The China Visibility Index
Fifteen luxury hotels in Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah, measured on the five platforms where Chinese travellers decide where to stay. The six highest scores are named. Any hotel that wants to know whether it was measured, and what it scored, can ask.
Why we did this
Chinese outbound travellers spent US$254 billion in 2025 across 167.5 million trips, and the February forecast for 2026 was US$280 billion, of which about US$85 billion goes on accommodation (China Trading Desk, via Skift). Dubai recorded 19.59 million visitors in 2025. Chinese arrivals were 824,000 in 2024 against 989,000 in 2019, and the 2025 figure has not been published.
That decision is not made on Google, Instagram or TripAdvisor, none of which load in mainland China. It is made on Douyin and RedNote, confirmed on WeChat, and booked on Ctrip. We wanted to know which UAE hotels are visible there, and we wanted a number that anyone could check.
The six highest scores
Two hotels tie at 37, so six are named rather than five. The remaining nine are measured by the same method and are not named.
Closed for renovation until October 2027, and its score was earned while shut: 358,858 likes on its ten most-liked Douyin videos of the past year, 59 RedNote notes in 90 days, verified accounts on all three platforms posting within the week.
73,847 Douyin likes, a RedNote account that posted the day before measurement, and the second-highest Ctrip rating in the set at 4.8.
The presence score comes from group-level accounts that post about the property. The property itself drew seven RedNote notes in 90 days.
The second-highest RedNote volume in the set, 45 notes in 90 days, with no RedNote or Douyin account of its own. Its presence score rests on a group WeChat account.
The second-highest RedNote engagement in the set, 4,420 likes and saves on its ten most-engaged notes, with no RedNote account and Douyin and WeChat accounts that last posted in April.
The highest Ctrip rating in the set at 4.9, a RedNote account that posted on the day of measurement, and nothing on Douyin or WeChat.
What the fifteen scores say
The gap between first and sixth is 34 points, and between first and the median is 43.
Every hotel measured has a Dianping listing. Ctrip ratings run from 4.2 to 4.9. The median booking-layer score is 10 out of 20, the only component where the median reaches half marks.
The median score for Douyin reach is 3 out of 20. For RedNote volume it is 3. For RedNote engagement it is 3. Fifteen luxury hotels drew 228 RedNote notes in 90 days between them, and the median hotel drew 10. No hotel came close to the top band for RedNote volume, which starts at 150 notes.
The six named hotels average 11.7 out of 20 on presence; the other nine average 5.1. Across all fifteen, 19 verified accounts were found out of a possible 45. Seven had not posted in 90 days. Six hotels had no account on any of the three platforms.
Where an international group's China accounts post about a UAE property, the property scores for it. Several groups with active China accounts had posted nothing about their UAE hotels in the measurement window, and those hotels scored zero on presence.
Three of the six named hotels have no RedNote account. Two of them rank in the top three for RedNote engagement. The content exists and the audience engages with it; the hotel is simply not in the room.
We also searched the three phrases a traveller types before choosing a hotel, on both RedNote and Douyin. Of 60 results, 14 mentioned any of the fifteen hotels, almost always as one name in a list. More than half the Douyin results were over a year old.
Method
Fieldwork was done by one Chinese-speaking researcher on the mainland versions of the apps, on 6 and 7 October 2026. No scraping tools or third-party analytics were used.
Names first. For each hotel the researcher recorded the Chinese name on Ctrip, the name used by any official account, and the most common name in RedNote notes, and listed every variant searched. Where variants existed, results were pooled.
Position within a band is by log scale for Douyin and engagement, linear otherwise. The bands are ours, and they are published so that anyone can disagree with them.
Douyin has no date filter, so the researcher searched each name, sorted by most liked, and worked down the list checking publish dates, keeping videos from the last twelve months until ten were found or 100 had been checked. The score is the sum of likes on the kept videos.
Under 5,000 likes: 0 to 4 · 5,000 to 25,000: 5 to 9 · 25,000 to 100,000: 10 to 14 · 100,000 to 500,000: 15 to 18 · over 500,000: 19 to 20
RedNote has no 90-day filter, so the researcher searched each name sorted by latest and counted notes dated within 90 days, stopping only after 20 consecutive notes older than the cutoff, or at 300. Notes about other hotels and duplicates across name variants were excluded.
Under 15 notes: 0 to 4 · 15 to 60: 5 to 9 · 60 to 150: 10 to 14 · 150 to 300: 15 to 18 · 300 or more: 19 to 20
Sorted by most liked, the ten most-engaged notes from the last 90 days, likes plus saves summed.
Under 1,000: 0 to 4 · 1,000 to 5,000: 5 to 9 · 5,000 to 25,000: 10 to 14 · 25,000 to 100,000: 15 to 18 · over 100,000: 19 to 20
Verified accounts on RedNote, Douyin and WeChat, at property level or at group level where the group account carries content about the property.
None: 0 · one platform: 7 · two: 14 · all three: 20 · less 3 for each counted account with no post in 90 days
Ctrip rating and review count, and whether a Dianping listing exists and has a recent review.
Rating under 4.5: 0, 4.5 to 4.69: 4, 4.7 and above: 8 · Reviews under 200: 0, 200 to 999: 4, 1,000 and above: 8 · Dianping: no listing 0, listing 2, listing with a review in 90 days 4
Limits
It measures visibility, not bookings. It is a snapshot over two days, and live counts move, so a repeat measurement will differ in detail. Engagement can be inflated by paid content, which is why volume, engagement and official presence are scored separately.
Chinese name variants may have been missed, which is why the names searched are listed in the method sheet. Group accounts were credited only where the researcher found content about the specific property; a group may have posted about a hotel under a name we did not search. One hotel in the set is closed for renovation, and its score reflects content made during the closure.
The offer
If you run or market a luxury hotel in the UAE and want to know whether yours was among the fifteen, and what it scored on each component, write to us. You will receive the full scorecard, free and in confidence, with the screenshots behind it.
If your hotel was not measured and you would like it to be in the second edition, planned for January before Chinese New Year bookings close, the same address works.
hello@yooyoomedia.comThe PDF opens in a new tab. We will write once, when the second edition is out.
Open the PDF →