Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing and China’s internet major Tencent have signed an agreement to help promote the emirate as a destination of choice for Chinese tourists, whose numbers in Dubai surged 41 per cent last year.
“The agreement will result in ecosystem-wide strategies spanning the Tencent network to expand Dubai Tourism’s marketing reach and penetration within China – one of the fastest growing source markets for Dubai,” Dubai Tourism said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Tencent will promote its offerings including WeChat and WeChat Pay as an option for convenient and secure mobile payment for Chinese tourists at local outlets. In parallel, Dubai Tourism will encourage Dubai merchants to leverage the Tencent Cloud and media solutions to enhance the overall city-experience for Chinese visitors and drive spending from this significant consumer base.”
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Dubai is boosting its profile in China to attract more tourists after their number surged to 764,000 in 2017, pushing it to fifth spot among the emirate's global source markets, after the UAE eased visa rules for Chinese nationals.
Dubai Tourism in January this year also signed an agreement with Chinese telecom operator Huawei, which will pre-load all its devices with both user-generated and official cinematographic content of Dubai. On Monday, the agreement was expanded further, with Huawei Mobile Services agreeing to offer useful and accessible content about Dubai, in particular through the company’s newly-updated SkyTone travel and roaming apps.
“The Tencent MoU opens the far-reaching spectrum of WeChat solutions for Dubai to effectively and efficiently target key Chinese audience segments through Dubai Tourism’s official WeChat account,” Dubai Tourism said. “With over 980 million monthly active users on WeChat and Weixin, Dubai Tourism will be able to drive amplified brand awareness of the destination and its superlative offerings, extending the benefits across Dubai’s stakeholder ecosystem.”