Thailand harnesses power of Baidu to draw Chinese visitors
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The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has formed a new partnership with Baidu, the Chinese internet search giant, in an effort to attract more “quality” visitors from mainland China.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will lead to the publication of information about Thailand’s tourism products and services on Baidu search sites, including both popular tourism destinations and “secondary cities and towns”.
And the TAT will also harness the new Baidu Map, which it says will assist Chinese tourists in Thailand by providing information about the location of tourist attractions, restaurants and other services.
The two parties have “discussed at length” the Baidu Map initiative, and plan to include 17,000 Thai points-of-interest. As part of this, an ‘Amazing Romance in Thailand’ campaign will showcase Thailand’s most romantic sites, including 100 honeymoon places and 100 wedding destinations, while the ‘Women’s Journey’ initiative will focus on the attractions most popular with female travellers.
Thailand welcomed almost eight million Chinese visitors last year, but the TAT said the new tie-up forms part of its efforts to attract more upmarket and longer-staying Chinese visitors.
“TAT aims to restructure the market by expanding to high-end tourists from various cities of China like Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing and Chengdu,” said TAT governor Yuthasak Supasorn.
“This cooperation will allow TAT to reach this target group directly and rapidly. Through this effort with Baidu, Chinese tourists will have a wealth of information even before their departure and can always find more information upon their arrival in Thailand.”
Baidu’s Chinese search engine generates approximately 10 billion searches per day.
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