Lý TrầnInfluencer marketing is considered an effective tool to promote new tourist destinations. Many tourism powerhouses have used influencers to introduce new destinations in addition to famous destinations. To better understand this influencer strategy, let’s look at two case studies from Korea and Japan.
Korea cooperates with both macro and nano influencers
The Jeolla region is considered an “original” Korea although it has not attracted much attention from tourists. Therefore, this province is one of 100 potential little-known tourist localities of the kimchi land in the “Local 100” project implemented by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Korea with the aim of developing local tourism.
To attract a global audience, Jeolla has partnered with international influencers, especially in target markets such as Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States. They chose travel Youtube vloggers to produce long series of content about Jeolla. In addition, creators on TikTok and Instagram also participated in creating short, visually appealing content. The KOLs were selected based on the demographics of their followers and the strengths of the content they produced. Influencers are selected in three groups: lifestyle & travel, food, and culture & history. These three groups are consistent with the tourism characteristics of Jeolla Province.
South Korea also implemented an interesting campaign with a group of nano-influencers. They called on foreign influencers living in Korea with 1,000 or more followers to participate in a content creation campaign promoting Jeolla. The influencers were sponsored for travel expenses to Jeolla along with a sightseeing and resort program. During the program, they participated in the most unique experiences of nature and cultural history, and met with artisans in traditional craft villages. Hashtags like #VisitJeolla or #DiscoverKorea were used in all of the influencer’s content.
South Korea leveraged the large number of foreign influencers visiting famous landmarks to invite them to extend their experience to Jeolla. As a result, thousands of pieces of content about Jeolla were spread on foreign social networks, garnering millions of interactions.
Japan approaches the South Korean, Thai, and Chinese markets through influencers.
To achieve the goal of attracting 60 million tourists by 2030, the Japanese government wants more tourists to return and is working to promote less visited destinations. This will help avoid tourist overload in popular places and at the same time revive weakened local communities. There is a big difference between countries that already know a lot about Japan and countries that don’t, depending on geographical distance. For example, Singapore is a market where repeat visitors account for nearly 70%, and everyone already knows a lot about Japan. Therefore, introducing a new and unknown Japan is important to attract this market.
As part of that orientation, the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) sought influencers to introduce a lesser-known destination, the Ama Hut – a kyūdō (Japanese archery) dojo in Shimane Prefecture. The Korean influencer – Chomad was chosen. He has more than 1 million followers on Instagram and 780,000 followers on Youtube. Chomad made a video about a small village in Japan, where he grilled fresh seafood with a traditional Japanese female diver. The video has attracted more than 37,000 views on YouTube and more than 24,000 likes on Instagram. In the video, he called on his followers: ‘I bet you’ve never seen this before – come see this place.
In addition to the project with Chomad, JNTO is also targeting the Thai market by inviting Nariko Somboom, a famous TikToker in Thailand, to experience wadaiko (Japanese drums) in Miyagi Prefecture and visit Ouchijuku, a town preserved from the Edo Period (1601-1868) in Fukushima Prefecture.
China is also a tourism market that the Japan Tourism Agency is targeting. To attract this market, Japan has partnered with Chang Feifei, an influencer with over 4.26 million followers on Weibo, 1.8 million followers on Douyin; and 2 million followers on Xiaohongshu.
The 32-year-old influencer lives in Beijing but often travels back and forth to Japan. On her social media channels, she has introduced many popular destinations such as Universal Studios Japan and Hankyu department stores. When invited to visit lesser-known localities in Japan, she was very excited because she would be able to create fresh content about Japanese tourism to satisfy her followers. New and unique content will help her social media channels grow.
Vietnam is aiming to develop cultural and historical tourism to support local tourism development in 2025. Under this direction, there are many new experiences and different colors of Vietnam that need to be introduced to international tourists. The 2 case studies on Korea and Japan help us to refer to enhance the promotion of Vietnam tourism on social networks and influencer marketing.
With experience in implementing many projects in cooperation with international KOLs on tourism, IMVN has a KOL network in many major markets around the world such as Southeast Asia, America and Europe. For more details on the program of cooperation with international KOLs, please contact IMVN at the link below.
