Provinces wage cutthroat competition to woo visitors

On Jan 11, the Culture and Tourism Department in Shandong posted a video on Douyin claiming the province's last name is Dong rather than Shan (the last name for Chinese is reversed from that of Westerners). They also tried to cash in on the fame of Harbin, which is located in Dongbei, or Northeast China.

However, some local netizens said they were embarrassed for people in other areas to see the video, as they believe the authorities in Shandong are trying too hard to attract visitors.

However, the efforts made have paid off. On Douyin, the number of followers of Henan's culture and tourism authorities rose from 156,000 to more than 1.5 million in a week.

In Hebei, followers of the provincial authorities almost doubled to 910,000 in a week, while in Shandong, the authorities attracted 200,000 new followers during this period.

Deng Ning, vice-dean of Beijing International Studies University's School of Tourism Sciences, said that with people's attention being diverted to short-video platforms, promoting tourism resources on such outlets has become an "inevitable trend" for culture and tourism authorities.

Figures from the China Internet Network Information Center show that as of June, the nation had nearly 1.08 billion internet users and 1.02 billion short-video users.

Deng said short-video platforms can transform unlikely places into popular travel destinations due to the large number of followers and online feedback they generate.

Some of the best-known travel destinations last year gained popularity on such platforms.

For example, Zibo, Shandong, became known for its barbecue food early last year. Tianjin then followed, with footage of retirees diving from local bridges, before Harbin drew attention with its spectacular ice and snow landscape, Deng said.

"Such cities become famous because travelers want to go to places where there are large numbers of people, as they are longing for social contact after three years of social distancing due to the COVID-19 outbreak," he said. "They need to do some traveling to 'find a cure', preferably at relatively cheap destinations."

He added that local authorities post so many short videos because this is the quickest and easiest way to replicate the success of other "online celebrity cities", but it is impossible to predict which locality will become the next "hit city". Also, if there is too much similar content, netizens easily become bored, he said.