KUALA LUMPUR: China's e-commerce giant Alibaba and Malaysian consulate in Shanghai have teamed up to bring the country to Chinese visitors via a live streaming.
Alibaba said the event was live streamed via the Fliggy platform from a Malaysian-specialty restaurant in Shanghai and across two hours, attracting more than tens of thousands of viewers as they get their minds and palates ready for Chinese New Year celebrations.
The live streaming event was created as part of a "Live Embassy Open Day" series by Fliggy in collaboration with consulate general officials from February 4-7, 2021, it said.
"The event was designed to allow Fliggy users to experience travelling around the world and experiencing foreign cultures without physically going abroad. Besides Malaysia, other countries featured in the series include Belgium, Rwanda and Thailand," it said.
Alibaba said during the livestream, viewers were also given a presentation on popular tourism destinations in Malaysia, its cultural elements as well as various celebrations and festivals, geographical features and other unique attributes, to attract Chinese travelers to visit Malaysia once international borders are opened.
The event also highlighted how familiarity with Malaysia had grown among Chinese consumers through the Alibaba platform and its global eWTP initiative, it said.
"With global travel and offline retail at a standstill in many parts of the world, live streaming has become a mainstream channel for overseas brands and merchants to maintain a link to the China market," it said.
Meanwhile, Alibaba said Fliggy's Chinese New Year live streaming series was the latest example of the group and partners using live streaming to help overseas destinations and products stay top-of-mind with Chinese consumers.
"Malaysia is a key market in Alibaba Group's globalisation strategy and the company remains invested in contributing to the country's growing digital transformation while empowering local small and medium enterprise and digital entrepreneurs as part of its eWTP initiative," it added.