Reporter | Downey Intern reporter | Hao Shuqin
If you use a few keywords to describe this year's domestic tourism market, "strong recovery" is one of them.
According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the number of people traveling during this year's "most crowded" May Day holiday reached 230 million, which has recovered to 103.2% of the same period before the epidemic, and the people's enthusiasm for traveling remains undiminished during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday that followed. The number of tourists was 89.136 million, and the domestic tourism revenue was 29.43 billion yuan, an increase of 94.1% and 139.7% respectively.
Compared with the flow of people after the recovery of various scenic spots, the presence of traditional travel agencies seems to be getting weaker and weaker. In 2020, the revenue of the travel agency industry fell sharply from 710.338 billion yuan in 2019 to 238.969 billion, and a large number of travel agencies ushered in a wave of bankruptcy and layoffs. According to the latest travel agency survey report released this year, the number of tourists received by travel agencies nationwide in the first quarter was only 14.8904 million, less than one-fifth of the number of customers received in the first half of 2019.
The epidemic is by no means simply pressing the pause button for the cultural tourism industry, and when everything is restarted, the mentality and behavior habits of national tourism have already undergone irreversible changes. Hygienic environment and safety elements have become important considerations when choosing tourism products, and tourists rely more on digital media when making travel decisions and planning. The rise of young tourists represented by the post-80s and post-90s generations has become the absolute main force of the travel crowd, and higher quality immersive in-depth tours and theme tours are the favorites of this year's young tourists. In terms of destination selection, they also prefer niche secrets that can get close to nature and experience local characteristics.
And many travel agencies seem to have lost their traditional advantages such as resource integration and price. After the epidemic, digitalization has been further popularized, the communication contact points between upstream product suppliers and ordinary consumers are everywhere, tourists can directly obtain destination tourism resources, and pure resource combination tourism products can no longer reflect the special and advantages of travel agencies. Coupled with the dissolution of the original price advantage, a group of niche professional public accounts, societies and interest groups born on the Internet have gradually become an emerging force representing industry trends because they understand user psychology better and have higher stickiness.
Among the emerging "travel agencies" that are deeply involved in travel product design, Scarecrow Travel, founded in 2007, can be said to be a pioneer. This creative travel company comes from an outdoor sports club at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, two young people met and fell in love on the road to travel in the west of the motherland, what they saw and heard on the road shocked them, and they also planted a seed in their hearts - sharing the stories they encountered and watched along the way to more people, and then this seed gradually took root, so there was a "scarecrow".
As a non-traditional travel agency, Scarecrow has many "strange things" - only accepting young people aged 20-45 to sign up; 85% of users are recommended by friends and almost do not sell on OTA platforms; do not rely on ground pick-up agencies; and all routes and products are personally designed. Ultimately, these have only one purpose: to ensure that young people can truly explore the authentic local cultural characteristics together, and exchange and share and feel the journey without any scruples.
Zuo Huimin, one of the founders, admits that he did not even understand how travel agencies worked at first, but only relied on his love for a destination to find the corresponding suppliers, and designed the activities in the trip with the preference intuition of a group of young people. And this unique offline service experience and accurate positioning have also made the scarecrow. By 2020, Scarecrow has accumulated a large number of "rice rice" fans, with an average reading volume of 2w+ for WeChat headlines and 2800w for Himalayan podcasts, ranking first in the list of public reviews. Even though tourism nearly stagnated in the first half of last year, Scarecrow still received more than 40,000 visitors a year, and the number of visitors has returned to four-fifths of what it used to be. This year, the Scarecrow's May Day and Dragon Boat Festival's popular travel routes are even more full, requiring weeks or even months in advance to book.
From the chaos and exploration in the early days of entrepreneurship, and after experiencing the baptism of the epidemic, the scarecrow gradually sorted out clearer business clues. At present, Scarecrow has six kinds of service classifications such as international travel, domestic long-term line, super weekend, customized travel, short-distance tourism and urban players, of which domestic long-term line accounts for the largest proportion, and customized travel is a new product line after the epidemic, which meets the individual needs of customers on the basis of scarecrow characteristics.
Recently, Interface Culture & Tourism interviewed Zuo Huimin, one of the founders of Scarecrow Travel Agency, chatted with her about the scarecrow's story, and hoped to listen more to the voices of new forces in the process of transformation and upgrading of the cultural tourism industry.
Zuo Huimin: Scarecrow was originally an outdoor sports club in the university, born with a youthful attribute; later, out of the consideration of accurate brand positioning, it continued the tradition of young people.
Scarecrow was originally a club I started with my boyfriend from the university of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. In the summer of our freshman year in 2003, we backpacked together and took the Xinzang Line from Xinjiang all the way to Tibet. What we see and hear on the road has a very profound impact on us.
Back on campus, we had the idea of starting clubs and organizing outdoor trips. The exchange and collision of a group of young people in the community during the journey makes the trip itself more meaningful. When starting a business, considering that brands and businesses need precise positioning, Scarecrow set an age limit to ensure that young people can truly experience travel together.
Zuo Huimin: The Scarecrow was originally an outdoor society, and after starting a business, the identity of the travel agency was registered because the outdoor club did not have the corresponding legal protection and operating qualifications at that time, and the travel agency operation was legal and compliant. In the early days, we didn't understand the operation of traditional travel agencies, and the simplest belief was to reproduce the trips that moved us to influence the team members and customers.
For the 6 major elements in the tourism chain, "eating, living, traveling, shopping and entertainment", the general travel agency only assumes the role of a certain link in the entire chain, such as a group agency, a ground receiving agency, or an online travel platform, etc., and all the travel experiences of scarecrow, from the exploration to the intermediate supplier, all products are built by themselves. From tourism promotions and tourism products to tour guides, scarecrow independently provides all the services during the trip.
First, from the aspect of publicity and promotion, we have created our own public accounts, websites and microblogs, accumulating a large amount of private domain traffic.
Second, in terms of sales, we can directly reach every customer, without relying on traditional stores or OTA platforms.
Third, all of Scarecrow's travel products come from the first-hand experience of pathfinding, and do not rely on ground pick-up agencies.
Traditional travel agencies' products are mostly provided by local agencies, while scarecrows all products are designed by themselves. We pay great attention to the local experience and communication with the locals, such as arranging for tourists to stay in the locals' homes.
Fourth, including product landing and team travel, we initially completed it ourselves.
In general, Scarecrow's tourism product development, product promotion, planning operations and guidance are all done by themselves. In the process of growing the scale of the enterprise, we copied these roles one by one into a team, insisting on doing it ourselves and completing each link of the travel service ourselves.
Generally, it will go through the process of selecting the topic - collecting information - exploring the way - finalizing the product plan - cost verification - publicity and release.
Scarecrow has a special tourism product research and development team, and the development of products is close to the market end. It will collect the hot dynamics of the market, and then the product developer will explore the way, consider the actual feasibility, and then form a product design sample.
After that, the product group will review each other and constantly adjust the sample. After the final plan is passed, it is the cost of the price, considering which level of product line the product is mainly promoted. Finally, there are graphics and text, or video promotions.
Zuo Huimin: First of all, Scarecrow not only pays attention to product design, but also pays attention to the actual experience of product landing in customers. Scarecrow has a starting group test, and the product designer really leads the team to feel the actual experience of the customer and give the team leader a guide after that.
Secondly, we attach great importance to the exploration, experience, exchange and sharing of tourism products. Exploration is when visitors can go to their destination to explore something deeper and more closely related to the local area. Experience is that the Scarecrow route must have a local experience. For example, interacting with local ethnic bands, visiting local markets and feeling local life.
Communication is the hope that tourists can have in-depth communication with the destination. For example, in Uzbekistan, the team members were asked to go to the local grand bazaar (market) in groups to sell Chinese goods. Although everyone does not speak Uzbek, they communicate by comparing numbers, and in the end everyone is very happy. Visitors can also appreciate what the trade of the Silk Roads was like.
Finally, there is sharing, which is why we insist on being a young team. If the age group of customers is too broad, it is difficult to empathize. For example, a parent-child family is definitely a small group, and it is difficult for others to integrate. But scarecrows are basically young people, and the travel is relatively relaxed, and sharing will naturally arise.
Many will come back together to report the Scarecrow's regiment. Socialization itself is the need of young people, and we hope to be able to do some preparation to create an environment where communication between people becomes smooth. And communication itself is not the end, we believe that after the carrier of travel is done well, it will naturally affect people.
In terms of challenges, scarecrows are relatively lucky. Because a lot of private domain traffic is accumulated. Customers register directly through our website and mini programs, without any intermediary channels, we can directly reach every customer. After the outbreak of the epidemic, we launched a pre-sale of future products without a deadline, customers can spend one or two hundred yuan to book a quota, and the amount will be doubled in the future. In fact, the most important thing is to book the customer's future time. We believe that as long as the customer is still there, there is hope for a quick recovery. It is also true that after the announcement last year that inter-provincial tourism resumed, scarecrow's business also quickly resumed.
The opportunity is that the epidemic has brought a gap period, and all tour guides and tour leaders can spend time together to cultivate their internal skills and open up the whole link of travel experience, so now we are walking more steadily.
The term "Giver" comes from a book called "Taker and Giver." Whether you are willing to be a giver or a taker, we will pay great attention to the spirit and characteristics of "giving" when recruiting team leaders. Being a leader in the Scarecrow does not actually require all parties to be a leader. Many of our clients have more experience than our tour leaders. For example, many local Tibetan leaders don't even understand Mandarin, but the feedback from customers is very good, because they are willing to share and can give customers something different.
Being willing to share what he knows with the tourist and do his best to serve is a good scarecrow leader. Therefore, the leader is called "Giver".
Public opinion often has a negative impression of tourism development. We will also think about whether we can retain the characteristics of travel destinations while increasing the number of tourists and economic development. If all places were the same, there would be no point in traveling. Whether I'm from a traveler or a company, I want the characteristics of the destination to be preserved, so it's natural to focus on sustainability.
The Scarecrow now has about a dozen small informal public welfare projects called the Rice Fund. They may come from a team leader, supplier, or a proposal from a team member. For example, the Rice Fund funded a project to mitigate grassland degradation in southern Gansu. When the tour group goes, we will also ask the project leader to give a lecture on how to pay attention to the grassland and improve the local environment. Ultimately, tourists don't just see the beauty of the grasslands, but are aware of the crisis of degradation of local grasslands, thus forming a virtuous circle.
At the same time, Scarecrow also hopes that other peers can pay attention to and join in sustainable travel and create sustainable travel standards. A number of international standards have been introduced at the United Nations World Tourism Organization. However, it is still necessary to explore which can be implemented in the country and which need to be promoted in an orderly manner.
I believe that the resumption of international travel requires several conditions. The first is the control of the epidemic at the destination and the country of entry where it opens; second, the realization of mutual certification of vaccinations; and the relaxation of international two-way quarantine policies. If all these conditions are in place, I think there will be an explosive growth in outbound travel. Now my expectation is that from 2022 onwards, there will be some international openings.
At present, The Scarecrow Company's strategy is still mainly domestic, but we plan to reorganize the original international team from the second half of the year to prepare for the resumption of international travel. During the pandemic, we have also been in contact with suppliers around the world. Once the conditions just mentioned are ripe, the Scarecrow can quickly seize the opportunity.
I am looking forward to the restart of international travel in the future. Because the entire industry competition model has now changed dramatically, once the business is restarted, it means that the entire tourism industry will be reshuffled.
The difficulties are really encountered a lot. Initially we were pure backpackers and didn't know much about travel. Counting the community, I have been doing this since my freshman year, and I have been stumbling and climbing for so many years, and my cognition has been changing.
By now, Scarecrow has the confidence to ensure that customers can get a good in-line experience. But there is still some room for improvement in terms of pre-trip and post-trip experience. This includes website usage, registration experience, and pre-registration experience. This may be something that scarecrow genes are not good at, but because people are getting busier and busier now, and travel is a very low-frequency thing, we hope to be able to serve customers from every link.
Image source: brand provided, brand official website