The multi-million-dollar game changer: How live-stream selling is reshaping travel and tourism

SINGAPORE – At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Shanghai-headquartered travel company Trip.com Group generated more than US$360 million (S$485 million) in gross monetary value in just seven months from selling travel products via live streaming.

Donning a different traditional Chinese costume for each episode, executive chairman and co-founder of Trip.com Group James Liang hosted the marathon broadcasts – each lasting between two and four hours – alongside company staff and industry representatives.

To keep the live stream entertaining, Mr Liang incorporated Chinese performance arts such as the Sichuan “face-changing” opera, comedy skits, and song-and-dance gigs, while selling travel products like hotels, flights, holiday packages and tourist attraction tickets.

Live-stream selling – the fusion of e-commerce and live streaming – is changing how people experience and plan travel. 

Driven by the rise of social media and increased screen time, live-stream selling has become a powerful sales channel, allowing travel brands to engage audiences in real time and drive bookings instantly.

Trip.com Group’s earnings were impressive at a time when the tourism industry was among the hardest hit by diminished cross-border movement. 

The live-stream episodes – showcasing destinations and travel products from the group’s partners in Singapore, Thailand, South Korea and Japan – proved so popular, they drew more than 150 million international viewers.

In those pandemic years, many other travel companies also took to live streaming to stay connected with their consumers. 

Klook, for example, came up with the live-streaming initiative Klook Live in September 2020 so its users could interact directly with its brand partners, redeem promotion codes and book activities immediately. 

It allowed the company to stay connected with its community while expanding beyond travel-related offerings, at a time when consumer needs shifted towards lifestyle and retail content, says a Klook spokesperson. 

Allure of live stream

Live-stream selling has come a long way since then. 

In the last five years, online travel agents, tour operators and travel brands have added live-stream selling to their arsenal of marketing tools – with good reason.

The global live-stream e-commerce market was valued at US$940.3 billion in 2024 and is predicted to reach US$6 trillion by 2035, according to a February report by Indian market researcher Transparency Market Research. 

In Asia, countries like China and Thailand are already well ahead of the live-stream selling curve.

A report from international market researcher Statista found that as at December 2023, around 55 per cent of China’s total internet users use live streams to buy and sell.

The country’s top-earning live streamer of 2023 was Chinese influencer Zhang Qingyang, also known online as Crazy Xiaoyangge, who achieved 3.21 billion yuan (S$594 million) in earnings that year.

In Thailand, live-stream selling accounted for 10 per cent of alternative e-commerce in 2022, the largest share in South-east Asia, according to a 2022 report by technology company Meta and business management consultant Bain and Company.

To capitalise on Thailand’s booming live-streaming culture, Trip.com Group opened its first live-streaming centre in Bangkok in August 2024 to showcase the country’s tourism offerings. 

Situation in Singapore

While the live-stream ecosystem in Singapore is not yet as mature, the trend of live-stream selling is growing slowly but steadily. 

Tour agency Chan Brothers Travel has been using live-stream selling to market its tour packages since 2020.

While the company started with live virtual tours hosted by local tour operators in destinations like Turkey and Dubai, it later evolved to include interactive game shows and sharing sessions by travel experts.

In March, it collaborated with a local radio station to conduct daily live streams for a week in Chengdu and Chongqing, where the hosts explored the cities in real time, with a team of staff engaging viewers in the comments and sharing links to its tour package.

The campaign resulted in a 20 per cent increase in bookings for its featured itinerary, driven largely by viewers in their 30s to 50s.

Ms Tan Jie Ni, marketing communications executive at Chan Brothers Travel, says “live-streaming remains a vital strategy” for audience engagement and promoting tours.

She adds: “Live-streaming feels spontaneous, honest and entertaining, and that kind of emotional resonance is difficult to achieve through traditional formats.”

Social media platform TikTok’s e-commerce store TikTok Shop lists a category called “Travel & Tickets” that includes the sale of goods and services – such as tour packages, hotel stays and travel experiences – as vouchers.

For instance, TikTok account @sgweekendgowhere lists a voucher priced at $100 for a day tour in Batam among its best-selling products. It includes return ferry tickets, a city and shopping tour, an entrance ticket to a nature park, a seafood lunch and land transfer.

Full-time live streamer Jotham Lim, 35, recently sold eight vouchers worth around $7,000 live on TikTok for luxury spa resort Thann Wellness Destination in Thailand. He has seen an uptick in viewers wanting to purchase services via live streams. 

“Initially, I think people were not too sure about how selling service-based products over live stream works. But now, I’m seeing more buyers for such items,” he says. 

As live-stream selling becomes mainstream, travellers can look forward to using this popular online modality to explore the world, dispel travel anxieties and secure good deals in real time. 

Good deals, live chats and honest reviews 

Dr Zhang Jiajie, assistant professor of human geography at Nanyang Technological University, says the popularity of live-stream selling in the travel industry highlights a demand for more engagement and interaction among tourists. 

“With technological affordances, the ease of access to such platforms propels this culture of live-stream selling. The changing consumer landscape shows a desire for real-time engagement and a more immersive, instantaneous type of interaction,” he adds. 

Live streamers often engage in active question-and-answer segments, directly addressing viewers by their usernames to build connection and trust. 

They also tend to describe and showcase products extensively over live streams, so viewers have as much information of the product as possible, which encourages them to make purchases swiftly and confidently. 

“With real-time engagement comes a certain level of authenticity. If you trust the seller, you can listen to his or her experiences and ‘preview’ the destination before engaging in the experience yourself,” says Dr Zhang, who is also a tourism geographer. 

Ms Emily Tan, 31, worked as a relationship manager before she went into live-streaming full-time in March 2024.

Like many live streamers, she runs a Telegram channel alongside her live-stream accounts. She uses it to keep up to speed with her more than 8,200 subscribers, who air their concerns and feedback via the channel. 

The direct line to her team quells buyers’ anxieties and bumps up her credibility as a seller, she notes. 

“The beauty of having a Telegram channel is that our subscribers enjoy sharing their honest opinions and reviews there. So, if I had sold a ski trip, for example, the first batch of customers to experience it can review it over Telegram for everyone to see,” Ms Tan adds. 

She feels that having an intimate community built from her live-stream viewers allows for more authentic reviews and honest exchange of feedback, as opposed to the anonymous reviews sometimes found on larger platforms like Google Maps. 

She adds: “If the reviews are good, we get a boost for the next live stream. If it is bad, we can get feedback for our merchants and improve the next time.”

Untapped potential of live-stream selling and travel 

Mr Lim often live-streams from onsite events such as electronics fairs and roadshows in collaboration with brands. He feels there is still a market for those who prefer to see products in-person and converse with sellers face to face. 

But increasingly, due in part to the number of stackable discounts that various online platforms offer, consumers are “getting smart”. When used strategically, he says it is possible to save a few hundred dollars. 

His live streams typically offer lower prices than the event’s, with perks like free delivery and a gift with purchase. So, consumers visit the physical store to evaluate the items for themselves before purchasing via his live stream at their leisure. 

For 12 hours of continuous live-streaming in a day during a recent electronics fair, he racked up sales of over $60,000.

The same logic applies to travel fairs and other travel-related events.

Travel companies may start integrating live-stream selling into their sales strategies, offering travel products, itineraries and experiences for less via social commerce and opening up a new avenue to market to a much larger pool of travellers. 

Ms Tan feels that the travel industry has yet to fully tap the potential of live-stream selling, and she has experienced first-hand how it can positively impact tourism. 

“Sometimes when we head overseas to sell local products via live streaming, people associate our positive comments about the items with the destination,” says Ms Tan.

“For example, when we were selling items from Vietnam, our customers would comment that Vietnam seems like such a fun, affordable place to visit.”

In September 2024, she shared her experience of a professionally taken costume photo shoot in Ho Chi Minh City via a TikTok live stream, and offered her viewers a promotion code for the activity. It was snapped up more than 100 times in two weeks. 

Ms Tan feels that selling travel experiences asks a higher level of seller credibility and trust from consumers, but that does not daunt her. 

“Everyone has a different expectation of what an experience should be like. It makes it more important for live streamers to be transparent and list the pros and cons of the experience, so buyers can make an informed decision,” she says. 

What to look out for when buying via live stream 

With scams on the rise, live-stream selling can appear to be just another ruse by dodgy sellers. To avoid falling into such a trap, experts and live streamers who spoke with The Straits Times offer some tips. 

1. Read reviews and check ratings

Look through sellers’ profiles thoroughly and browse their ratings and reviews. You can also check against the sellers’ other social media accounts, if any, to ensure credibility. 

2. Make sure that there is a secure payment process

Mr Lim advises avoiding platforms where there is a need for upfront payment without assurances that the buyer can later seek refunds, or settle disputes with the platform as an intermediary. 

“On TikTok Shop, Shopee and Lazada, for example, there are legal processes and corporate structures that handle payment issues such that live streamers or merchants can be held accountable in certain circumstances,” he adds. 

3. Ask more questions during live streams 

Do not be afraid to speak up in the live-stream comments before deciding to purchase anything. 

Ms Tan says her viewers are very astute and often ask questions that go beyond the Frequently Asked Questions sheet provided by the merchants she works with.

“Customers really do their research before they buy from a live stream. If their questions can be satisfactorily answered during or even after the live stream, then they think it’s worth purchasing,” she says.

4. Be mindful of artificial intelligence (AI) in live-stream selling 

With AI influencers now more visible on social media, Mr Joshua Loh, Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s course chair for the diploma in tourism and resort management, says it pays to be more careful of such advancements in the live-streaming space.

In Singapore, celebrities like Li Nanxing, Gurmit Singh and Julie Tan unveiled their AI avatars on tech start-up IdoLive’s digital platform in March 2024. Li’s AI avatar, for instance, has run a live stream selling Chinese electrical appliance brand Midea products via Facebook in August 2024.

While the trend of AI avatars in e-commerce is widespread in China, the rest of Asia has yet to catch on. 

“How do you place accountability if people buy from AI-enabled live streamers? I feel like it’s a grey area we don’t really have good answers for just yet,” Mr Loh says.

Read the original article here. 

Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.