Changes Ahead for Tourism Marketing on RedNote?

Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu made big news last week when it became the most-downloaded app in the US. Ahead of a scheduled ban on TikTok, around half a million American users joined Xiaohongshu – which is now going by the name RedNote, in addition to previous English names RED or Little Red Book – in protest, posting with the hashtag #TikTokRefugees. Users in China were surprised to wake up to find their feeds full of American users, and the initial positivity around international interactions on the app has also led to a 216% spike in Americans studying Mandarin on Duolingo.

Will this phenomenon be long-lived and fundamentally change Xiaohongshu? With TikTok back online in the US just 12 hours after it was banned, as well as challenges surrounding content moderation rules in China, activity on Xiaohongshu is unlikely to continue as it has in the past week. Will there be any impact be for tourism marketing? Dragon Trail tracks international tourism brands on Xiaohongshu on a weekly basis, and we pored over the last several weeks’ of data to find answers.

The short answer is: No, the first week of the #TikTokRefugee phenomena on Xiaohongshu has not had any noticeable impact on follower numbers or engagement with overseas tourism brands’ content.

Looking at all national, regional, and municipal tourism boards, airlines, cruise lines, attractions, and hotels that we track on Xiaohongshu, there was a 0.75% increase in followers during the week of 11-17 January. For the week of 4-10 January, the week-on-week follower increase was nearly the same, at 0.76%. Between the second and third week of January, there was a 70.3% week-on-week increase in engagements (likes, comments, shares, and saves) with Xiaohongshu content posted by overseas travel brands, compared to a 1% decline from the first to the second week of January. However, most of this increase comes from two accounts: the tourism boards of Hong Kong and Macao. The Hong Kong Tourism Board received more than 7,000 engagements for a post about a new album from pop singer Hua Chenyu. Meanwhile, Macau posted several popular videos featuring pop singer and Macau native Hendery. Although we saw one comment on a Hendery video from a TikTok refugee user based in the US, the interaction with these posts came almost entirely from mainland China, and comments from users overseas were mostly from Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia rather than Western countries.

Pop stars drove up engagements on Xiaohongshu for Hong Kong and Macau’s tourism boards during the third week of January, with very little impact from the surge in US users

While last week’s surge in Xiaohongshu use in the US does not appear to have impacted international tourism marketing, several future possibilities may change the situation further. One is the possibility that TikTok really does get banned in the US, as the current reprieve is only temporary and on the condition that ByteDance relinquishes a 50% stake to a US company. There is also speculation that RedBook/Xiaohongshu is considering making adjustments to what users can see based on their IP address, to effectively separate American TikTok refugees from Xiaohongshu’s Chinese users. If this happens, it could impact how content posted by overseas brands and influencers is distributed to users based in China. Finally, if Xiaohongshu does become an app more widely used by non-Chinese overseas, Chinese travel brands may want to start considering how to use it to attract inbound tourists.

We will continue to monitor any changes to the app and user engagement with travel brands closely. In the meantime, we recommend taking a steady approach to marketing on Xiaohongshu and not making any sudden changes to content or strategy. The platform’s original user base of young, affluent women in China’s first-tier cities is the core decision-making demographic for outbound travel, and the right audience for travel brands looking to target the Chinese market.

Dragon Trail offers services in opening and managing Xiaohongshu accounts including account verification, content creation, media buy, KOL and KOC marketing, and more. Contact us to find out how we can help you to connect to Chinese consumers through Xiaohongshu.