This document summarizes a study examining marketing activities that could attract Chinese tourists to Tatarstan, Russia. The study finds that while Tatarstan has attractive tourism assets like Kazan, it lacks brand awareness and flights from China. Through interviews, the study reveals that destinations successfully use both online and offline marketing. Key online strategies include social media like Weibo and WeChat as well as websites optimized for Chinese search engines. Offline, destinations participate in trade shows, host trips for travel agents, and build relationships. The study recommends Tatarstan raise awareness through these combined online and offline activities to attract more Chinese tourists.

1. WHAT MARKETING ACTIVITIES
SHOULD BE DONE BY TATARSTAN
TO ATTRACT CHINESE TOURISTS?
A Capstone
Presented to the Faculty of European University
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
The Degree: Executive Master of Business
Administration with a Major in International Business
Supervisor: Dr. Johnny Kim
By: Ms. Regina Shchegoleva
August, 2015

2. Executive Summary
The European Tourism Cities (ETC) Country Report of China declares that tourism in
Asia Pacific is growing and is increasingly becoming available to the wider public. The
fast adoption of new technologies drives a dynamic and constantly changing landscape
industry when it comes to consumer trends1. Overall, China has one of the biggest
online audiences in the world with the rapid penetration of Internet. In 2014, China`s
Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) released its 33d report on Internet
Development in the country indicating that the number of Internet users reached 618
million in 20132, which is positioning China not only as the biggest Internet audience in
Asia-Pacific regions, but also as the main online consumption market in the world.
Being a world leader in outbound tourism in 2014 – (over 107 million of Chinese tourists
travelled abroad3), China now attracts attention of all tourism destinations.
The author of this study found China as a new marketing opportunity for promotion of
her native region, the Republic of Tatarstan (Tatarstan) she had worked for in 2008-
2012. With given above facts the major research question of the study arises: “What
the destination has to do to attract Chinese tourists?” Thus major question
research consequently generated 3 other research questions:
 What Tatarstan has to offer to its tourists? Why is it a potential tourism
destination? What problems and opportunities does Tatarstan have as a tourism
destination?
 Why Chinese tourists? Who are they? How do they buy outbound trips?
 What marketing activities do successful tourism destinations do to attract
Chinese tourists?
In order to answer the first question, Tatarstan`s background, infrastructure, current
tourism product and marketing activities were studied. As a result of the short
background research SWOT analysis was chosen to assess a market situation and it`s
environment, identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for the
destination.
1 ETC report, 2013
2 CNNIC report, 2014
3 State Management of Tourism of People`s Republic of China, 2014

3. The Republic of Tatarstan is located in the Volga Federal District of Russian Federation.
Its capital is the city of Kazan, considered the 3d major city in Russia, which is one of
Russia's largest and most prosperous cities with a population of 1,2 million (8th most
populated city in Russia). It is very attractive with its modern tourism infrastructure,
multinational and multi-religious population leaving in peace for ages, rich history and
culture, famous for its sport teams, like football Rubin team and world known
championships, such as Universiade (International Students Olympic Games) – 2013
and World Aquatic Championships – 2015.
While conducting the SWOT analysis I distinguished the major problem, that Tatarstan
faces, which is a lack of destination`s awareness among the travelers. The existing
attractiveness of Tatarstan, in general, and Kazan, in particular, as a tourism destination
is not known abroad. The Tatarstan Republic is currently not perceived as an attractive
place for visitors due to several main reasons:
 Limited professional human resources for marketing activities;
 Lack of distinct tourism brand and image of the city and the region;
 Lack of international direct flights.
Among all the opportunities Tatarstan has, the following ones were distinguished:
 Increase the number of tourists by extending international marketing activities;
 Use the future international events to increase the awareness of Tatarstan
Republic abroad;
 Attract airlines to increase the number of direct flights to Europe by launching
direct flights to China;
 Educate tour operators and engage them in creating new tourism products,
suitable for the markets;
 Increase usage of social media and generally online promotion of the destination.
To reply to the second question understanding consumer behavior is crucial. To
understand the customer it is critical for succeeding in developing, promoting and selling
tourism products. To provide a clear description of Chinese tourists traveling abroad, it
is necessary to define who they are, by gender, age, socio-professional category, their
motivation for travel, mode of travel – group or individual, the duration of the stay, their
spending and their preferred type of accommodation.4 Secondary research was applied
4 American Journal of Tourism Management, 2014

4. in identifying major characteristics of the Chinese tourists and media channels to reach
them.
Up to now, 87.54% of Chinese tourists choose travel agencies for outbound tourism
services. In the near future, Chinese tourists are still mainly reliant on travel agencies
for arranging their overseas tours. 94.13% of tourists said they will continue to purchase
tourism products by travel agencies, to avoid potential problems in a place that is
unknown to them. They are curious but remaining cautious. Various tourism patterns
satisfy different needs of tourists. 37.41% of Chinese tourists travel abroad in groups.5
Despite this proven fact, “New Chinese Tourists” who are much more knowledgeable,
sophisticated, technology-savvy and predominantly below 45 years of age, speaking
foreign languages are entering the scene. They are looking for deeper experiences and
closer contact with local host populations during their self-organized trips.6
The internet is an increasingly important source for travel information in China. Before
choosing the destination and organizing the trip, Chinese tourists invest a lot of time
looking for information via internet. 68% of Chinese outbound travelers search the web
for information before deciding on the destination; 18% visit regional or national tourism
offices online.7 Social networks are the most used channels in China and, particularly, in
the tourism sector, whereas most Chinese tourists are not necessarily familiar with the
foreign SNS. 450 millions of Chinese are connected via social networks.8
In order to reply to the major research question, primary research was used by
conducting interviews and receiving information from filled questionnaires. The in-depth
interview was useful for gathering rich and meaningful data and led to a significant
depth of understanding. Among the respondents were DMO head managers of
European destinations based in Beijing and a representative from one of the leading
international hotel chain based in China, and a representative from an organization
responsible for promotion Russia abroad.
This study revealed that Business-To-Business (B2B) marketing activities are mostly
organized off-line. Business-To-Consumer (B2C) campaigns in contrast are mainly
focused on online and mobile marketing activities, which are more cost-effective than
offline and may cover bigger target audience. Classic offline marketing activities are
5 WTCF report, 2014
6 Nielsen report, 2013
7 UNWTO report, 2012
8 China Business Review, 2014

5. continuously organized such as participation in trade fairs, road shows, workshops and
establishing and maintaining contacts with the travel trade professionals, as well as
organization of familiarization-trips (fam-trips) and press-trips, aiming to have personal
experience from the destination. As regards to the marketing activities, the majority
were mainly focused on B2B due to visa barrier and strong role of travel agencies in the
buying process. At the same time all interviewees agreed with that combining efforts of
online and offline marketing for B2B and B2C audiences is most effective. But it is
important to notice that a role of social media marketing (SMM) is increasing in
promoting of tourism products to the end customers. Referring to all interviewees, online
promotion in social networking sites (SNS) is now the top priority. The absolute leaders
in SMM are Weibo (network similar to Facebook) and WeChat (network similar to
Twitter) noticed by all respondents, except Russia. Chinese tourists use SNS before,
during, and after their trip. Video sharing, high quality content, high quality pictures must
all be part to an online marketing strategy to provide the emotional engagement
necessary for making Chinese tourists choose the destination.
In the last part of this study there were several recommendations of marketing activities
formulated based on customer journey that would be proposed to implement by
Tatarstan destination management organization (DMO) in China. Any marketing
strategy needs to consider the ways in which potential customers might act and the
opportunities to inform, guide and influence the customer at each stage of the customer
journey: before a trip, organizing a trip, during a trip, after a trip. The most important
activity recommended is to raise awareness before the trip by means of the following
marketing activities:
 Establish and maintain contacts with the travel trade leaders,
presenting the destination at the major tourism fairs in China. Create a
consumer and trade marketing plan, including fam-trips and joint
presentations with the key tour operators;
 Make sure that the tourism destination is advertised in Online Travel
Agencies (OTA) websites;
 Establish a public relations program, including press- and bloggers-
trips;
 Create a website in Chinese and make sure it is well-positioned in
Baidu, a Chinese SEO;

6.  Register accounts on at least at Weibo and WeChat. These are the
places of choice for Chinese who share their last trip abroad;
 Create and deliver the right high quality message via visual content,
pictures and videos.
But to make the future marketing plans the author would also recommend to research
further on the following subjects:
• Consumer portrait and consumer behavior of the Chinese tourists in Russia, by
conducting a survey with the Russian tour operators;
• Online buying behavior of the Chinese tourists. By conducting an online survey in
China, the author may have found out, first, whether Russian destinations were already
booked online or not; and second, if the Russian destinations would become more
attractive if they had promoted via social media marketing and mobile phones.
To summarize the above written, it is important to distinguish a role of internet in China,
and specially SMM in tourism sector. Both primary and secondary research confirmed a
shift in consumer behavior. The world is getting more connected through the internet –
consumers are seeking advice from other consumers through the internet. Skilled
consumers are increasingly likely to know more about niche products than many travel
professionals.9 The technological progress and the digital revolution allow the internet to
spread fast in the world, therefore influencing the globalization process, and changing
the tourist`s habits and interests is key. Tourists now have more motivations to travel,
which directly affect their behavior.
Understanding consumer behavior is very important for succeeding in developing,
promoting and selling tourism products. Tourism professionals have to know how the
consumers make the decisions and use tourism products in order to optimize the
efficiency of their marketing activities. The presented study with the recommendations
of the marketing activities to the Tatarstan tourism authority will be a very good
contribution to the existing tourism marketing strategy in China.
The results of the research will be presented to Tatarstan`s DMO during III Kazan
International Tourism Forum organized jointly with Davos Communications Forum in
October, 2015.
9 ETC report, 2013

7. Retrived part for primary research from the study is below.
Primary research.
During the second stage of the research process to get relevant primary data,
concerning media Chinese channels, the author prepared a questionnaire (see Annex
2) and interviewed Business-To-Business (B2B) tourism and hospitality players.
Qualitative data, based on meanings expressed through words, were collected from
interviews and questionnaire conducted by phone and e-mail accordingly. Among the
interviewees were DMO head managers of European destinations based in Beijing, a
representative from one of the leading international hotels chain based in China, and a
representative from an organization responsible for promotion Russia abroad. Taking
into account the author`s twelve years` experience in the tourism industry in Russia and
CIS countries, where she was a representative person of the destinations and luxury
hotel chains, she had have an outstanding personal contacts` network. Therefore she
could reach nine key managers who gave her up-to-date information about the
marketing channels used in the promotion of their tourism product.
The data collection started on June 15th and completed on July 15th 2015. The first
step was a questionnaire creation (see example in Appendix 2). In the questionnaire,
the author used open questions that allowed the interviewees to describe their activities
wider and to reply as they wished. Grummit (1980) says, an open question was
designed to encourage the interviewee to provide an extensive and development
answer, and may be used to reveal attitudes to obtain facts. The author compiled a list
of questions for the interviewees, concerning marketing strategy implemented in China
to promote their tourism product.
Further she contacted fifteen major Russian representatives of the destinations and
hotel chains, who provided her the contacts of their Chinese colleagues and introduced
her work to them. As a result, the author carried out three personal phone interviews,
and received six filled questionnaires. The respondents could choose between a phone
interview and a questionnaire in written form by e-mail. Every interview lasted around
twenty minutes by phone. All the interviewees were aware of the research topic in
advance in order to make sure that they could provide a valuable data.

8. Data Analysis.
This part of the paper aims to analyze quantitative and qualitative data, in accordance
with the stated research questions, based on inductive approach.
In the first part the author presented Tatarstan`s market research, describing its
background, current tourism product and marketing activities. She summarized all data
and made a SWOT analysis to answer to the 1st research question of the study.
In the second part of the secondary research, China`s background description was
followed by the analysis of the Chinese tourists` consuming behavior, thus replying to
the second question of the study. Subsequently, traditional media versus online media
was compared in an attempt to understand the importance of online media, and social
media, in particular. The third research question was treated, by inspecting marketing
channels used for the destination`s promotion in China, according to the primary data
from interviews and filled questionnaires.
Analysis of qualitative data was conducted through the use of conceptualization. The
qualitative data analysis based on grounded theory allowed developing a theory from
the data. Grounded theory involved the fragmentation of qualitative data to further the
process of analysis (M. Saunders, P. Lewis, A. Thornhill, 2007). The primary method to
collect data during these approaches was by in-depth interviews.
The in-depth interview was useful for gathering rich and meaningful data and led to a
significant depth of understanding, as stated by Wilson10: “a qualitative methodology,
relying on in depth interviews, allows for a richer and more nuanced account of
stakeholder opinions, attitudes and experiences”. A narrative analysis of the interviews
was applied, defined as an account of an experience that was told in a sequenced way,
indicating a flow of related events that, taken together, were significant for the narrator
and which conveyed meaning to the researcher (M. Saunders, P. Lewis, A. Thornhill,
2007).
Interviews were transcribed and then coded according to the key themes acknowledged
in the literature and researcher knowledge. By analyzing written filled questionnaires,
the author had an occasion to quantify some of the qualitative data.
10 Wilson, 2009

9. This study revealed that B2B marketing activities are mostly organized off-line. B2C
campaigns in contrast, are mainly focused on online and mobile marketing activities,
which are more cost-effective than offline and may cover bigger target audience.
Regarding their marketing activities, two answered that the share of B2B and B2C
promotions was 60%-40% respectively, two of them replied 50-50%, and the other five
were focusing on B2B.
Classic offline marketing activities are continuously organized, such as participation in
trade fairs, road shows, workshops and establishing and maintaining contacts with the
travel trade professionals, as well as organization of familiarization-trips (fam-trips) and
press-trips, aiming to have personal experience from the destination. Among B2B
activities, all the interviewees responded “yes” to participation in the big fairs, mainly in
Beijing and Shanghai, organizing their own presentations, workshops, and road shows
in the regional cities. The role of face-to-face meetings in B2B relationships is still very
important. Only two of respondents did not mention it. Travel agencies in China are still
the main intermediaries of travel service providers.11 Familiarization-trips and press-trips
are regularly organized on individual and group basis by all the interviewees, although
two of them distinguished press-trips made especially for the bloggers. Whereas the
interest to printed professional media is starting to loosen, only two interviewees
confirmed using this tool in B2B offline promotion.
As for B2B online promotional tools, there were six respondents who distinguished e-
marketing, including distribution of the e-newsletters to their own e-mails` database or
via partners. Two of them also mentioned their own online specialists` programs for the
travel agents. Usually their programs are based on the destination`s webpage, and aim
to increase awareness of the destination and train the travel agents. Online trainings`
participants are usually leaving their e-mail addresses, so that the database also
increases via this marketing tool.
At the same time all interviewees agreed, that combining efforts of online and offline
marketing for B2B and B2C audiences, is most effective. But it is important to notice
11 Hongxiu Li, Reima Suomi, 2007

10. that the role of social media marketing (SMM) is increasing in promoting of tourism
products to the end customers. Referring to all interviewees, online promotion in social
networking sites (SNS) is now the top priority. The absolute leaders in SMM are Weibo
(network similar to Facebook) and WeChat (network similar to Twitter) noticed by all
respondents, except the one from Russia. Chinese tourists use SNS before, during, and
after their trip.
During personal interviews the author discovered a new SMM tool for B2B promotion:
targeting professional groups. This was noticed by two respondents. More and more
professional contacts with media and travel trade are made through these SMM groups.
Indeed DMO can select the audience by common interests, work or events participants.
As example, QR code is used a lot on professional events in order to gather all the
contacts in one specific SMM group. Messages distributed in targeted SMM groups are
more effective and reactive in comparison with e-mail messages, noticed one
interviewee.
In terms of regularity of the campaigns, either one or two big campaigns are held per
year. Besides, regular activities in SNS on daily or weekly basis are realized. Referring
to the respondents, the effectiveness of the online campaigns is easier to measure than
offline activities, because any tourism marketing organization can control analytics of a
website, monitoring a number of unique visitors, impressions, clicks, or bookings, as
well as observe advert services. It’s very important to distinguish one peculiarity in
effectiveness of social media marketing: not only a number of followers is counted, but
also their quality, whether they are interactive and share information with their friends
and stay in contact, or keep silent. Aside from WeChat and Weibo there was a mention
of Youku, Chinese version of Youtube, and DaoDao, Chinese version of Tripadvisor.
Blogs` maintenance was also used in the promotional campaigns. An interesting fact
was also noticed by one of the interviewees: companies had started creating their own
professional accounts in SNS not so long ago.
In addition, mobile commerce plays a significant role due to the fact that more than 85%
of 618 mln internet users have their access to internet via smart phones in China.
Three of respondents replied “yes” to mobile commerce activities realized in their B2C
promotion. Besides, now end-consumers can even pay for the products and services
via SMM channels in China, which is facilitating the online booking process.

11. Despite the fact, that there is a Chinese search engine (Baidu), only three participants
mentioned SEO marketing. As for the banners advertising, there were also four
interviewees who pointed it out in the survey.
As above mentioned, off-line B2C activities are now less popular than before, as much
bigger audience can be targeted through online marketing, and SMM, in particular.
There were several more activities mentioned by the respondents such as advertising
on billboards in the airports, participation in VIP events, advertising in the shopping
malls, destination`s brochure inserted into magazines, and short local radio campaigns.
In refer to TV advertising, three of the participants replied that it was too expensive and
they preferred to bring TV crews for special events or on a press trip.
With the above narrated analysis there were made several conclusions:
• Presentation of the destination in major tourism fairs in China, as well as organization
of business events, such as road shows, workshops, etc. - are still very popular and
effective;
• Contacts` maintenance with the key market leaders, tour operators and travel
agencies – personal approach and relations are very important in the market;
• Fam-trips and press-trips organization, taking into account the bloggers – are
necessary to increase awareness of the destination;
• E-marketing to B2B and B2C audiences is used to deliver a message and keep in
contact;
• SMM at least in two major Chinese networks WeChat and Weibo – these are new
opportunities to promote the destination to B2C and B2B audiences via SNS;
• Printing media, radio and TV channels are not very popular, even though TV still is
very popular, but too expensive for destination`s marketing and less effective, than
SMM in terms of audience`s coverage.
All above findings will be used in the final marketing activities` recommendations to
Tatarstan`s destination management organization (DMO), for them to be implemented
in China.