Adding some tropical flavor to the Dragon Boat Festival in the midst of the difficult times of the COVID-19 pandemic, Seychelles was featured on the popular Chinese travel website Mafengwo.

The livestreaming covered Mr. Rex Yang a 33-year-old Chinese citizen and his family who were stranded on the paradise destination of Seychelles since January.

Mr. Rex acquired his celebrity status on the web as he recorded his extraordinary holiday experience in the Indian Ocean paradise destination during the lockdown and posted on the Chinese social media called Weibo.

His video posts went viral and received positive coverage in China with over 160 million views, propelling the beautiful pristine destination to the Chinese social media users.

On the occasion of the Dragon Boat Festival celebrated on June 25, 2020, the Seychelles Tourism Board (STB) together with the Embassy of the Republic of Seychelles in Beijing worked alongside Mr. Rex and Mafengwo.com to launch the first Seychelles’ live streaming project.

The live streaming took place on the third most populated island of La Digue, with tens of thousands of viewers watching and interacting with Mr. Rex in real-time.

Enhancing the viewer’s experience, the audience got the chance to virtually savor the Seychelles smoked marlin salad and Takamaka cocktail through a step-by-step culinary and mixologist class at Le Domaine de L’Orangeraie Resort & Spa.

Mr. Jean- Luc Lai Lam, STB representative in China, stated that the project was a great success.

He also added that the 72 minutes livestreaming project is worth advertising value of RMB 3.36 million (US$ 474,768) for the destination, generated over 39,000 clicks and interactions and 138,000 viewers at Mafengwo.

Tencent-backed Mafengwo is a travel website in China for user-generated reviews and other travel-based content.  Mafengwo has 130 million registered users. The website of Mafengwo has 3.50 million daily Unique Visitors (UVs) and Mafengwo APP has 8 million daily active users.