The Road To Recovery Of Hotel Industry In Post Epidemic Era: Industry Reform Has Come And Brand Should Be Given Greater Value

For China's hotel industry, 2020 is destined to be an extraordinary year. From the "dark moment" of the first quarter to the "clear the clouds and see the sun" in the third quarter, the hotel industry is on the road of recovery.

Some of the data are still fresh. According to the statistics of China Hotel Association, in the first quarter of this year, more than 70% of hotels and B & B hotels in China chose to close directly. At the same time, the negative impact of the epidemic continues to ferment, industry statistics show that this directly led to more than 100000 small and medium-sized single hotel "exit" this year.

It is worth mentioning that as China enters the period of normalization of epidemic prevention and control, although the domestic hotel industry has embarked on the road of recovery, the development environment it is facing has undergone great changes: on the one hand, the recurrence of local epidemics indicates that the hotel industry will face a kind of risk factor that may become normalization in the post epidemic era; on the other hand, it mainly focuses on the domestic economic cycle The new development pattern of sports, domestic and international dual cycle mutual promotion has brought new opportunities to the hotel industry.

In the post epidemic era, how the domestic hotel industry to embark on the road of recovery and seize the opportunity after crisis has become a problem that industry practitioners must think about.

On December 18, the 21st century accommodation Summit Forum (2020), hosted by the 21st century economic report, was held in maoyue Hotel, Shanghai Bund. A number of leaders and executives from upstream and downstream enterprises of the hotel industry's supply chain gathered to carry out fierce thinking on "the road to recovery of the accommodation industry under the new pattern".

Round table dialogue of the 21st century accommodation Summit Forum (2020): the road to recovery of the accommodation industry under the new pattern. Information map

In the post epidemic era, the hotel industry has changed

"Now the development of the hotel industry is very diversified, including the development of high star hotels, the development of middle end hotels, and the development of efficiency oriented hotels." Wu Wei, CO president of Dongcheng International Group, believes that in the post epidemic era, the hotel industry will maintain a certain increase. In this context, the sinking strategy is very important.

Major hotel groups in the third quarter of this year's financial reports show that with the gradual improvement of business conditions, the pace of hotel group expansion is accelerating. According to the industry forecast, there are about 15000 new hotels in the domestic hotel industry every year, and the overall growth space of the industry still exists. However, the change of consumer demand is affecting the strategy of hotel operators and forming two situations: upgrading the existing hotels and sinking into the low-level market.

In particular, sinking the market has become the key target of major hotel groups this year. "Our group will sink to the third, fourth and fifth tier cities, and it will spread out in an all-round way." When analyzing the structure of new hotels in China every year, Wu Wei found that about 30% of the newly added hotels in China are chain hotels, and the chain rate of new hotels is much higher than that of the whole industry. In this context, the sinking characteristics of new hotels are also obvious, especially in the third, fourth and fifth tier cities, the sinking rate of chain hotels reaches 40%.

"I believe it will reach 50% next year." In Wu Wei's view, for the pursuit of scale hotel group, sinking the market is a race track that must make efforts. Whether it is brand sinking or product sinking, the industry concentration will be higher and higher.

In fact, starting from 2019, the sinking market heat of domestic hotel industry has continued to spread. Leading hotel group in the third tier and below cities "horse race enclosure", has a profound impact on the remodeling of the domestic hotel industry pattern.

And another key word worthy of attention - "digitization" has been mentioned frequently by major hotel groups since the outbreak of the epidemic. Under the catalysis of the epidemic situation, the proportion of digital hotel industry is increasing. How to use digital service upgrade has become one of the problems that hotels must think about.

"This epidemic has triggered a lot of changes in the hotel industry, some of which have taken the initiative to adapt, and some have been passively changed." Gu Yijun, assistant general manager of Jinmao (China) Hotel Investment Management Co., Ltd., said that digital transformation is necessary and urgent in the two important transformation directions of Jinmao hotel.

As a hotel industry, digital transformation is the only way. Due to the impact of the epidemic, many domestic hotel brands have been forced to "move" to meituan, public comments and other platforms, or have to increase the exposure through live broadcast.

"These phenomena are all forced out by the epidemic situation." Gu Yijun said that since last year, the digital phenomenon represented by short video promotion has appeared in the changes of marketing means in the hotel industry, but the overall hotel industry is relatively traditional, and the digital transformation is relatively backward.

According to Lu Yun, vice president of Ctrip group and CEO of Licheng hotel group, the epidemic has accelerated the occurrence of some things. Among them, digitalization will accelerate the development of the hotel industry.

"In China as a whole, the digital transformation of many traditional industries is ahead of the hotel industry." Lu Yun said that in the hotel industry, the online and offline chain has not been completely connected, and the acceleration of digital process will bring great improvement to the efficiency and user experience of the whole hotel industry.

Hotel brand should have greater value

In fact, when more and more single hotels in low-level cities choose to join chain brands, they hope to optimize cash flow and improve profitability. This indicates that the value significance behind the brand can not be ignored.

At present, the major hotel groups are building a brand matrix to obtain different consumer groups through differentiated brand positioning. Yang Honghao, director of the Industry Research Institute of China Tourism Research Institute, predicts that in the future, hotel industry brands will be more diversified and cover a wider range, and more accommodation brands with health care, leisure vacation, fine art, cultural themes, designers and other related topics will emerge. With the rise of local hotel brand and the acceleration of localization of international brand, the hotel brand must make changes to adapt to the new consumption demand because of the changes of domestic consumer groups.

Indeed, in the post epidemic era, the rise of local brands is visible to the naked eye.

"The government's recognition of domestic brands is getting higher and higher." Zhang Ye, vice president of rongchuang cultural tourism group and hotel manager, observed that at present, both domestic consumers and local governments have many opportunities in brand management and development under the background of domestic economic cycle.

As the investor of the hotel asset project, rongchuang cultural tourism group of Zhang Ye signed a contract with Kaiyuan Senbo hotel this year to open a new hotel in Hangzhou Bay. At the same time, the group established a German hotel management company with Huazhu, and maintained cooperation with other domestic hotel brands.

"What kind of hotel can I invest in? What is the hotel brand? Everyone's definition and understanding are different. " Zhang Ye believes that the hotel brand is first of all product force, content force, service force, plus emotional force, and finally become the establishment of emotional connection. The further development of the hotel industry in the future will be reflected in the product integration.

While traditional hotel groups continue to build brands, OTA platform is also extending its business tentacles to the hotel field. As a cross-border hotel brand established by Ctrip, Licheng hotel has attracted much attention in the industry since its birth in 2018.

However, Ctrip has given greater significance to Licheng brand. It is neither a hotel management company in the traditional sense, nor a group of its own hotels. Its playing method is to operate major data, to provide data support for hotels joining the brand, and to improve management with the help of user data analysis.

"A lot of people have been" misunderstanding "Li Cheng According to Lu Yun, "Licheng" is more like a technical solution. "Now there are more and more brands, which ultimately decide whether the brand is good or not. Products and services are the most important."

"As a supply chain enterprise, it also needs deep cultivation in building Guochao brand. In the long run, it still needs some brands with connotation." LAN Jin, President of Jiangsu Hotel daily necessities Industry Association and general manager of LMZ (Jiangsu) Industrial Co., Ltd., believes that in the future, traditional brands in the hotel industry will occupy a dominant position, and many national brands in the whole hotel supply chain need to be further explored and cultivated.

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