China Trading Desk launches China Marketing AI

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By Naomi Chadderton

Published on April 17, 2026

China Trading Desk has launched China Marketing AI, a new platform designed to help travel retail brands understand and capture Chinese traveller demand before departure.

Unveiled in Singapore, the platform responds to a shift in the travel retail landscape, where purchase decisions are increasingly shaped upstream on domestic digital platforms rather than at the point of sale.

According to China Trading Desk’s Q1 2026 outbound travel survey, Chinese outbound trips are expected to exceed 175 million this year, with 64.3% of travellers planning to shop in travel retail environments. However, discovery is now largely happening before travel, with platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin used by 54.4% and 51.5% of respondents respectively for travel and product research.

China Marketing AI has been developed to give brands visibility into how products, categories and competitors are performing across these platforms. The tool enables marketing and commercial teams to track content trends, identify key influencers, monitor brand presence and benchmark performance within China’s largely closed digital ecosystem.

“Travel retail demand is no longer created at the point of sale. Chinese travellers are forming preferences before they travel, through platforms like Xiaohongshu and Douyin. The challenge for brands is understanding whether they are visible in those environments. This platform is designed to address that gap,” said Subramania Bhatt, Founder & CEO of China Trading Desk.

Early use cases highlight a growing disconnect between demand creation and conversion. In one example cited by the company, a global luxury brand achieved strong visibility on Xiaohongshu and Douyin through product-led content and creator engagement, but lacked a functional owned ecosystem to convert that interest into store visits and customer engagement.

Without a fully integrated conversion layer, such as WeChat, the brand struggled to translate awareness into measurable retail outcomes, illustrating a broader structural gap across the sector.

China Trading Desk noted that this challenge is becoming increasingly common, as brands invest heavily in content and influencer ecosystems without fully connecting discovery platforms to conversion infrastructure.