Marketing to Chinese patients: agents, WeChat, Xiaohongshu, Douyin and what you can advertise

Marketing to Chinese patients means making sure Chinese people who need treatment, both those travelling from China and those living or working in Thailand, find, trust and choose your hospital or clinic, through the channels Chinese people actually use: agents and facilitators, WeChat, Xiaohongshu, Douyin and Baidu, with care in Chinese from the first chat until they fly home.

This market differs from other international patient markets in three ways. Chinese people use their own platforms, not Google, Facebook or LINE. Chinese law restricts medical advertising so tightly that buying medical ads aimed at mainland China is close to impossible for a Thai hospital. And since 2025, safety concerns have made trust something you have to build before anything else.

The Chinese patient market today

The 2025 fall was driven mainly by safety fears after scam-centre and kidnapping stories that made headlines in China, plus higher travel costs. For hospitals, it means the Chinese patients who still come need more reassurance than before, about both their treatment and their trip.

Services Chinese patients often travel to Thailand for:

• Fertility treatment: a 2020 Rangsit University study reported Chinese patients made up about 70–80% of patients at large Thai fertility clinics and hospitals. Thai law regulates this area specifically, so check with your legal team before marketing
• Health checks and cancer screening, often combined with travel or for a second opinion
• Dental, aesthetic and skin treatment, decided quickly and often researched on Xiaohongshu
• Planned surgery, such as eye and orthopaedic procedures, which needs a lot of coordination

How Chinese patients choose a hospital

Most Chinese patients do not find Thai hospitals on Google or Facebook, which are unavailable in China. They research on Chinese platforms and through people they trust.

Channels for reaching Chinese patients

1. Agents and medical facilitators

Agents and facilitators in China remain a main channel for many services, especially fertility treatment, health checks and complex care, because patients want someone to handle everything from choosing the hospital to visas, interpreters, accommodation and follow-up at home. They include specialist medical agencies, travel companies with health packages, and Chinese online health platforms partnering with overseas hospitals.

They bring patients who are ready to travel; the catches are fees that can be high, and that many agents send patients only to the few hospitals they have deals with. Set out in the contract:

• Fees and how they are calculated, per patient or as a percentage, and on what amount
• The price the patient sees, so patients know your price clearly and are not marked up to the point of losing trust
• Standards of care: who is responsible for what, from the airport to home
• Patient data: sharing health information must follow Thailand’s PDPA and China’s Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL)
• Advertising: agents must not promote you with claims that break Thai or Chinese law

Build direct channels alongside, so you do not depend on agents entirely.

2. WeChat

WeChat is home base for communicating with Chinese patients: chat, documents, appointments and payment.

• WeChat Official Account: your hospital’s official account for services, doctors, preparation and educational articles; overseas organisations can register through the overseas process
• WeChat and WeCom (WeChat for Business): for one-to-one chat with patients and families, which Chinese patients expect most
• WeChat groups: for patients on the same pathway, such as post-treatment follow-up, with careful handling of personal data

3. Xiaohongshu (RED or RedNote)

Xiaohongshu is where younger Chinese people, especially women and city dwellers, research before deciding. Real experiences, photos of the place, the process and the price carry a lot of weight. What works is showing the facility, the medical team and the process honestly, without promising outcomes. The platform is strict about medical and aesthetic content, and posts that invite people to use a service can be treated as disguised advertising.

4. Douyin and Baidu

Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, builds broad awareness and suits educational content and facility tours. Baidu is still China’s main search engine; having pages in Simplified Chinese that load from China helps people who heard your name elsewhere find more.

5. Chinese nationals living and working in Thailand

Chinese people living, working or studying in Thailand are much easier to reach. They use WeChat and Thai apps such as LINE, search from Thailand, and come back. Channels that work include local Chinese communities, Chinese companies with staff in Thailand, universities, and Chinese-language pages that rank in search.

What you can advertise

Chinese law. Under China’s Advertising Law, only medical institutions holding a medical institution practice licence in China may publish medical advertising, and every ad needs a Medical Advertisement Review Certificate before publication. Most Thai hospitals are not licensed in China, so buying medical ads on Chinese platforms to bring people in China to your hospital is close to impossible.

Guidance from China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) also treats some content as disguised advertising: guaranteeing outcomes, comparing yourself with other institutions, implying you are safer, more effective or cheaper, and promoting services through case studies or patient testimonials. In the first half of 2025, Chinese regulators investigated 1,666 illegal medical advertising cases.

Thai law. Chinese-language ads inviting people to use a Thai facility still need approval from DHSS or the provincial public health office, like any other language. See the healthcare advertising guide.

What you can do: educational and factual content that does not invite people to use your services, within each platform’s rules; an official account giving information on services, prices and process; and partnerships with licensed institutions or platforms in China. Before any campaign in China, take advice from a lawyer in China.

A planning summary, not legal advice. Chinese law and platform rules change often.

Content that builds trust

• Safety throughout the trip: airport transfer, a Chinese-speaking coordinator, recommended accommodation and an emergency contact, addressing directly the worries that make Chinese travellers hesitate about Thailand
• The medical team and standards: doctors’ names, specialties and the hospital’s accreditations, stated factually without exaggeration
• Prices and inclusions: prices in baht with an approximate yuan figure, and any possible extra costs
• The whole process: how many days to stay in Thailand, preparation, and follow-up after returning to China
• Simplified Chinese: on web pages, documents and receipts, not machine translation alone

Answering chats in Chinese on WeChat

Chinese patients often contact several hospitals at once; the one that answers fast and fully in Chinese usually wins.

• Answer on WeChat, the channel Chinese patients expect, rather than asking them to move to LINE or email
• Answer during Chinese working hours: China is one hour ahead of Thailand, and patients often message in the evening after work
• Let AI handle the first layer in Chinese, answering general questions on prices, process and preparation from your real information, then handing over to a Chinese-speaking coordinator for clinical questions or when the patient is ready to book
• Keep every channel in one place: Chinese patients in Thailand may message on WeChat and LINE, and one inbox means nothing is missed
• Plan around Chinese holidays, such as Chinese New Year and the October Golden Week, when many Chinese people travel, with staff and appointments ready in advance

Payments and personal data

• WeChat Pay and Alipay: shops and hospitals in Thailand can accept them through Thai payment providers, letting Chinese patients pay in a familiar way
• A quote before travel, stating the currency, inclusions and refund terms
• Personal data: collecting and transferring patients’ health information must follow PDPA, and China’s PIPL may also apply when you receive data from people in China or work with agents there

Checklist before marketing to Chinese patients

For international patients of every nationality, see our guide to marketing to international patients.

Sources

• Bangkok Post, Thailand sees annual foreign tourist arrivals slow to 33 million (Ministry of Tourism and Sports data and TAT’s target)
• The Nation, Safety fears cut Thailand’s Chinese tourist forecast to 7 million, says ATTA (4 June 2026)
• Nikkei Asia, Thailand tourism takes hit as Chinese arrivals plunge (January 2026)
• CMS, China’s SAMR clarifies rules for identifying disguised medical advertisement
• Chongqing Administration for Market Regulation, list of advertising requirements, including prior review of medical ads under Article 46 of China’s Advertising Law (in Chinese)
• Rangsit University, Cross-border reproductive care in Thailand: case study of Chinese patients (2020)