Following China’s full reopening, the tourism industry is recovering rapidly. Micro-vacations and inter-provincial tourism continue to be popular among Chinese consumers who love to travel.
A recently released report about Douyin shows that the platform that is the mainland Chinese version of TikTok had over 400 million users watching tourism-related videos in the first quarter of 2023, and travel-related content creators was the second largest group among content creators of all other industries on the platform.
Females are the main driving force behind tourism content growth
The report, released by Douyin-owned marketing service platform Ocean Engine, shows that the number of new accounts registered by travel companies from various verticals, from attractions to hotels and alternative accommodations, airlines and online travel agencies, had increased by 20% on average by the end of March 2023, with the highest increase in the category of hotels and alternative accommodations (64.5%), followed by ticket agencies (46%) and tourist attractions (35.5%).
The popular content sharing platform also attracted 13% more users interested in tourism, pushing the user number to above 400 million in the first quarter.
Females comprised 55% of the users, while the age group of 31 and 40 was the largest, accounting for 27%, followed by the 41-50 age group(26%).
As China’s outbound tourism market was showing signs of recovery following the relaxation of outbound travel policies, Douyin saw an average of more than 16% increase in the number of content creators, views, likes, comments and reposts related to outbound tourism in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the previous quarter. The number of outbound travel posts and people who posted increased by 13.2% and 34.9% respectively, and the trend is expected to continue, spurring new highs in the second half of the year.
Q1 hotel bookings on Douyin exceeded 100,000
As of March 31 this year, the number of travel content creators with over 10,000 followers on Douyin exceeded 38,000, up by 30% year-on-year. Among the creators, the number of those who focused on global travel grew at the fastest rate of 93.5%, followed by travel professionals (46.9%) and self-driving travel (44.8%).
According to the report, travel content creators posted a total of 1.75 million videos in the first quarter, generating 135 billion views and 2.7 billion likes. In terms of sales, travel content creators with 10,000 followers generated over 5.83 million orders in the first quarter, an increase of 56.6% year on year.
In the first quarter of 2023, travel content creators with 10,000 or more followers on Douyin actively shared their travel experiences via live broadcasts. The number of live broadcasts increased by 30.7% year-on-year, and total views went up by 46.4% year-on-year. As users’ decision-making time shortened when viewing the live broadcasts, the number of paid orders increased by 56.6% year-on-year.
In the first quarter, the number of orders for attractions on Douyin exceeded 116,000, and orders for hotels and alternative accommodations exceeded 101,000.
