On August 8, Shinsegae Duty Free opened a membership club service within the mini app Xiaochengxu(小程序), a well-known messenger app in China, for the first time in Korea’s duty free industry to attract individual tourists from China.
Tourism trends among the 130 million Chinese tourists are shifting from group tours to self-guided tours. According to a survey conducted by travel intelligence company ForwardKeys, individual tours by Chinese tourists increased by 12.7% in the first quarter of this year.
Shinsegae Duty Free has established a strategy to encourage return visits as well as attract individual tourists from China through close communication with Chinese customers through its WeChat mini-app.
Xiaochengxu(小程序), a so-called “mini-app”, is an app-in-app service developed in 2017 by Tencent, China's largest IT company, using WeChat as its platform.
With this service, WeChat users can run other applications by searching for or scanning a QR code without downloading a separate app and can easily receive information or benefits by using various mini-apps as they like.
In 2018, a total of more than 600 million users used Xiaochengxu, and about 230 million users actively use the service on a daily basis. In addition, the number of apps has grown to 2.3 million, exceeding the number of apps in Apple’s App Store.
In 2017, Shinsegae Duty Free built the infrastructure to join it as a member within WeChat for the first time in Korea’s duty free industry, and about 150,000 people became members in the first eighteen months. In 2018, Shinsegae Duty Free opened a mini-site exclusively for WeChat members to improve convenience for Chinese customers by providing various affiliate benefits as well as a simple procedure for becoming a member.
Xiaochengxu expanded its service to provide individual tourists with more actual benefits, whereas the existing WeChat mini-site encouraged Chinese customers to become members and provided simple shopping information.
Customers can find various information about shopping such as introductions to products and branches and discount benefits by membership grade well as a simple procedure to join.
Shinsegae Duty Free has also established a platform exclusively for individual tourists and VIP customers. Individual tourists can become members through affiliates and additionally discover benefits such as dedicated mobile coupons and prepaid cards.
In addition, Shinsegae Duty Free plans to develop a 1:1 chatbot service exclusively for VIP customers to win the hearts of “big spenders” from China.
A representative from Shinsegae Duty Free said, “Shinsegae Duty Free will develop various mini-apps in cooperation with large related affiliates such as aviation companies, hotels, and foreign exchange companies in China in the future.” The source added, “Our ultimate goal is to inspire strong loyalty to Shinsegae Duty Free among individual tourists from China by providing a wide range of services to make travel more convenient for them.”
