Essential Mobile Apps for your China business trip

There is nothing worse than arriving in China and realising you can’t access your data or communicate easily, and these tips will hopefully help you land on the ground fully up to speed

Check your mobile provider covers China and is cost effective. (e.g. Vodafone Worldwide charges reasonable day rate for full access to contract data and calls).

You should set up your tech gear locally before you depart for China, as you are unlikely to be able to access your local language versions of Apps etc over there.

Key Apps & services

You will need to set up and load a VPN App to phone / laptop. (Recommended VPNExpress or Astrill). Make sure it’s loaded and tested before you leave. This is essential for enabling you to access (English) home language websites / emails when abroad. It also provides good data protection (and never use open public WIFI without this).

Language. Choose your language translation provider and download full dictionaries for offline use - Google translate is good. (Within China also use Baidu for good alternative translation).

Communication and contact – Load WeChat. Used everywhere, it’s a good way of establishing communication, building your contacts, and enables in App translation of messaging. You can also VOIP call and message, and if your payment card has been loaded – enables payment nearly everywhere. It also provides access to QR code scanner. (If you don’t preload WeChat, make sure you have a good QR code scanner loaded, as it can provide quick access to good information when travelling).

For shopping and market place analysis; load the T-Mall and or Taobao (Alibaba) Apps and set up login to facilitate local product and price research, as well as buying supplies where needed (Good for occasional access to imported products).

IFly – Chinese character keyboard. Enables you to switch between English and Chinese on your mobile keyboard

For Travel

Download and set-up your airline Apps – obvious but extremely useful.

For train travel (and hotels / airlines) load the CTrip App. (Trip.com). This enables immediate access to live time train ticket reservations (with ability to load passport details, cancel and credit). Very Efficient.

For Hotel booking – Booking.com works well particularly in cities – good for convenience & predictability. (Local sites can generate better value!).

Didi – the Chinese equivalent to Uber, good for getting taxis and cabs, but remember that only taxis will accept cash payment, Didi cabs will expect payment by WeChat, and everyone can score you (your profile) on payment success etc!

Payments.

Visa & Mastercard are very rarely accepted anywhere in China (though Visa debit will provide access to most main bank ATM’s for cash withdrawal).

Recommend getting an American Express card, which is more widely accepted; can also be interfaced with some of the Apps for in app payment.

If and where you want to set up payment cards within Apps, it is easier to set these up when in home country before travelling.

For banking – main banking apps through VPN work well, but be careful if changing VPN countries quickly, as bank might query / hold for access from these quick country changes.

Laptops

Make sure all software updates and checks are run and up to date before you travel – nothing worse than switching on and wasting hours when travelling.

Make sure the laptop also has full VPN and software protection.

If you are downloading programmes or films for travelling, do this before travelling (enabling access through VPN to download an episode can be very time consuming).

Pre-set your WIFI hotspot with your Mobile – through VPN, and make sure the PC version of your mobile Apps are also downloaded.

Set up and download the Microsoft Chinese character keyboard – essential.

NB: these tips and guidance are written based on experience from the perspective of a UK based British Citizen visiting and working in China. Other nationalities should and must check their own requirements.

If you have any other great tips, please let me know and I will add and credit them here on next update.

If you are looking to do business in China and would like assistance or guidance in developing your business (sourcing, selling or advising) – please contact enquiries@Cygnusbusiness.com

www.cygnusbusiness.com