Migratory bird travel is difficult to reduce the price of the amount, how can the elderly tour develop

After a few heavy snowfalls, there is not a single aunt who does not want to go to the warm sea in the south to wave a silk scarf. As one of the important manifestations of elderly tourism, migratory bird travel has continued to be hot in recent years. However, due to the repeated impact of the recent epidemic, silver-haired group travel orders have dropped sharply, and migratory bird travel is difficult to heat up the market; coupled with the impact of negative news such as "house buying tour" and "cemetery tour" that appear from time to time, for the elderly travel industry, this year's cold winter will be very long.

<b>Migratory bird travel price reduction "premature birth"</b>

The first snow in Beijing, the snow in the northeast, wearing autumn pants is still shivering, Grandma Wang (pseudonym), who lives in Beijing, once again moved the idea of "cat winter" in Hainan.

Tourists like Grandma Wang have a special name, "migratory bird" tourists. As the name suggests, migratory bird travel refers to tourists departing from northern cities to southern cities in Guangdong, Hainan and other places for a vacation or winter. This type of travel starts about the time when the weather is getting colder from late October to November every year, and the travel time is longer than the general tour, and the consumer group is mainly the elderly and children.

It is worth noting that this year's migratory bird travel is more than half a month earlier than in previous years. From the perspective of the route, the products that usually appear frequently at the end of October and November, after the "Eleventh", they began to "brush the screen" market. Industry insiders said that this year's migratory bird flights from north to south started early and were related to repeated epidemics. On the one hand, consumers such as elderly tourists are in strong demand for "moving south"; on the other hand, the epidemic has repeatedly made tourists take a wait-and-see attitude towards future travel, preferring to continue to set off when the golden week heat has not decreased.

As temperatures continue to drop, so does the supply. The new winter and spring sailing season has opened a lot of new routes to the south. For example, the routes to Sanya, Changsha and Jingzhou have increased by 5, and the routes to Shenzhen and Qionghai have also increased by 4.

Most of the consumers who choose to travel with "migratory birds" are elderly people who have "money and leisure". Mid-to-late October is the month when these elderly passengers travel a lot. According to Qunar data, the destinations of elderly travelers traveling alone are mainly concentrated in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen; Chengdu, Kunming, Xi'an and other cities have also welcomed more and more elderly travelers who travel alone.

However, the feet of the "warm winter" have not yet been hot, and the "premature" migratory bird tourism has encountered repeated epidemics. As of November 5, the current round of the epidemic has affected 20 provinces and 44 cities (states, leagues), and the epidemic in many places involves tourist destinations. The epidemic has repeatedly directly affected the willingness of silver-haired people to travel, and Grandma Wang gave up traveling after repeated thinking.

Airfare is the "duck prophet" of the tourism market. LvJieMedia found on the OTA platform that the price of migratory bird routes this year has dropped significantly compared with the past. Taking the previous popular routes as an example, the minimum discount for flights from Beijing to Sanya is 20% off; the average price of the Guangzhou-Sanya route in the first two weeks of November is about 500 yuan; in the same period of 2019, it is about 770 yuan, a drop of more than 30%.

<b>Chaos is frequent</b>

Strictly speaking, migratory bird travel is actually only a part of the elderly tour.

According to the data of the seventh census, the proportion of The population aged 60 and over in China has reached 18.70%, of which the proportion of the population aged 65 and above has reached 13.50%.

There are a variety of tourism products around these "rich and idle" elderly people, of which day trips and group tours are more common forms. However, since the concept of elderly tourism appeared, all kinds of chaos has not been "stopped". The characteristics of the elderly's relatively closed information, the need for companionship, and the desire for health have made the black-hearted merchants who target elderly tourists more and more.

Among them, "travel companies" that do not have business qualifications, sales of scenic spots, and even real estate companies all want to get a piece of the spillover of the elderly blue ocean. They often haunt squares, parks, community fitness centers, banks near residents' homes and other areas, and accurately "hunt" the elderly with different products. Elderly tours have a variety of "nicknames": "low-cost tours", "cemetery tours", "house buying tours", "emerald tours", "health care products tours" and so on.

Low price is a common feature of these products, and the price of single group is basically below 100 yuan or even lower or free.

Most of the first generation of low-cost elderly groups were arranged to settle in specialty stores, jewelry stores, health care product sales points, with tour guides acting as sales, and even some staff members would "intimidate" consumers to buy products that were higher than the market price or counterfeit and shoddy products. With the increase in the vigilance of elderly consumers, new types of scams have also changed from the original specialties to "big things" such as real estate, shareholding, and investment.

In April this year, a car of elderly people spent 18 yuan on a day trip, and the incident of being taken to visit the cemetery was on the hot search, once again refreshing the netizens' cognition of the "routine" of low-cost travel for the elderly. At that time, the local cultural and tourism department responded that the merchants were "combining" the sales of tombstones or cemeteries with day trips to form low-cost tourism products to attract the elderly. In the "Ten Typical Cases of The Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly" issued by the Supreme People's Court in February this year, there are also many classic cases of "housing for the aged" and "low-cost travel" on the list.

In fact, there are also many elderly travel products that are regularly operated on the market, and there are many details to distinguish between true and false.

The relevant person in charge of Shenzhou National Travel, who often deals with elderly tourists, told the new tourism industry that according to the price, the elderly tour can be "first screened". According to the above-mentioned person in charge, the price of dozens of yuan is difficult to cover even the fare of tourists, let alone add services such as tour guides, drivers, tickets, etc.; the elderly tour also needs to be equipped with safety personnel, and the requirements for line design are also higher. Even if the level of urban consumption is slightly different, in the domestic tourism market, the price of dozens of yuan is obviously "catty". So merchants are likely to fill the expenses with some additional purchases and extra consumption, or actually "wool out of the sheep".

In addition, Wang Longguo, a lawyer at Shanghai Shenyihe Law Firm, also said that some companies will use the trust and public will of the elderly to attract consumers. However, even through the elderly as 'agents', the regular process of travel contracts must be completed, and the shopping receipts in the itinerary need to be properly retained in order to protect their rights later.

<b>Winter has arrived</b>

However, for most practitioners, the market is uneven and the reputation is not good, which is a problem that will be considered after normal operation. What is even more worrying at the moment is the continuous blow of the epidemic on the industry.

According to the heads of a number of elderly tour groups, the market warmed up during the "Eleventh" Golden Week, but the subsequent epidemic basically took away all orders. Inter-provincial travel is suspended, elderly groups are suspended, and some activities that do not leave the province are rarely asked.

"Although the market will enter the off-season after October in previous years, there will be some products that flow from north to south and from the surrounding suburbs. Now it's all cut off. What is more worrying is that unlike before, this round of the epidemic involves the elderly group, and now many elderly people can be said to be 'talking about inter-provincial discoloration'. Coupled with the need to consider the epidemic prevention and control measures of children's units and schools of the younger generation, even if it is an old customer who has established long-term contact, it will take a long, long time to restore travel confidence. Some insiders said.

Dang Junwu, deputy director of the China Science Research Center on Aging, told the new tourism industry that due to physical fitness and other restrictions, the impact of the epidemic on elderly tourism is actually higher than that of other tourism branches. "First of all, the travel mode of the elderly group is difficult to adjust. They can't drive themselves, there is a lot of preparation to be done, and the relatively clustered attribute determines that once there is an epidemic, the elderly tour must be the first to stop and recover slowly. ”

However, many experts have pointed out that the epidemic has not brought all the negative to the industry. In addition to accelerating the reshuffle, it will further promote product segmentation. Specifically, the current market supply still cannot meet the tourism needs of silver-haired people, and the supply of products will have a significant increase and refinement after the epidemic; on the other hand, the epidemic has allowed more middle-aged and elderly people to strengthen their attention to health, medicine, health care and other fields, and health tourism, medical travel and other tracks may usher in rapid development.

As for how to save enterprises with dismal operations, Dang Junwu proposed that perhaps small products such as outings and surrounding fitness tours can be started; enterprises can also build social groups on WeChat and Douyin platforms to encourage the elderly to share their travel experiences with each other and meet their social needs, so as to ensure user viscosity. In the days of suspension, you can focus on product design, consider launching some customized health vacation travel docking, and strive to ensure professionalism while satisfying the fun, waiting for the market to pick up.

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