Madrid Community encourages Chinese tourists to new destinations with tailored promotion

MADRID, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Spanish capital region has opened an official account on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu, in the hope that it can foster sustainable tourism with the help of visitors from China.

Launched by the Community of Madrid, the campaign called "Only in Madrid" in Chinese aims to achieve greater visibility for the capital and surrounding areas as a tourist destination, while at the same time adapting to all-year-round tourism.

The project hopes to immerse Chinese tourists in the territory beyond the central capital region, which is known as Madrid City, and encourage them to explore "the urban and the non-urban" region of the larger Community of Madrid, Yolanda Perdomo, director for the project, told Xinhua on Thursday.

The "Only in Madrid" campaign has already been deployed in 16 markets other markets in Asia, the Middle East and America via social networks such as TikTok and influencers.

Perdomo said the key to sustainable tourism is to have "good management" of where tourists visit and in what numbers, preventing areas from becoming flooded and generating "opportunities for more people" not just in the city center, but across the community.

This summer, top Spanish tourism destinations like Madrid City and Barcelona met with large tourist flows, making the cities overcrowded and sparking angry protests from many residents.

As such, Chinese tourists are being encouraged to enjoy all that the region has to offer. "In a short time, you can go from the city to small towns, medieval villages, castles, wineries, or golf courses," she pointed out.

"In some places, there are a lot of tourists, but then you go three streets over and there is no one there. There are a lot of places where people want to have tourists because it's a tremendous opportunity and yet the tourists don't get there," she said.

The Xiaohongshu account, which started making posts earlier this year, is part of the region's efforts to promote sustainable tourism from China, after first landing on the Chinese social media platform WeChat. Visitors can find promotions for hotels, restaurants, museums and shopping malls on these accounts.

In the first half of this year, 337,446 Chinese tourists visited Spain, close to the total of 382,207 in 2023, according to the Spanish Statistical Office.