Questionnaire survey on consumption recovery： 90% of the respondents are willing to travel and meet business opportunities.
In a resort hotel in Suzhou, Ms. Zhang and her family booked a 2-night stay, as well as a 2-day vegetarian meal and Chinese massage. "Our family has ‘ Yangkang ’ After a while, the relevant policies have been relaxed, and our family has not traveled for a long time, so we hope to go out for fun, but unlike before, ‘ Yangkang ’ After that, we paid more attention to healing tourism, instead of arranging too full a trip, mainly to relax ourselves and even add some rehabilitation projects. " Ms. Zhang said.
Ms. Zhang’s travel choices and ideas are typical representatives of many tourists this year. CBN recently publicly conducted a questionnaire survey on "Consumer Recovery, Will You Buy in buy buy?" After collecting more than 1,200 valid questionnaires, it was found that it was asked "Which fields of goods or services would you consume?" At that time, tourism ranked first, reaching 91.24%. In other words, tourism that can satisfy people’s spiritual pleasure consumption is what most people will choose in the consumer market this year, and many tourists’ willingness to travel this year is obviously strengthened compared with previous years.
After recent interviews and investigations, the First Financial Reporter learned that this year, with the recovery of outbound travel and the warming of inter-provincial travel, tourism will inevitably usher in recovery and business opportunities. After experiencing the epidemic, more tourists began to favor healing tours and some extended cultural tours with experience. Of course, how to restart the outbound travel business, do a good job in the derivative projects of Dawen Travel and attract tourism professionals are also challenges that the industry needs to face.
90% of the respondents want to travel, and nearly 60% of the tourists have a single budget of more than 10,000 yuan.
In the three years since the epidemic, outbound travel has been suspended, domestic travel has been repeatedly blown, and repeated epidemics in various places have also made scenic spots open and closed. Local consumption has become the main mode of tourism in the past three years, which has given birth to some in-depth local tourism products.
This year, with the relaxation of relevant policies, people’s willingness to travel, which has been suppressed for many years, seems to have a "small blowout". According to the questionnaire survey of CBN’s Consumer Recovery, Will You Buy in buy buy, 91.24% of the respondents chose to have a travel plan this year. When asked whether this year’s willingness to travel has increased compared with previous years, 85.85% of the respondents said that this year’s willingness to travel has increased or at least remained the same.
The above questionnaire survey also shows that 60.2% of the respondents have plans for domestic travel this year, and 32.37% of the respondents plan to go both for domestic travel and outbound travel this year.
In terms of tourism consumption expenditure, 57.39% of the respondents have a budget of 10,000 ~ 20,000 yuan per capita for single tourism consumption this year, and 32.6% of the respondents have a budget of 5,000 ~ 10,000 yuan for single tourism consumption, accounting for 5.63% of the respondents with 1000 yuan ~ 5,000 yuan.
"In 2019, the tourism industry reached a relative peak. The tourism market in the past few years should have been very vigorous. However, when it encountered an epidemic, both domestic and outbound travel were hit. However, after the epidemic, people have strengthened their willingness to travel, and some spiritual pleasures have been favored by people. You see, in the consumption of Women’s Day just past, ‘ Yueji ’ It’s a key word. Women are very particular about their inner experience when they travel. Therefore, we will see that in the process of consumption recovery this year, more subdivided products with spiritual pleasure will be released, and more themed tourist routes and accommodation products will be developed. " Cheng Chaogong, chief researcher of Tongcheng Research Institute, told the First Financial Reporter.
Inter-provincial tourism is heating up, and the healing market has great potential.
According to the tourism market data of Spring Festival, Women’s Day and other nodes this year, domestic tourism is the first to recover, and the results of the questionnaire survey of "Consumption Recovery, Will You Buy in buy buy" of CBN also show that 60.2% of the respondents have plans for domestic tourism this year.
"Last year’s camping was in the market ‘ Kill ’ Out of a horse ‘ Dark horse ’ In fact, it is also a market cultivated because everyone can only focus on local consumption. Among them, the consumption of camping, RV and related supplies increased significantly in 2022. " Yang Songbai, general manager of RV Life Home, told the First Financial Reporter.
According to the data of companies such as Ctrip, Tongcheng, Mama Donkey, Flying Pig, Qunar, Tuniu, Mahoneycomb and Spring and Autumn Tourism, last year, in low-risk areas, the "two-hour holiday circle" became the mainstream. Last year, the local tour orders during holidays such as "May Day" accounted for more than 80%, and most of them were non-group tourists, while camping became a "dark horse". The surrounding camping market continued to heat up during the "May Day" last year, and the popularity of "camping" related travel search increased by 117% from the previous month. At that time, the number of camping orders for flying pigs increased by over 350% month-on-month, and Hangzhou, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Beijing, Zhuhai, Changzhou, Foshan and Chongqing ranked among the top ten cities in China as popular camping tourist sources.
In Yang Songbai’s view, after the rapid recovery of cross-provincial tourism this year, camping and other popular tourism projects last year can still be continued, but we must make sub-products that meet the needs of consumers. "For example, some high-quality local tourism projects can be retained, but they can be combined with inter-provincial RV camping, travel agency channel marketing and local homestays to make domestic tourism products. Nowadays, there are many young guests who like to drive by car, experience special homestays and travel freely. We must understand their needs. " Yang Songbai told the First Financial Reporter.
In addition to camping and RV tours, three years after the outbreak, a large number of consumers are paying more and more attention to health-related consumption, and healing tourism is one of them.
According to the survey results of CBN’s "Consumer Recovery, Will You Buy in buy buy?", more consumers have increased their spending in the health field this year, among which 87.18% of the respondents have a willingness to consume healthy food. It is worth noting that as many as 55.24% of the respondents are willing to participate in healing tourism this year, and 30.15% of the respondents have plans to participate in rehabilitation activities this year. It can be seen that healing tourism is a bright direction in the recovery of tourism consumption this year.
"The epidemic once pressed the pause button for our industry, but this year is definitely a business opportunity for recovery. There are two sides to everything. Although the epidemic situation has a great impact on the cultural tourism industry, it has also made more consumers pay attention to health care, and healing tourism has become a trend. The core products of the project "Yin Yu Shui Zhong Tian" invested and developed by us include the journey of mindfulness life, the series of trips of body and mind co-cultivation, etc. to help guests understand their physical and mental health, and also include service teams such as Chinese medicine practitioners, rehabilitation experts, health coaches and nutritionists. These holiday tourism projects combined with healing courses are very in line with people’s demand for recreational travel this year. This year, our key planning project is the Unity International Cultural Festival, to discuss with the industry how to cope with the challenges brought by the development of the times. This year, we will continue to deepen the health industry and continue to help promote the development of the big health industry. " Cao Weide, chairman of Wanbang Pan Asia Group and founder of Yinyu, said in an interview with China Business News.
It is precisely because of the warming of healing tourism that according to the data of Ctrip, Tongcheng, Mama Donkey, Flying Pig, Qunar, Tuniu, Mawei and Spring and Autumn Tourism, the heat of cities near and south of the Tropic of Cancer such as Sanya, Zhuhai, Xishuangbanna, Dali, Xiamen, Haikou, Tengchong and Beihai soared. Among them, the healing holiday tour in Sanya and some areas of Yunnan is the most popular. Yang Yang, general manager of Beijing Spring and Autumn Travel Agency, said that at the beginning of this year, many tourists chose to go to Sanya for "continuous recuperation", and most of these tourists were "Yangkang" tourists from North China. Spring and Autumn Tourism has also developed a variety of tourism products suitable for "Yangkang" treatment and recuperation, which directly boosted the recovery of cross-provincial tourism this year.
Opportunities and challenges of restarting outbound travel
Recently, for the tourism market, it can be said that there are frequent good news. First, it is pointed out in the government work report that restoring and expanding consumption are given priority. Increase the income of urban and rural residents through multiple channels. Stabilize bulk consumption and promote the recovery of life service consumption.
On March 10th, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued the Notice of the General Office of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on the pilot resumption of the travel agency’s business of China citizens’ outbound teams to relevant countries (the second batch). According to the circular, starting from March 15th, 2023, the national travel agencies and online travel enterprises will be resumed on a pilot basis to operate China citizens’ outbound group tours to relevant countries (the second batch) and "air tickets+hotels" business. From now on, travel agencies and online travel companies can carry out preparations such as product release, publicity and promotion. List of countries involved in (the second batch of) outbound group tours: Nepal, Brunei, Vietnam, Mongolia, Iran, Jordan, Tanzania, Namibia, Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Zambia, Senegal, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Serbia, Croatia, France, Greece, Spain, Iceland, Albania, Italy and Denmark.
According to the survey results of CBN’s "Consumer Recovery, Will You Buy in buy buy", 32.37% of the respondents plan to travel both domestically and abroad this year. In other words, at least one-third of the respondents have the willingness to spend on this year’s outbound travel.
At the beginning of February this year, a number of outbound team tours started, mainly in the Southeast Asian market. The major overseas tourism bureaus have also started marketing for the China market in the near future. For example, the National Tourism Administration of Thailand originally planned to attract 5-6 million China tourists to Thailand this year, but after seeing the recent upsurge of China tourists’ enthusiasm for traveling to Thailand, it immediately raised its expected target. "In 2019, the number of tourists from China visiting Thailand was about 11 million, accounting for about a quarter of the total tourists in Thailand. According to the current good recovery momentum, we have raised our expectations. We now expect 7 million to 8 million China tourists to travel to Thailand this year." Yutasa, director of the National Tourism Administration of Thailand, recently revealed in an interview with the First Financial Reporter.
At the same time, Tourism Dubai, Tourism Australia, Tourism New Zealand and Tourism Singapore are all getting together for promotion.
"The further relaxation of outbound travel will inevitably play a positive role in the recovery of the tourism market this year. But we must also see the challenges faced by the recovery of the outbound travel market. For example, compared with domestic travel, outbound travel needs to go through a series of procedures, which are different according to the requirements of different countries, and some visa reservations need to be queued. Three years later, the local docking personnel in many outbound destination countries have also undergone great changes. For example, many local Chinese restaurants in Europe and America have switched to other formats, so it is very difficult to make a group meal of Chinese food now, and it is necessary to find a local catering business again. Local tour guides should also be re-docked. Moreover, many hotels in Europe have to book half a year or more in advance, and it is not easy to get a lot of rooms at once. The route of outbound group tour should also be redesigned, and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has also led to various cost increases in some European tourist destination countries. International flights have not fully recovered, and these factors will make it take some time for some long-distance outbound travel in Europe and America to recover. To restart the docking of ground connection resources, we can foresee that the prices of some outbound travel products may double due to fewer flights and rising local costs. " Gu Wei, assistant general manager of Shanghai Airlines Tourism Group, spoke bluntly to the First Financial Reporter.
According to the questionnaire results of CBN’s Consumer Recovery, Will You Buy in buy buy, 57.39% of the respondents’ per capita spending budget for a single trip this year is 10,000-20,000 yuan, while 32.6% of the respondents’ per capita spending budget is 5,000-10,000 yuan. Judging from this, the per capita spending budget of the consumers interviewed this year is not low, even higher than in previous years.
Tourism enterprises pay attention to creating scenes and recruiting talents again.
In view of the positive recovery of tourism consumption this year, major tourism enterprises, scenic spots, hotels and other operators are gearing up. After three years of epidemic, most of the tourists are very sober and professional in this process — — Pure low price does not attract too many consumers, but to create attractive and cost-effective products.
"In the past, when people talked about tourism, especially group tours, it seemed that the cheaper the better, and this once caused many tourism disputes. Now what we see is that consumers are also mature, and everyone’s requirements for high cost performance of products are prominent. So what we need to do is to integrate the resources of scenic spots and major tourist destinations, and work with them to create some new products that meet the needs of consumers. This year, we will have plans to cooperate with some regional tourist attractions or local tourism-related operators to develop projects. We can participate in investment or act as operators, instead of the past travel agencies blindly serving as organizers to send tourists. " Liu Ning, director and president of Shanghai Jinjiang Tourism Holdings Co., Ltd., revealed in an interview with China Business News.
This is also confirmed in the questionnaire survey of CBN’s Consumer Recovery, Will You Buy in buy buy? In the questionnaire, what elements can promote consumption? Most respondents said that it was not low price, but high cost performance accounted for 93.9%, high-quality goods accounted for 90.85%, and value-added space accounted for 86.47%. It can be seen that the goods with high cost performance are the ones that consumers are most willing to spend money on, while the low price factor accounts for only 4.93%.
The Shanghai Tourism Industry Association revealed to the First Financial Reporter that in order to make more subdivided products and cost-effective products, it is necessary to pay attention to the creation of derivative scenes of Dawen Travel. For example, in the past, tourism was purely a trip, but now many tourism products can be combined with catering and culture, and some high-quality immersive experience projects and script projects can be created as consumption scenes of Dawen Travel. Of course, this kind of project development needs the cooperation of professional planning and cultural tourism resources.
Nowadays, Ctrip, Tongcheng Travel, Mahoneycomb, etc. are all strengthening cooperation with tourism destination resources, hoping to gather offline scenic spots, accommodation and other partners for common development. For example, recently, Tongcheng Travel announced that it intends to acquire Tongcheng Tourism at a total cost of no more than 700 million yuan. This is an attempt and layout of one-way travel in the leisure tourism and holiday market under the background of strong recovery of the tourism industry. At the end of December last year, Tongcheng Travel announced that it would acquire Tongcheng International Travel Service and promote the deep integration of its tourism and holiday business. The proposed acquisition of Tongcheng Tourism is a continuation of Tongcheng Tourism’s leisure tourism and holiday market. If this intentional acquisition can be achieved, it will effectively supplement and extend the existing business of Tongcheng Travel and deepen the control over the upstream core resources.
It is noteworthy that due to the three-year epidemic, some travel agencies and upstream and downstream partners still face problems such as resource shortage, and they urgently need support from traffic, technology, data and capital to seize the new opportunities of industrial rejuvenation. How to jointly promote the development of digital intelligence in the industry is a problem that should be considered.
In addition, the talent plan is also worthy of attention. Many tourism industry feedback, three years since the epidemic, many tourism practitioners have changed careers, this year’s consumption recovery, tourism recovery process needs a large number of professionals to help, which requires recruiting suitable candidates from college graduates and mature talents. Just recently, 10 companies, including Ctrip, announced the joint launch of the "Travel Mulan Plan", which plans to provide more than 20,000+jobs for women in 2023. Sun Jie, the co-founder of the plan and CEO of Ctrip Group, said that this move is to better meet the business growth demand in the first year of tourism recovery, and at the same time help more women get equal opportunities for development in the workplace.
Cheng Chaogong estimates that domestic tourism can be restored to 70% ~ 80% in 2019 this year, while Southeast Asia tourism in the outbound tourism market may be restored to about 70% ~ 80% in 2019. Of course, everything depends on the actual development of the market.