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.
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.
In addition to providing user insights for targeted marketing, Tencent will also offer recommendations for other local stakeholders to start or improve their WeChat Official Accounts.
Through Dubai Tourism’s inetwork in Dubai, Tencent hopes to promote its offerings including WeChat and WeChat Pay as an option for convenient and secure mobile payment among Chinese tourists at local merchants. On the other hand, Dubai Tourism will also encourage Dubai merchants to adopt and leverage Tencent Cloud and ad solutions.
