According to BCG, China’s young professionals are quite digitally connected; however, when we scan their days we see a distinct difference in the manner they regard digital tools.

Key element is using digital primarily as a communication device; while younger teens and university students focus on social sharing, communication, MP3 downloads, etc – young professionals take a more practical approach to digital. That’s not to say its any less a part of their lives; we can venture to state that digital is more of a tool than a companion.
We see some integration of email, …

In an apparent bid to extend its control over the Internet and cash in on the rapid growth of mobile devices, Chinaplans to create its own government-controlled search engine.
The new venture would be fresh competition for Baidu.com, a private company that runs China’s dominant search engine. Baidu has seen its market share grow since Google retreated from the mainland earlier this year.
State-owned China Mobile — the world’s biggest cellphone carrier — and Xinhua, China’s official state-run news agency, signed an agreement Thursday to create a joint venture called the Search Engine New Media International …

China’s central government says it will boost domestic tourism development by relaxing market access, welcoming foreign companies and slashing ticket prices for tourist spots.
The State Council has issued measures aimed at speeding up the development of China’s tourism industry. The government is looking to revitalize domestic tourism competition by introducing foreign tourism companies.
The government is about to loosen market access, break down industrial and regional market access, and streamline the administrative admission process. They are also vowing to push forward the transformation …

Just how how hard can it be, asks Sina blogger and freelance journalist Chen Zikun in his August 6 post, for Chinese travelers to get a visa—with Chen’s answer apparently being: not too hard—in which he shares the stories behind visas for the many countries he’s been to:
Until I went to apply for a visa for my first ever trip out of the country, I was always happily under the impression that, being from a country with a rapidly-developing economy, and especially with how smug red-to-the-root media …

China wants to learn from Malaysia’s experience in developing its islands into major international tourist destinations, while also preserving the island’s eco-system.
A Chinese delegation led by the head of China’s top tourism administration Shao Qiwei, arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday. Shao Qiwei said Malaysia’s experience in this area is important for China which wants to develop its Hainan Island into a popular tourist destination.
Malaysia’s tourism department said it will consider co-operating with China, to develop cruise tourism as a new product. The Chinese delegation will also visit Pangkor and …

From Synovate China Media Atlas; Chinese activity by income levels.

Upper income leveled Chinese lead digital engagement; with top information searched being financial this gives insight into China’s psychographic priorities.

From Synovate China Media Atlas; channel preference of higher income’d Chinese.

Higher income’d Chinese tend to prefer Internet channels vs. all other available channels. While outdoor and TV are strong, expect offline channels to lose ground to digital communication medium; primarily due to low-cost and easy access vs. other channels.

Microblogs on radar of official scrutiny
The genie is out of the bottle and he’s not going back. I refer, of course, to microblogging and what appears to be a change in tack on the part of the authorities toward social networking.
Microblogs on radar of official scrutiny
When the plug was pulled on Twitter a year ago a number of domestic versions rolled out and quickly became a hit among the masses, encouraged by celebrities like Jolin Tsai, who can twitter on all day about her crystal nails and attract hundreds of …

The number of China’s outbound travelers is expected to reach 52 million this year, up 7 percent year-on-year, the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) forecast in a report issued on Friday.
From January to May this year, China’s outbound travel tourists totaled 26.8 million, up 19 percent over the same period last year, according to the report posted on the CNTA’s website.
The report attributed the outbound tourism boost to stable development of China’s economy and the appreciation of the yuan against the US dollar.
Further, the number of domestic tours throughout the …

Only a few weeks after finalizing its Approved Destination Status (ADS), Canada has already ranked the third most popular tourist destination among Chinese looking to travel abroad, according to a survey released Monday.
In a telephone poll of 1,080 people living in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the “Research Report on China’s Outbound Tourism Market” found Australia the most desired destination of prospective Chinese travelers, followed by Singapore and Canada.
The report was conducted jointly by the Vancouver-based SUCCESS Foundation, EMR International and the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada,
Japan ranked fourth, just ahead …

Colombia and China on Wednesday signed a “memorandum of understanding,” which the Andean nation hopes will encourage the arrival of more Chinese tourists to its shores.
The agreement, which was signed in Peking, makes Colombia an approved tourist destination for Chinese citizens and facilitate the entry of Chinese tourists into the country.
Although there are still obstacles in the way of maximizing the benefits from the agreement, such as no direct air link between the countries, Luis Guillermo Plata, the Colombian minister of commerce, industry and tourism predicted a “boost” in tourism.
“Colombia …

Agreement with China a Great Opportunity for Canada’s Tourism Industry

Ottawa, June 24, 2010 – With today’s official signing of the Approved Destination Status agreement with China, Canada’s tourism industry is now presented with an excellent opportunity for growth.

“This is a great day for tourism in Canada, and a great day for travelers from China,” said David Goldstein, President and CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC). “This agreement will create a greater openness between our countries, allowing Chinese visitors greater access to all of Canada’s iconic attractions …

Beijing – Millions of Chinese tourists will have greater security when they travel abroad after the State drew up guidelines for travel emergency assistance services, with the support of International SOS.
The document, expected to be released by the end of the year, will be especially useful to Chinese tourists who run into difficulties abroad, such as acute medical conditions or accidents.
“It will also help develop China’s booming travel industry by setting up and standardizing travel emergency assistance services on the part of stakeholders, including travel agencies and related organizations,” Zhu …

Something rather unusual is happening in China. Hundreds of porn sites, as well as a Twitter client and a video-sharing site, have all been released for public viewing and no one knows why.
China is virtually in the middle of a one-year scraping of the Internet, forcefully removing any content that censors find “vulgar” so decent people can surf the net without stumbling across images of bottoms.
So it was quite a surprise when not only scores of Western porn sites were opened once more …

China Tuesday published a white paper on its internet policy, stressing its commitment to freedom of speech on the internet.
The white paper, released by the State Council Information Office, introduced facts of the development and use of the internet in China.
Coming three months after the very public dispute with Google, which resulted in the shutdown of Google’s China-based portal, the paper offers a revealing look back on Chinese Internet history as well as where the country stands today.
Not surprisingly, China still supports the so-called “Great Firewall” approach to controlling and censoring …

June 4th 2010 marked the 21st anniversary of the massacre of 3000 students and protesters carried out by the Chinese government at Tiananmen Square. Discussion of the bloody incident is strictly prohibited on mainland China and the ban extends to the internet.
But China on Friday blocked Web service Foursquare, which lets users alert friends to where they are through their cell phones. The reason was not known, but many users had been “checking in” from Tiananmen Square to mark the anniversary of a bloody 1989 government crackdown on student-led pro-democracy …

China has banned Internet maps because the government considers them a threat to state security.
New regulations will ban what the government considers to be “illegal” online maps of the country. The prohibition includes all maps downloaded or copied from the Internet onto mobile devices.
Chinese officials say they fear that some uploaded satellite maps and images could show sensitive military locations. The authorities are updating current policies to require all Internet map servers to store map data inside the country and provide public IP addresses. There will be tighter supervision of …

China has unveiled ambitious plans to export its rail technologies worldwide, including the creation of a global network that would slash train times between Beijing and London to as little as two days.
Just two years after completing its first high-speed link, the Chinese Ministry of Railways is considering plans to build two lines to Europe, one passing through India, Pakistan, the Middle East and terminating in London, while a second would head to Germany via Russia.
There are also plans for a third line extending south …

Google’s China website (http://www.google.cn) now redirects to the search engine’s Hong Kong site.
While earlier reports had Google’s China operations shutting down on April 10 (which could of course still be true) other reports had today as the day that Google would make an announcement, and this seems to be it. Google made this announcement/change in the middle of the night, so we do not have any official reaction yet from Chinese authorities.
Below is the official announcement by Google:
On January 12, we announced on this blog that Google and more than …

Topics regarded as sensitive include names of political leaders

To police the internet China has employed what is regarded by many as the world’s most formidable censorship machine. But as ever more Chinese get online, more and more users also understand what it means to jump over the government’s “Great Firewall of China”.
The country’s firewall system is complex and multi-layered, says Isaac Mao, one of China’s first bloggers.
“The first layer is technical. The government has invested a lot to build routers and other infrastructure to filter, monitor and block websites and …