Millions of world-beating travelers might have never imagined that their pint-sized smartphones will be creating a huge leap for the tourism industry in China.

From glowing skyscrapers to idyllic terraces, most of them pinpoint their visits to the landmark to share cultural pride or appreciation for nature, while some tag their trips to show they've been there.

Chinese tech-savvy travelers have shared their trips and adventures digitally by tagging geo-location of their pleasures in videos they share online, which, in turn, get likes but also encourage more trips to the tagged places.

As short-video is the key driver of Internet usage growth in China across all app categories, according to this year’s iconic Internet Report 2019 by legendary analyst Mary Meeker. Video sharing platforms are also emerging as hubs for the tourism industry.

Screenshots of Douyin videos

Shooting a one-to-two-minute-long video on your smartphone while on the move has become a new trend among Chinese travelers, revealed a report jointly launched by the Chinese leading online travel agencies TongCheng-eLong and Mafengwo at a tourism-themed conference on Thursday in Beijing.

Nearly 60.8 percent of users have shared travel experiences online as of last year, 42.3 percent of which have shared at least one short video, according to the report.

By April 2019, Chinese users spent a total of nearly 600 million hours on a daily basis watching short videos via smartphones from leading video-sharing apps such as Douyin and Kuaishou, the report continued.

“Immersive full-screen video interface is able to unfold the dynamic pulse while one is traveling,” Zhu Ling, a person in charge of ByteDance’s video-boosted tourism program said at the conference.

ByteDance is the mother company of Douyin, internationally known as TikTok, which has topped Apple’s apps download chart, beating Facebook and YouTube in the first quarter of 2018, and gathering 250 million daily active users from over 150 countries and regions.

Addressing the conference, Li Lin, a vanguard filmmaker in China, also recognized that tech is now revolutionizing the travel industry.

“5G apps may hold more promise in the near future. The unstoppable video-sharing trend is so transformational that it has gain its toehold in the tourism business, especially when we’re collaborating with digital media and user-generated content,” Li pointed out.