South Korea tourism and Baidu in big data partnership
South Korea’s state-run tourism agency will partner with Chinese Internet giant Baidu Inc. to utilize its search traffic resources to plan a strategy to attract more visitors from China.
The two parties have signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly collate big data from China’s major search engine to identify trends and promote customized tour programs.
"We will analyze Baidu’s big data to use it to better target Chinese tourists from next year," said Lee Jae-sung, Korea Tourism Organization’s international tour marketing director.
South Korea has become a primary market for Chinese travelers, fueled by the Korean pop culture boom and 4.68 million Chinese tourists visited South Korea in the first nine months of 2014.
"Baidu will provide tour-related data in China to help the KTO establish marketing strategies based on the scientific analysis of demand," said Anne Xu, general manager user product marketing at Baidu.
Recent Baidu data showed searches on group tours to South Korea almost tripled in four years, with Beijing as the main source market for the searches, followed by Shanghai, Zheziang and Guangdong.
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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