Washington, DC Expands Its Partnership with WeChat to Cater to the Chinese Tourist Market

(Source: Destination DC)

(Washington, DC)— Destination DC (DDC), the official marketing organization for Washington, DC, expands its partnership with WeChat by launching the first City Experience Mini Program in the United States to support Chinese travelers when they arrive in the city. Through Tencent’s instant messaging platform, DDC continues its expansion into Washington, DC’s top overseas market with the immersive new program built for the 963 million monthly active users on WeChat.

“One of the biggest challenges for Chinese travelers in any western city is knowing where to go and what to do,” says Elliott L. Ferguson, II, President and CEO of DDC. “We are thrilled to partner with WeChat to enhance the visitor experience for the 304,000 Chinese travelers who visit Washington, DC every year, especially as we hope to grow Chinese visitation.”

The new DDC City Experience Mini Program is designed to be an interactive guide that helps tourists make the most of their visit to Washington. The map driven layout of the top attractions and places to eat and shop has an explorative style which is aimed at the growing number of FIT visitors. The city’s top attractions also have audio tours included in Mandarin to make it easy for Chinese tourists to understand the historical and cultural significance of the places they are visiting without a tour guide.

Mini Program features include:

Top attractions

Details including opening and closing times, contact information and admission fees

Audio tours in Mandarin

Walking directions

Social share functionality on WeChat

The Mini Program will have new attractions and content added every week and will soon feature top dining, shopping and tour offers that tourists can take advantage of.

Over the past year, DDC has been building a strong following on its Official Service account (account ID: visitdc), achieving the highest traffic growth among U.S. cities on WeChat in 2016. With the Tencent expanded partnership, DDC continues to grow Welcome China (the organization’s certification program for its members) as well as cater to Chinese travelers before, during and after they arrive in Washington, DC.

DDC has partnered with The Momentum Group, a WeChat marketing and solutions provider, to manage the Service Account and build the WeChat Mini Program. DDC recently ran a successful Golden Week contest in partnership with its members to fly a winner to Washington, DC to enjoy the U.S capital during the Golden Week holiday.

Access the Mini Program by scanning this QR code.

About Destination DC: Destination DC, the official destination marketing organization for the nation’s capital, is a private, non-profit membership organization of 1,000 businesses committed to marketing the area as a premier global convention, tourism and special events destination with a special emphasis on the arts, cultural and historic communities. washington.org.

About Tencent and WeChat: Founded in November, 1998, Tencent is a leading provider of Internet value added services in China. Launched in 2011, WeChat integrates instant messaging and social entertainment, bringing about a mobile digital lifestyle on an easy to use app. As of March 31, 2017, the monthly active user accounts of Weixin and WeChat was 963 million.

About The Momentum Group: The Momentum Group is a WeChat Marketing Agency that is redefining how global brands connect with customers on WeChat.

WeChatify is the WeChat marketing platform created by The Momentum Group and is used by some of the top brands in retail, hospitality and tourism like Grand Hyatt, The Met, Saks 5th Ave, and many more.