We were delighted to work on a major trade initiative to China recently when a business delegation supported by the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP) visited Shanghai and Hangzhou. The trip was designed to drive increased trade, inward investment, education and tourism to Leeds City Region (LCR), the UK’s largest city region outside London. Guanxi was responsible for the tourism element of the trip, promoting the region to Chinese media and travel trade in workshops and networking events.
Our Account Director in Beijing, Vivienne Song, accompanied the delegation and gave presentations about LCR and its rich heritage, culture, national parks and visitor attractions. Vivienne also facilitated meetings with Chinese travel trade and media including interviews with David Shepherd, Director of Trade Investment, LEP.
Leveraging Guanxi’s existing relationships with Chinese travel trade and media
The trip was part of our ongoing partnership with the LEP and Visit Leeds. Guanxi has been working with Leeds City Region in China since 2015 and our activity includes promotion of Leeds, Bradford and Huddersfield to the Chinese travel trade and media; carrying out training programmes; and handling enquiries from tour operators. We write and translate press releases and distribute them to the Chinese media and even arranged a Bake-off in Beijing for 10 top Chinese travel journalists. To promote Leeds City Region, we use our existing relationships, something which is all-important in China where Guanxi – the system of social networks and personal contacts which facilitate business – is key.
We’ve identified opportunities for Leeds in Chinese tour operators’ programmes, and recently we’ve been promoting Leeds as a MICE destination too. In-China engagement has been great for understanding the Chinese travel trade and media’s existing perceptions of the region and we’ve been able to focus our campaigns so the messaging resonates with the audience. UNESCO-listed industrial model village Saltaire, for instance, is proving to be a very interesting proposition for Chinese travel companies.
During the trip, we also launched a LinkedIn Group for Chinese alumni of eight universities in the Leeds City Region, another project we are delivering for Leeds. Read more about our social media work with the alumni.