The two organize various activities to interact with fans. They have held a photography contest for their followers, and they collect travel stories of fans and record them for their radio program.

They make marketing campaigns for destinations, such as inviting fans to travel with them and then having a sharing saloon. They also write advertorials on WeChat, around 30,000 yuan ($4,300) for a lead article.

Pang says top influencers in the travel field must be diligent, capable of enduring hardships and ready to work hard under pressure.

"They are often versatile－taking photos, editing videos, writing good articles and with a good taste in music. They are social butterflies who know how to cultivate extensive connections. They are open-minded and can keep pace with new trends, and express their values via their work," she says.

She adds that the current trends for presenting their travels are streaming and short videos.

Liu Wenwen does paragliding in Queenstown, New Zealand.

Being interactive

Liu Wenwen, 33, couldn't agree more.

She usually live-broadcasts for one or two hours on each trip, with an average 1 million hits and 10,000 fans watching at the same time. Since fall, she has found that more and more influencers have started to live-broadcast their travels.

Liu used to be a famous football blogger and wrote two novels, with more than 700,000 followers on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform.

"Being interactive is important. I would switch the images between the picturesque views and myself from time to time. I like chatting with them and I try my best to answer all their questions," she says.