AusLeisure

Experience Oz has becomes the first Australian toruism experience provider to launch a fully functional Chinese website, giving the growing Chinese tourist market access to over 2,000 tours, activities and experiences from around Australia and New Zealand.

With China now Australia's fastest growing and most valuable market for international visitors with 620,000 visits last year worth $3.35 billion*, Experience Oz will meet increasing demand from Chinese tourists for independent travel options in Australia.

The fully functioning ecommerce website has incorporated new payment types such as UnionPay, which is the payment method of choice in China. The company will also provide customers with Chinese language phone support for information and booking help.

In planning and development for 18 months, the company employed two Chinese specialists to help develop the site, which will automatically detect the native language setting of the computer or mobile device.

Experience Oz General Manager Clint Gudenswager said the Chinese site has been designed to appeal to the increasing demand from Chinese tourists for independent travel options and would benefit tourism businesses of all sizes around Australia.

Gudenswager explained "we are the first travel experience booking engine in Australia to create a fully functioning Chinese site and expect others to follow suit in targeting the growing Chinese market.

"The Chinese version of the site taps into the growing desire from increasingly affluent middle class Chinese for independent travel to Australia. A lot of Chinese travel is arranged around groups because there has been very little credible information and booking options available.

"The site will give Chinese visitors reliable, up-to-date information and live booking options.

"From a boat tour operator in Perth to hot air ballooning operator in Cairns, businesses from around Australia and New Zealand now have their information and products available to book in Chinese.

"This will provide tourism businesses around Australia and New Zealand additional exposure to tap into what Tourism Australia believes is a market projected to grow up to $9 billion in expenditure by 2020.

"Unlike some international booking sites, we won't be charging our tourism business suppliers to translate or offer their content to new markets."

The website's transformation has gone beyond trivial content translation. A team of three worked on the project and had to consider the dynamic aspect of the booking platform, in addition to the vast quantity of pages the site delivers. The site content has also been tailored to appeal to the differing preferences of each market.

Gudenswager adds "we analysed the products that appealed to Chinese customers, because in most circumstances, they are quite different to what our domestic customers look for.

"Not all tourism products are in demand from the Chinese market, so we've prioritized the translation of content according to popularity. At this stage, some products will still be displayed in English."

The Chinese version of Experience Oz is also expected to appeal to the 336,000 Chinese speakers living in Australia**, many who have Chinese as the default language on their computers and mobiles.

Gudenswager continued "this site will give them greater ease of access to the wide range of tourism products in their preferred language."

Chinese users are already the second biggest customer group for Experience Oz, outnumbering German, French and Japanese visitors combined.

Experience Oz provides booking engines and white label booking sites to hotels, attractions, clubs and publications and will automatically provide the Chinese ecommerce platform to these customers.

Gudenswager said the Chinese site launch was integral to the Experience Oz growth strategy, concluding "we have grown year-on-year through a period

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