In this paper, firstly, we introduce the variant tensor splittings, and present some equivalent conditions for a strong M-tensor based on the tensor splitting. Secondly, the existence and uniqueness conditions of the solution for multi-linear systems are given. Thirdly, we propose some tensor splitting algorithms for solving multi-linear systems with coefficient tensor being a strong M-tensor. As an application, a tensor splitting algorithm for solving the multi-linear model of higher order Markov chains is proposed. Numerical examples are given to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithms. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.