Li Zi Qi'S Inspiration: New Platform New Method

A Sichuan girl named Li Ziqi uploaded videos of his own life in rural areas of Sichuan, including the combination of Hanfu, gourmet, scenery and humanities. The beautiful picture was even loved and praised by overseas netizens. The personal subscription of a website was as high as 7 million 360 thousand people, many of whom were overseas fans.

Many foreign fans leave messages in video, obsessed with Chinese rural scenery and lifestyle in the video. They really want to experience it in rural China. Li Zi Qi unexpectedly completed a Chinese cultural output, bringing many potential Chinese inbound tourist sources. What is interesting is that the places that these netizens want to visit is not the usual northern popular cities, nor is they rushing to the monuments. Li Ziqi showed that ordinary Chinese life and remote central and western regions are more attractive to young people from all over the world.

The development of Internet technology has not only changed the way of attracting tourists in China's tourism, but also changed the wide ecological chain of inbound tourists, which indirectly boosted the development of inbound tourism market.

Changes in service providers

It is reported that more than 90% of the travel agency reception business is completed by many small and medium travel agencies, and small and medium sized travel agencies have become the main force of inbound travel service providers. At the same time, to meet the needs of more inbound tourists and pay more attention to local experience, many agencies began to explore and avoid group companies as early as the end of the 1990s, turning from B2B to B2C, and directly establishing contacts with terminal consumers. Liu Xiangyan, a doctor of International Research Institute of China Tourism Research Institute, said that this business mode is different from OTA. They receive guests directly through their own e-commerce websites and the three party sales channels on the premise of high-quality reception resources and teams, and gradually build their own travel service brands through long-term word of mouth precipitation in this process. The famous inbound travel agencies such as China Highlights and Travel China Guide were established in the late 1990s.

Liu Xiangyan pointed out that if you do not have high-quality reception resources and teams, it is often difficult to directly establish an inbound tourism e-commerce platform, such as China's inbound tourism business platform Jetbay, which has only been established for one year.

In recent years, another trend has been particularly evident, that is, small and medium travel service providers and individuals who provide customized and private groups are very popular with inbound tourists. The reporter noted that the service providers who focus on providing customized or private groups also receive small and medium-sized offices, but they often have their own electronic business platforms and / or overseas social media accounts. They are highly praised on TripAdvisor, such as Beijing's Catherine Lu Tours, Shanghai's Culture Shock Tours, Xi'an Lily "s Private Tours" and so on. There are still a lot of people who only provide tour guide services. They are very popular, forming their own IP, such as Beijing Private Tours by Jessie, Bryanbai Private Tour in Xi'an.

Liu Xiangyan believes that in the field of inbound tourism, the free practice of tour guides is better practiced. Compared with domestic tourists, inbound tourists are more dependent on local guides. Excellent entry guides can better play their business expertise and achieve their own value. She suggested using inbound tourism as a demonstration area to promote the free practice of tour guides.

New platform player admission

Just as the proportion of outbound tourists in the outbound travel market is increasing year by year, the proportion of inbound tourists is increasing. China's inbound tourism development report 2019 points out that since 2010, the proportion of inbound tourists receiving inbound tourism market and its share in the overnight tourist market has been declining, which has dropped to less than 15% and 35% respectively. Especially in 2015 and 2016, the scale of the inbound tourism market has resumed growth, but the declining trend of the proportion of group tourists is more obvious.

No more overseas tourists guided by tour guides and travel agencies, how can we better enjoy good food in China and leave a good impression on Chinese tourism? If there is demand, there will be a market and new business models emerge as the times require. On the one hand, there will be a platform specially designed to provide travel information to China. At the same time, there will be suppliers specializing in providing fragmented and thematic travel services to foreign customers in China.

HiChina Travel, established in 2015, is the representative of the first class platform. It is a Chinese Inbound Travel Information Platform for foreign tourists. It has two language versions, English and Korean. Through the UGC+ professional editor PGC of inbound tourists, it provides more than 200 destinations, such as guidebooks, Raiders, quiz and travel planning for inbound tourists. It's a bit like TripAdvisor, but its size and volume are far behind.

Li Pingzhang, the founder of the platform, is a young man. He said that HiChina Travel had no intention of competing with the big platform. Its advantage was to let people in different countries run the content of the local language version, and stood at the locals' perspective to share more localized and Sinicization information. For example, on the Facebook, they shared many videos and information reflecting the lives of Chinese people, including many interesting passages, attracting more than 2 million 800 thousand fans' attention, and then providing package tourism products based on platform traffic. After the fans' consumption is completed, they will make feedback, share and comment, so that their user growth can be positively circulatory.

Come to China, a travel agency in Shenzhen, is the representative of second types of innovative market participants. It focuses on the entry business traveler who has been traveling in China, and provides customized and fragmented travel services. This service usually includes half day or one day travel arrangements, which is different from traditional tourist routes and takes traditional Chinese calligraphy, painting, martial arts, food and so on as the core content. At present, the supply of cultural experience products is seriously insufficient, especially for tourists from Europe and America. Overseas tourists have even booked services to local residents in three months ahead of schedule.

There are also similar Explorer service providers, such as Lost Plate in Beijing and UnTour Food Tours in Shanghai, who specialize in food group and bring inbound tourists to local cuisine. "Actually, for international tourists, this is not a simple meal. Maybe in their trip to China, this is the only time they have been close to the life of the people, really enjoying the authentic cuisine of the locals, and hearing the story behind the food." Hu Ruiqian, founder of Lost Plate, said that the desire of many foreign tourists to travel to China is to understand the cuisine and culture of the local origin, and to understand China's history and heritage. Food is only a medium. Therefore, many of the Lost Plate guides are local people who love the local culture. They take tourists to taste their hometown's food hall and share the historical changes of the city. Better guided services lead to more word of mouth marketing. It is reported that 35% of new customers are coming from mouth to mouth. Hu Ruiqian also revealed that all the guests on the platform were from English speaking countries, 40% from North America, 13% from Australia, and 13% from Britain, followed by Germany and other European countries. About 70% of the guests are directly booked through the website.

"The rise of these new market players, let us see a spark can start prairie fire, the example of gathering sand and becoming a tower." Dai Bin, President of the China Tourism Research Institute, said that the inbound tourism market is not only adhering to tradition, but also adding new businesses and elements. The new changes of market players "give us more confidence to do inbound tourism". Dai Bin believes that we should create a fair competition environment for the main body of the inbound tourism market through the exploration and innovation of market regulation, market access, preferential tax policies and so on, and provide training and advisory services to the relevant enterprises for the specific tourist market, share the results of the market research of various source countries, guide them to adjust related tourism products and services, and further activate the vitality of the market players.