Dubai links arm with Tencent to court Chinese travel market

22 May 2018 2189 | World Travel News

Chinese Internet giant Tencent has signed an MoU with Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism), an agreement expected to see Chinese travellers receiving targeted social feeds about the city’s offerings and spearhead smart tourism along the route of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Issam Kazim, CEO of Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing, commented that the agreement is an extension of the organisation’s ongoing partnership with Tencent to build affinity with the Chinese target audience.

Tencent’s Poshu Yeung (left, front row), and Issam Kazim, CEO of Dubai’s Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing (right, front row), at the MoU signing ceremony

WeChat first rolled out the CityExperience Mini Program in November 2017 to offer an interactive platform for Dubai Tourism to connect with Chinese travellers. As Tencent’s offerings increasingly penetrate Dubai’s tourism sector, the programme could also be enhanced with Tencent Cloud’s suite of smart travel solutions to provide value-added functions such as AI customer service.

Meanwhile, Tencent Cloud will continue to incorporate an array of advanced offerings such as cloud computing, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and big data to work towards a Smart Dubai.