German National Tourism Board launches its Chinese APP

CHINA - Recently, German National Tourism Board together with Baidu Travel launched its Chinese version APP “Set off for Germany” free for tourists to download. The APP is available for both Apple and Android system, including 11 well-selected destinations in Germany with emphasises on Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt and Cologne.

More practically, the APP provides exclusive travel suggestions such as “Classic 7-day independent travel”, “14-day Deep travel”, “6-day Romantic road trip”, etc., in addition, users can also find useful information of local accommodations, transports, food, etc.

Along with the popularity of smartphones, APP has become a key tool or a must for tourism organizations and companies to provide information as well as services and mobile strategy is therefore becoming a “fashion” word that talked about by people nowadays. However, most of those APPs by far are designed in English and ones that featured in Chinese are rarely seen. Although many professionals overseas admit that it is a strategic and important step to develop Chinese APPs, majorities are still “wait-and-see” while focusing more on social media initiatives.

The launch of “Set off for Germany” has raised attentions of many organizations and individuals within the industry, which, indicated by analyst might lead the mobile race in Chinese market. At the meantime, experts also remind that there are still drawbacks of this APP - CEO of WOWtrip.com.cn Li Xingjun said that this APP was basically a data package, supporting users with off-line information just like an “E-magazine”. Nevertheless, it lacks the most valuable functions named navigation and real-time services. He said that “since most overseas organizations are only in charge of promoting, they can hardly find local companies to give a real-time support” and “what is essential in the future will be developing multi-functional APPs that integrate social, location with mobile devices”.

Sourced: TravelDailyNews