chinese advertising. Reword it around a specific, provable detail instead.
Data protection is the second area to plan for. Any traveller information you collect through a mini-programme, lead form or booking flow falls under China's Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL).
In practice: build data handling into your campaign plan from the start. PIPL governs how personal information is collected, stored and transferred, including transfers outside mainland China, and it is far harder to fix after launch.
Douyin travel marketing strategy works best when a destination pairs strong creative with a genuine understanding of the traveller it is trying to reach, rather than treating the platform as a place to post the same content as everywhere else.
Red Ant Asia has spent years applying that approach for travel and hospitality clients, and our case studies show what that looks like in practice, from luxury hotel groups to fashion and beauty brands entering the Chinese market.
The common thread across successful campaigns is patience paired with structure. A destination that treats Douyin as one stage in a longer journey, backed by consistent, native content and the right creator mix, tends to build lasting demand rather than a short-lived spike in views.
View counts feel satisfying, but they are not a business outcome on their own. Measurement should reflect the stage of the journey a piece of content is actually working on:
Do not judge a campaign only on sales made directly inside Douyin. A traveller might watch your video, search for you on Xiaohongshu, and eventually book through Ctrip or another OTA weeks later, so track branded search and OTA traffic alongside your on-platform numbers.
If creators are part of the mix, track metrics that matter beyond likes and views before you agree reporting terms with an agency or influencer.
A handful of mistakes come up again and again in Douyin travel marketing for hotels, destinations and tour operators:
- Repurposing TikTok content with translated subtitles. The hook, pacing and cultural references usually need to be rebuilt for a Chinese audience, not just the language.
- Publishing one polished film instead of a body of native content. Douyin rewards consistency and testing far more than a single expensive production.
- Chasing views instead of the right audience. A viral clip watched by people with no intention or means to travel is far less valuable than a smaller, well-targeted video.
- Ignoring what happens after the video. If a viewer searches for your brand and finds an empty Xiaohongshu account or an outdated website, the awareness you generated is wasted.
- Measuring only direct, on-platform sales. Many travel decisions take weeks and cross several platforms before booking.
Douyin marketing strategies for travel marketers work when you treat the platform as the opening chapter of a longer Chinese customer journey, not a stand-alone campaign. Get these four things right, and Douyin becomes a genuine driver of bookings rather than a source of views with nothing behind them:
- Segment your traveller audience properly
- Build native content instead of translated content
- Choose creators for fit, not follower count
- Stay on the right side of China's advertising and data rules
At Red Ant Asia we have built this kind of campaign for travel and hospitality brands entering the Chinese market for years, blending platform expertise with the cultural insight that Douyin content genuinely needs to land.
If you would like help building a Douyin strategy for your destination, hotel or travel brand, get in touch with us, we will walk you through what a first campaign could look like.
What are the best Douyin marketing strategies for travel marketers?
The strongest Douyin marketing strategies for travel marketers combine native, localised content with the right mix of KOLs and KOCs, matched to a specific traveller segment rather than a generic audience. Pair that with a clear route from the video into research (usually Xiaohongshu) and booking (usually WeChat or an OTA) so interest has somewhere to go.
How do I market on Douyin for tourism if my brand is completely unknown in China?
Focus on the experience rather than your brand name at first, since an unfamiliar destination has no existing search demand to rely on. Combine a small number of relevant creators with consistent native content, so that when interested viewers do search for you, they find a real body of proof rather than a single post.
How much does Douyin marketing cost for travel brands?
Costs vary widely depending on creator tier, content volume, media spend and campaign length, and there is no single fixed price. As a general guide, a focused first campaign for a hotel, destination or tour operator typically needs enough budget to cover strategy, several rounds of native content, a small creator mix and some paid amplification, rather than a single post from one influencer.
Can a small, independent hotel succeed with Douyin marketing strategies for hotels?
Yes, because Douyin's recommendation system can distribute strong content beyond a brand's existing followers, unlike many follower-led platforms. A small property should focus on its most memorable, visually genuine feature and make sure supporting information is easy to find once a viewer goes looking.
Should tourism boards use Douyin differently from individual hotels or tour operators?
Douyin marketing for tourism boards usually needs to work at a broader, destination level first, building general desire and awareness, before individual hotels, attractions and tour operators layer on more specific, bookable content underneath. The two approaches work best when they are coordinated rather than run in isolation.
Do I need to work with a Douyin marketing agency for travel brands, or can I run this myself?
You can run a basic presence yourself, but verifying a foreign business account, negotiating with creators and staying compliant with Chinese advertising and data rules is genuinely specialist work. Most international travel brands choose to work with an established Douyin marketing agency for travel brands rather than building that expertise from a standing start.
How is live-streaming used in Douyin livestream travel marketing?
Livestreaming lets a host walk viewers through a resort, tour or attraction in real time, answering questions as they come up, which suits products that benefit from explanation. It works best when there is a genuine reason to watch live, such as a limited-time offer, a new route launch, or a live view from the destination itself.
