Seychelles features on popular Chinese travel website |03 July 2020
Mr Rex during the live streaming
Adding some tropical flavour to the recent Dragon Boat Festival in the midst of the difficult times of the COVID-19 pandemic, Seychelles has featured on the popular Chinese travel website Mafengwo.com.
The live streaming covered Rex Yang, a 33-year-old Chinese citizen and his family who were stranded on the paradise destination of Seychelles since January.
Mr Rex acquired his celebrity status on the web as he recorded his extraordinary holiday experience in the Indian Ocean paradise destination during the lockdown and posted it on the Chinese social media called Weibo.
His video posts went viral and received positive coverage in China with over 160 million views, propelling the beautiful pristine destination of Seychelles to the Chinese social media users.
On the occasion of the Dragon Boat Festival celebrated on June 25, the Seychelles Tourism Board (STB) together with the Embassy of the Republic of Seychelles in China worked alongside Mr Rex and Mafengwo.com to launch the first Seychelles’ live streaming project.
The live streaming took place on the third most populated island of La Digue, with tens of thousands of viewers watching and interacting with Mr Rex in real time.
The viewers online had the incredible opportunity to see Anse Source d’Argent, one of the most beautiful and renowned beaches in Seychelles. They were taken on a cultural tour of the different activities and historic sites on La Digue, such as feeding the giant tortoise, visiting the old traditional colonial houses and vanilla plantation at l’Union Estate.
Enhancing the viewers’ experience, the audience got the chance to virtually savour Seychelles’ smoked marlin salad and Takamaka cocktail through a step-by-step culinary and mixologist class at Le Domaine de L'Orangeraie Resort & Spa.
Jean-Luc Lai Lam, STB’s representative in China, stated that the project was a great success.
“Keeping our marketing strategies close to the current virtual trend, we wanted to captivate our Chinese audiences by creating more awareness about Seychelles as a unique destination on the market. Our aim is to remain visible by generating interest from potential visitors through the amazing use of technology specially now,” said Mr Lai Lam
He also added that the 72-minute live streaming project is worth advertising value of RMB 3.36 million (US $474,768) for the destination generated over 39,000 clicks and interactions and 138,000 viewers at Mafengwo.com.
Tencent-backed Mafengwo is a travel website in China for user-generated reviews and other travel-based content. Mafengwo has 130 million registered users. The website of Mafengwo has 3.50 million daily unique visitors (UVs) and Mafengwo App has 8 million daily active users.
Mr Rex and his family left Seychelles on Friday June 26, 2020.
Press release from STB