Parklu recently released a report documenting trends in destinations discussed by China’s influencers and KOLs. While destinations mention fit closely with China top travel destinations, there are a few surprises, especially the differences in places mentioned between Weibo, WeChat, Little Red Book and Douyin.

Paris tops the list in most cases, but every now and then Los Angeles and Tokyo make it to the top. Other destinations such as Iceland rank higher for WeChat but very low for Douyin. Some small hints of Chinese digital behavior hide in between the lines, just waiting to be teased into the open.

Paris, Tokyo, and LA top the list with Paris as the big winner. It is no surprise that Paris has been a top travel destination for Chinese tourists for many years.

Tokyo, Paris, Bangkok and Seoul top the list of destinations discussed on Weibo by top KOLs. Tokyo, Bangkok, and Seoul are pretty close to China, so it isn’t a big mystery why these may be mentioned more by China’s influencers.

Paris, Switzerland, Iceland, and Singapore top the list for WeChat. Putting aside the popularity of Paris, it’s interesting to see how WeChat emphasizes Iceland. Iceland is one of those more “trendy” places to go, being it’s far, difficult to get to and bestows a bit of uniqueness to those who manage to travel there. This data may suggest that richer travelers who are looking to go to places different than others tend to discuss these places on WeChat.

Paris, Tokyo, London and Los Angeles are the top destinations for Little Red Book. It makes sense as Little Red Book is focused on fashion, and these are cities where fashion is important. New York scores pretty low here, perhaps that suggests that Little Red Book KOLs see New York as less essential than cities like Bangkok and Bali to their followers?

LA, Paris, Turkey, and Seoul top the list for most discussed destinations on Douyin. As Douyin is an app about making short music videos, this data suggests that London is better for dance videos than Bangkok? Well, perhaps the dance videos made in Bangkok aren’t allowed on Douyin.. wink wink. Its great to see sunny LA at the top of the list just barely beating Paris. LA is the birthplace of Hip Hop, and the perpetual sun of SoCal is a great place to shoot a short music video. In contrast, Iceland doesn’t seem like it’d be a great place to get one’s “groove” on… go figure.