Online Platform Subsidy War "Golden Week"

Under the shadow of the new global pneumonia epidemic, outbound tourism is still in the "ice" state.

"It is estimated that by the end of next year, outbound tourism may only recover to 50% of that in 2019, which is likely to be lower." Zhuang zhuoran, vice president of Alibaba group and President of flying pig travel, expressed his concern about outbound travel when interviewed by 21st century economic report reporter. At the same time, Feizhu also aims at the domestic tourism market and opens a 10 billion subsidy program. The first phase starts with hotel products, covering 100000 hotels in 100 cities across the country. Before the national day, it will further cover transportation, scenic spots and parks.

On September 7, the same journey tourism also launched a 1 billion subsidy program. On September 8, Ctrip launched the "travel member day" promotion activity. The "highest reduction" covers thousands of travel agencies on the platform, tens of thousands of lines, and more than 2000 car rental companies. Obviously, as the peak season of the traditional tourism industry, the intention of the platform to stimulate tourists' travel is very obvious.

For Zhuang Zhuoren, who just took office in mid June, the purpose of putting real gold and silver into the market is not only to order share and market share, but also to seize the time window of post epidemic recovery and enlarge the platform value.

National Day becomes the window period of "returning blood"

With the effective control of the domestic epidemic situation and the accelerated recovery of the economy, the tourism industry, which is seriously impacted by the epidemic situation, is recovering. According to OTA platform monitoring data, the price of tourism products has increased by more than 20% month on month in September this year, and some routes have become tight. In addition, in order to boost the tourism industry, many places across the country have launched preferential policies on ticket prices for scenic spots. In addition, air tickets are relatively cheap in previous years, and the prices of tourism products in this year's National Day are also lower than those in the same period of previous years.

In this context, train tickets, air tickets and hotels on some popular routes are in short supply or sold out. Data from Ctrip show that, in addition to the traditional popular destinations Sanya, Lijiang, Kunming, Xiamen, Xi'an, Lhasa, Harbin, Guiyang, Chengdu and Jiuzhaigou, the national day fever of the "Great Northwest" has increased by 475%, of which Gansu is the fastest growing, and Lanzhou ranks the fourth among the hot search cities in China.

In addition to the first tier cities, the consumer demand of users in the third and fourth tier cities has also increased significantly. "We need both stock and increment. Consumers in the wine and tourism market are becoming younger and younger. The young consumers represented by the post-90s generation are the main consumers. They have relatively high demand for personalized, high-quality and full scene consumption. " Zhuang zhuoran revealed that compared with the whole industry, the hotel has only 20% online rate, and there is still huge room for growth.

However, according to the data he shared, domestic tourism has recovered very quickly. The average occupancy rate of hotels in the first and second tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen has risen from 6% in February to 60% in August. In this process, the tourism industry has seen a more obvious phenomenon of local lifestyle, local tourism and peripheral tourism. The growth of these products is far higher than that of long-term tourism, with an increase of 70% compared with last year. At the same time, the fastest growth rate of users in the whole industry is the post-90s 58 users.

Although Feizhu's subsidy measures are at the time point of the National Day holiday, Zhang Rong, vice president of Feizhu travel, stressed that the "10 billion subsidy" is not only a short-term marketing activity for national day, but a long-term strategy. "This is the first long holiday after the epidemic, and the whole tourism industry has high expectations."

In the view of industry insiders, in the first half of this year, the sudden outbreak of the epidemic has brought many tourism enterprises to a standstill, and the "11" golden week is an opportunity window for platforms and businesses to realize "blood returning" in the second half of the year. What makes the industry quite optimistic is that a large number of outbound tourists will just be transferred to the domestic market due to the inability to release the demand for overseas tourism.

Tourism service needs to be reconstructed

From the perspective of preferential power, "10 billion subsidy" covers all the mainstream consumer groups from 99 yuan to x99 yuan. From the perspective of subsidy categories, hotels, tickets, transportation, etc. are all necessary items for travel. This means that many small and medium-sized enterprises should speed up their own digital upgrading while accepting the flow blood transfusion.

Zhuang zhuoran believes that the impact of the epidemic on the whole tourism industry will be long-term, and will certainly have a profound impact on user behavior and consumption habits, and even force the whole industry to change. "The pain points in the industry have not changed, and they are more prominent because of the epidemic. First of all, supply is greater than demand, but supply is highly homogeneous, subdivision demand has not been met. At the same time, the overall competition of the industry focuses on the traffic competition with very low degree of informatization, and there is no way to give consumers a better experience. Thirdly, the trend of tourism localization is becoming more and more obvious. Consumers' requirements for services are more and more rich and diversified, and the requirements of comprehensive experience are higher and higher. "

These pain points also exist in the operation of businesses themselves. Liu Yanxiang, general manager of the business department of meituan ticket and holiday business division, revealed in an interview with the 21st century economic report that so far, ticket consumption in the tourism industry has only recovered to 50% of that before the epidemic. It is because of the depression of the industry that scenic spots are more sensitive to user marketing and begin to increase the fine operation. "For example, when some scenic spots launch catering packages, the sales volume will be increased to 20-30 times. This is the result that the previous extensive way can not achieve. "

After a big test, the tourism industry is facing the reconstruction of "people's and goods yard". Specifically, it includes the reconstruction of supply chain in terms of goods, services and content. In the past, more flying pigs, who have deeply cultivated the vertical field of tourism, will inevitably increase positive competition with platforms such as Ctrip and meituan when they switch to the domestic local life and wine travel scene.

In the view of the tourism industry, when the outbound tourism will be restarted is unknown. It is better to cultivate the domestic market than to wait. Zhuang Zhuoren said frankly that the past OTA did not create value for the whole industry. It will be a big idea for Feizhu operation users to reach the whole economic scene of Ali effectively, form initial purchase and repurchase, and expand other demands after developing into members.

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