Tourism New Zealand partners with Chinese investment company Tencent

Tourism New Zealand has announced its signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Tencent Holdings, a leading provider of Internet value-added services in China.
The MoU is to jointly support the growth of Chinese Free Independent Travellers with fresh, unique travel experiences, and build New Zealand as a desirable, high-value international destination brand for Chinese travellers.

The MoU makes the collaboration between Tourism New Zealand and Tencent official, and will strengthen Tencent’s integrated marketing outreach in mainland China, enhancing the overall travel experience of Chinese visitors. It also deepens Tourism New Zealand’s understanding of Chinese tourists through Tencent Social Solution, which includes WeChat advertisements and WeChat Mini Programs.

The collaboration also aims to further develop New Zealand’s tourism industry through extending the country’s marketing outreach efforts to the inbound Chinese market, with local merchants aimed to have a deepened understanding of Chinese travellers’ consumption behaviour via WeChat user insights.

Using the company’s expertise in Chinese consumer engagement, Tencent will provide user insights for Tourism New Zealand to widen their grasp of Chinese visitors’ consumption habits and preferences, which will serve as basis for them to develop more impactful marketing strategies.

Tencent Holdings Limited is a Chinese multinational investment holding conglomerate founded in 1998, whose subsidiaries specialise in various Internet-related services and products, entertainment, artificial intelligence and technology both in China and globally.

As posted on their website, “Tencent uses technology to enrich the lives of Internet users. Our social products Weixin and QQ link our users to a rich digital content catalogue including games, video, music and books. Our proprietary targeting technology helps advertisers reach out to hundreds of millions of consumers in China. Our infrastructure, FinTech and Business Services including payment, security, cloud and artificial intelligence create differentiated offerings to support our partners’ business growth and assist their digital upgrade. Tencent invests heavily in people and innovation, enabling us to evolve with the Internet.”

Image (from left): Gregg Wafelbakker, General Manager, Asia, Tourism New Zealand and Norman Tam, General Manager, International Business Group, Tencent.