Asia-Pacific and Australasia dominate Dragon Trail Interactive’s quarterly WeChat travel update, with strong performances from Canada, Edinburgh and Paris dotted across the six categories analysed.

WeChat now has more than one billion users as of this May, the vast majority of whom are in China.  In this context, the figures show that the reach of the travel industry within the platform is modest, to say the least.

Dragon Trail notes that “in general, reading rates on WeChat are down as the platform becomes more crowded, and users look for more interactive experiences through mini-programs.”

The stats refer to posts written in simplified Chinese and are ranked according to the total views. It also provides an average view per post figure.

Attractions

This is a new category for the Q2 update, and shows that Disneyland and Ocean Park in Hong Kong are getting the most views, which reflects that destinations close to China still dominate Chinese outbound trends.

But further afield, Paris has three attractions in the top ten – The Palace of Versailles, the Louvre and the Museum D’Orsay. However, the volumes are low and Dragon Trail acknowledges that:

This is the category with the lowest engagement on WeChat, with most museum posts struggling to break 1,000 views. Museums are certainly gaining in popularity with Chinese tourists, but it seems there’s still a way to go – or perhaps better opportunities for museums to engage with visitors in-destination, through Chinese-language apps or mini-programs.

Destinations

Dragon Trail makes a distinction between national tourism offices (NTOs) and destination marketing companies (DMOs) in its research, with Canada doing well in both categories. In the NTO chart, Destination Canada has a higher average view per post than Thailand and Australia. DMOs representing British Columbia, Vancouver and Ontario perform strongly, with average views per post of around 3400, 4000 and 4000 respectively.

Vancouver’s post on cherry blossoms picked up more than 16,000 views and was the second-most popular DMO article of the quarter. The top slot when measured in terms of views went to Edinburgh, which got more than 21,000 views of its “secret movie-filming locations” post.

Themes

The success of Vancouver’s post about cherry blossom and Edinburgh’s about movie locations aligns with two of the themes which Dragon Trail identifies as resonating with WeChat users – flowers and celebrities.

Posts which also include family and food work for travel companies. Food imagery worked well across all categories, while the interest in families was picked up by cruise lines.

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