Travel Agency Tongcheng-Elong Partners with Kuaishou on Live-Streaming, Short Videos for Travel Services
Chinese online travel agency (OTA) Tongcheng-Elong has partnered with Kuaishou, a short video sharing and social network platform, to integrate travel products with short video and live-streaming content.
Tongcheng-Elong’s products, including hotels and tourist attraction ticketing, will soon be available for direct purchase on the Kuaishou app, where users can also see suggestions of Tongcheng-Elong’s travel services and products.
Tongcheng-Elong and Kuaishou will also jointly launch a traveler incentive program to encourage Kuaishou users to create inspiring travel content.
Travel-related content is already a popular category on Kuaishou and many other short video platforms. Its immersive characteristics allow users to follow their favorite influencers and discover new travel locations. With Kuaishou’s extensive catalog of travel-related content, the incorporation of Tongcheng-Elong’s relevant travel products helps expedite the decision-making process while offering a smooth travel planning experience.
“As a pioneer and a veteran in China’s OTA industry, Tongcheng-Elong has focused on all-round travel, covering various travel consumption scenarios to meet the diverse travel needs of users and improve travel experiences,” said Zhiwei Bai, Vice President of Tongcheng-Elong. “This in-depth cooperation with Kuaishou will provide consumers with a seamless purchasing experience, more travel scenarios, and will also help to diversify our user traffic channels.”
Tongcheng-Elong and Kuaishou initiated the cooperation in March as short videos were gaining increasing popularity. The collaboration brought a series of short videos and live streams to promote hotels and attractions across the country, offering travel products on the Kuaishou platform while bringing traffic to influencers and the short video platform.
Tongcheng-Elong and Kuaishou will cooperate in areas such as supply chain, user traffic, content creation, branding and marketing, and data sharing to combine travel services with live-stream and short video applications.
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Kuaishou’s advantages in content marketing and e-commerce live-streaming, and Tongcheng-Elong’s strengths in supply chain, products and services together will bring a more comprehensive and integrated travel experience to users.
In 2020, Tongcheng-Elong has continued to diversify traffic channels through partnerships with smartphone brands, mini-programs, and its new cooperation with Kuaishou. By broadening traffic sources, the company is able to capture new opportunities as the industry continues to grow and the needs of travelers continue to evolve.
According to iResearch, Tongcheng-Elong ranked third in terms of GMV in China’s online travel market in 2017, with the highest year-over-year growth from 2015 to 2017 in online transportation ticketing and accommodation reservation transactions in China’s OTA travel market.
