WeChat has launched its first series of 'WeChat Connect' events in Sydney and Melbourne.
The series is aimed at showing Australian merchants how to harness the Chinese community.
As of June 2017, Weixin and WeChat have a combined reach of over 963 million monthly active users in China.
WeChat unveiled its WeChat City Experience Sydney Mini Program, a new way tourists can connect with a city through the app.
The tool, previewed in partnership with Tourism Australia and Destination New South Wales, will offer Chinese tourists a different way to experience the popular destination through a self-guided interface that navigates key places of interest, all without leaving their everyday go-to app.
Tourism Australia executive Andy Jiang said this is an important commercial opportunity.
“We know that Chinese tastes in tourism are maturing and their interests are increasingly focused on individual, experiential travel.
"It is great that as an industry, we can tap into the potential of the largest social mobile app in China to deliver more destination information on demand to high-value Chinese fully independent travellers."
This year the government announced that 2017 is the year of China Tourism, in an effort to drive continued growth in what is Australia’s most valuable tourism market.
Last year, 1.2 million Chinese tourists visited Australia and by 2020 the sector has the potential to be worth more than $13 billion.
Operating on a single platform, WeChat allows Chinese users to explore, connect and experience Australia all within one app.
The WeChat ecosystem includes a number of functionalities including the WeChat Mini Program, a feature that allows users to experience various services without the need to download or install, WeChat Official Accounts for businesses and a mobile payment platform, WeChat Pay.
The use of WeChat Pay will solve many issues for Chinese users when they shop in Australia, and local merchants are able to leverage the large user base to gain loyalty and become even more competitive.
Additionally, businesses are able to tap WeChat Mini Programs to engage users and build their brand and influence with the Chinese community.
Mini Programs can be discovered in many ways, such as scanning offline Mini Program code, recommending by friends, clicking through Official Accounts or Discover tab, etc. Through Mini Programs, brands and merchants can offer loyalty programs, virtual gift cards and more