Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) China announced the signing of a strategic partnership with SinoTech Group.

Following a successful networking last week, “Leveraging Social Media for Engaging Consumers” the organizations have agreed to look at other ways to expand their cooperations.

Kate Chang, Director for PATA China said, “The event last week showed that there is much interest from our travel and hospitality members in the area of online marketing.” This event had over 100 people attended and saw Mr. Hou Zhengang, Director General and Mr. Xin Hong Ye, Division Director of IT Centre of CNTA (China National Tourism Administration) attend.

Following the opening by Mr Hou, various speakers from SinoTech Group, Renren.com, RIM Blackberry and Accor Hotels provided insights and practical examples of using social media channels and other digital marketing channels in driving sales and building brands online.

“The move by travel, hospitality and tour operators to promoting themselves online is not just a shift in thinking in China but is a trend globally”, said Dr Mathew McDougall, CEO for SinoTech Group. “I was encouraged by the numbers of hotels and airlines looking at doing more in this area this year. Therefore, it is a privilege to be a member of PATA and to be signing a strategic partnership”, added Dr McDougall.

Under the partnership, SinoTech Group is the preferred supplier of Digital Marketing services for PATA members for 2 years. PATA and SinoTech Group will work together in providing PATA members access to knowledge, research and services to increase their business sales and online branding.

Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) China Office and Digital Marketing Inner Circle (DMIC) have come together to develop a seminar called, 'Leveraging Social Media for Engaging Consumers'.

The Social Media landscape in China includes Blogs, SNS, micro-blogging, forums and even BBS’s. Up to the end of 2009, there are over 124 million social media users in China, and on average, more than one forth (27%) of the users spend 1-2 hours on social sites per day (CNNIC, 2010).

“The number of social media users is growing fast and more marketers understand the importance and dynamics of social media the better they can become at leveraging this channel. However, most marketers are not sure how to use social media to their advantages, such as how to improve customer loyalty, generate customer leads and effectively conduct e-commerce by using social media channels” Dr. Matt McDougall, CEO of SinoTech Group commented.

The seminar, taking place on 4th Feb 2010 at Jinlun Hotel, Beijing, is going to provide a great platform and opportunities for marketers to learn and exchange their thoughts on Social Media Marketing (SMM).

Ms Kate Chang, Regional Director of Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) China Office further added, "The nature of the Chinese travel consumers is to turn to the Internet for researching destinations and travel products, even before speaking to a traditional travel agent. Travel reviews, user feedback and travel ratings have become important tools for marketers in the travel industry. Social Media has become the hot topic within the travel industry. However, lots of tourism marketers are still not sure how to properly engage their potential consumers with a social media marketing program.”

The seminar will focus on

• Understanding the social media landscape in China
• Social media marketing tools and case studies
• How to use social media and branded content to build your brand online – making it easy to reach your target audience and fulfill campaign objectives
• How do you measure social media marketing to determine the success or not of a program?

The speakers include

• Dr Mathew McDougall. CEO, SinoTech Group;
• Dr Grace Pan, Chief Strategy Officer, SinoTech Group
• Mr Simon Li, Director of Marketing, RIM Blackberry
• Ms Elizebeth Gualtieri Director of Marketing and Brand Strategy, Accor Hotels China
• Ms. Donna Li, General Manager of Strategic Marketing, RenRen.com

Ms Kate Chang, Regional Director of Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) China Office, will be the moderator of this seminar.

The seminar will benefit marketers and business leaders who would like to better understand this evolving area and how to capitalize on social media for growing their business growth.

Please visit the website, and register online if you are interested in attending this event.

SinoTech Group (www.sinotechgroup.com.cn) announces today that its newly joined Chief Strategy Officer, Dr. Grace Pan is to speak at 2009 China Outbound Travel Congress, organized by leading European and Chinese travel conference joint venture, Noppen, in Beijing. She is also going to chair the conference.

At the conference, Dr Pan will address a speech entitled with The increasing success of Internet use in the China travel business on December 10 during the two day summit, where she will draw her board expertise in travel industry and digital marketing innovations into face-to-face communications with business leaders, management professionals from international outbound travel agencies, trade associations and tourism administrations , and help those decision makers gain better understanding in how to better use online media and digital marketing solutions to drive more ROI-based marketing outcomes.

Accor Hotels China today launched a new competition as part of a comprehensive performance digital marketing campaign in China.

This “invite a friend” campaign is leveraging multiple digital channels such as social media, search marketing, affiliate marketing and email marketing to drive a new audience to engage with the Accor Hotels Brand in China. “With an integrated digital campaign we not only measure performance across each channel based on true ROI but we can also ensure a consistent message”, said Elizabeth Gualtieri, Director of Marketing and Brand Strategy at Accor China.

“Accor Hotels believes that using a performance marketing approach provides many advantages over traditional brand orientated campaigns where outcomes are harder to measure and success is often difficult to determine”, added Ms Gualtieri.

The genesis of “Invite A Friend” comes from our work with SinoTech Group and having their insights and knowledge to help Accor from strategy to execution to measurement. Dr. Matt McDougall, Executive Chairman and Group CEO, said, “This campaign, where multiple digital channels are used and measured for efficiency marks the start of more sophisticated digital campaigns. I expect to see more truly integrated digital campaign in 2010”.

Today, Accor Hotels China will open their competition to win a trip for 2 to Sydney, Australia. This prize including two round trip airfares and 5 nights accommodation and breakfast at Novotel Sydney which is located on the Darling Harbor in the heart of the city. Click here to for your chance to WIN