In today's white-hot Internet industry, Buddhist companies still have a place.
Wen | too Much Of The James
On March 24, Ctrip announced its 2021 financial report, with annual revenue of 20 billion yuan, recovering to 56% of 2019, slightly better than the Chinese tourism market.
In contrast, data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism shows that in 2021, the total number of domestic tourism trips was 3.246 billion, recovering to 54% in 2019; the total revenue of domestic tourism was 2.92 trillion yuan, recovering to 51% in 2019.
Ctrip, which is drifting with the tide, is no longer like an Internet company, the first generation of Internet companies born in 1999 with Alibaba has gone through several ups and downs, and can still deal with it calmly in the face of the test of the epidemic.
Ctrip's two most famous founders are Shen Nanpeng, who bought half of China's Internet, and Liang Jianzhang, a demographer who still runs Ctrip.
Liang Jianzhang said at the earnings conference yesterday that it is necessary to build a "social Ctrip", which seems to be a trend in the current Chinese Internet.
Founder of Ctrip Liang Jianzhang
Tencent, which reported a day ago, announced that the proportion of minors' game time in the fourth quarter was only 0.9%; this Monday's annual report was multi-invested in "tens of billions of agricultural research"; Ali, which released three quarterly reports last month, plans to achieve carbon neutrality in 2030.
Ctrip can not only work with a market value of trillions of Ali and Tencent to exert social responsibility, but also preemptively start a hybrid office after the cancellation of the big and small weeks.
Ctrip has the capital to lie flat, because their moat in the OTA ticket distribution market has made the US group iron army useless. However, compared with the efforts to "save itself" at the beginning of the epidemic, Ctrip under the moat, this year can be described as no fighting spirit.
01
Ctrip lying flat?
Liang Jianzhang said at the earnings report yesterday: "Mixed office can not only improve employee satisfaction, but also conducive to environmental protection, more conducive to family harmony and women's career development." ”
This month marks Ctrip's first month of implementing a company-wide hybrid office system. Every week, Ctrip people can have 1-2 days to choose their own office location, which can be either home, café, or even a hotel in a vacation resort.
Prior to the promotion, Ctrip conducted a six-month hybrid office experiment covering more than 1,600 employees starting on August 9 last year.
The results at the beginning of this year show that the proportion of "strong support" and "support" for the mixed office system is 59.2 per cent and 28.2 per cent, respectively. The biggest motivation is to reduce commuting time.
The Feasibility of Working from Home: Evidence based on trials in China
Liang Jianzhang's wishful thinking is that once the hybrid office model is promoted, many employees will choose to live in cities farther away from the office location. Employees need to book train tickets, air tickets and stay in hotels when they come to the company from time to time. Fewer employee hours at work will also increase the demand for group travel.
In promoting remote work, Liang Jianzhang, who focuses on the real universe, and Zuckerberg, who advocates the metaverse, are particularly consistent.
However, Facebook suffered a six-hour inaccessibility last October, in part due to overhauling employees to work remotely.
On that day, most of Facebook's employees had to continue to work remotely, rather than work. Some guys who habitually touch fish may be more comfortable because the feeling of working for a "non-existent website" is no different from the daily paddling.
Microsoft's March 2020 study also found that telecommuting increased the amount of information managers send on instant messaging apps by 115 percent, compared with just 50 percent for the average employee. At Microsoft China, managers have increased their time for collaboration from 7 hours a week to 14 hours a week.
Working remotely reduces the number of discussions between colleagues about a business problem and is not conducive to innovation. Moreover, gossip time in pantries, corridors and halls is itself a form of team building.
Image source: Network
Because of this, in the United States, more than 80% of enterprises have established remote work systems in 2017. However, in 2020, only 3% of employees in the United States will spend more than half of their time working from home.
The epidemic has made internet manufacturers find that in the case of a sharp reduction in the working hours of employees, the company's revenue has not received any impact. This became an opportunity for them to rethink their HR strategy.
Telecommuting is like the same large-scale social experiment. He made the company's managers and shareholders realize that while employees are more productive in the office, this is better than anything about the goal of making the next blockbuster product.
So in the post-pandemic era, while 61 percent of Google's U.S. employees want to continue working remotely, they either accept pay cuts or obediently return to the office.
This ostensibly seems to give employees the option, but the proposal to have employees telecommute but get pay cuts is likely to get more support. Not making large-scale layoffs, but being able to cut labor costs in a big way, is attractive enough for managers.
Ctrip's mixed office did not make a salary adjustment this time, after all, the largest shareholder Baidu is also known for its Buddhist system. But after this first gunshot, follow-up followers are still likely to learn from Google.
The shock of mixed office to the industry is far less severe than that of the "cancellation of the big and small week".
ByteDance cancels "Size Week"
Kuaishou and Byte canceled the size week last year. Kuaishou's big and small week experiments lasted only half a year, and a top-down email slowed itself down again. Byte did it more thoroughly, conducted a full investigation, and found that one-third of the people supported it, one-third of the people opposed it, and one-third had an unclear attitude.
The tangled byte management eventually canceled the decision. The reality is that all of ByteDance's investment in innovative businesses after Douyin has had little effect, and employees are envious of the performance of the mature department of Douyin and no longer believe in the wealth freedom that new business can bring.
After the cancellation, some employees began to yearn for green waters and mountains and began to plan weekend blind dates; others lamented the decline in income: the big and small weeks allowed employees to work 2 more days a month, get double wages, 48 days a year, and the salary dropped by 17% after the cancellation.
On the issue of saving labor costs, "canceling the big and small weeks" and mixed offices have come to the same place.
02
Strong enemies on the side?
Can Ctrip people's beautiful mixed office life without salary cuts continue? Still have to ask the biggest opponent - the US group.
In 2012, Meituan began to dabble in wine tourism; in 2015, Meituan surpassed eLong to become the second largest hotel booking platform in China after Ctrip; in 2019, Meituan's hotel room night volume surpassed that of Ctrip, including Ctrip, Qunar, and eLong.
The story of Meituan's overtaking in the corner of the wine and tourism market is the same as the process of Pinduoduo's domination outside the fifth ring road. It starts with small and medium-sized hotels in third- and fourth-tier cities, avoiding the high-star hotel market where Ctrip and Fliggy bite into it.
Meituan relies on its own high-frequency local services to fully drain the hotel. It disclosed at the earnings report in the second quarter of 2019 that 90% of the reservation consumption is diverted by takeaway and in-store catering.
Meituan "Hotel/Homestay"
In the post-epidemic era, consumers have begun to worry about the cost of staying, while low-end independent hotels have experienced obvious shortage of supply after experiencing the epidemic due to their poor ability to resist risks, while high-end hotels have not. This is also the reason why Meituan's wine and tourism business revenue can surpass Ctrip in 2020.
Under the impact of the epidemic, the high-star hotels that have always been satisfied with being fed by Ctrip have a strong desire to destock, preferring to sacrifice their brand value to a certain extent, the discount rate is full, and they also want to let customers with high price sensitivity bring them cash flow. The US group, which perfectly matches the needs of this part, just takes advantage of the void.
Meituan's financial report shows that in the first quarter of 2021, the proportion of room nights in high-star hotels exceeded 16.7%. This segment grew by 70% compared to the same period in 2019, with five-star hotels growing at more than 130%.
However, to this day, Ctrip's fortress at the High Star Hotel has not been breached by the US Iron Army.
In Meituan's traffic system, the reservation demand diverted through takeaway and in-store catering is often limited to local, while Ctrip's high-end customers who divert through air ticket reservations are more likely to match high-star hotels.
Although Meituan is not short of money, the domestic air ticket booking market with low profits is like chicken ribs for it: the food is tasteless and the pity is abandoned.
In addition to the US group, what about the live travel broadcast?
Douyin, Kuaishou travel live broadcast
There is currently no large-scale live e-commerce in the tourism industry. Travel products are still very complex, and the commission is not high, so it does not leave sufficient profit margins for live e-commerce.
The decision-making cycle of tourism is long and the frequency is low, and it is difficult to induce impulse consumption. For talent anchors, if they only output pure tourism vertical content, it is difficult to obtain considerable income. Therefore, bloggers basically take the route of "travel + dressing" and "tourism + digital".
For example, if you consider the influence of competitors on Ali, although the jitters are huge, they can only be regarded as scabies, and Pinduoduo is a big problem.
Ctrip, which the US group can't help, there are not many ways to shake fast.
Five years ago, Wang Xing proposed in an interview with Xiao Wan that "everything has no boundaries". In response to Ctrip, Wang Xing said lightly: "It is estimated that in another 1-2 years, we will exceed the number of room nights of the entire Ctrip plus Yilong plus Where to go." ”
A day later, Liang Jianzhang responded: "Specialization is conducive to innovation, and diversification is not conducive to innovation."
Facts have proved that Wang Xing's prediction is basically accurate. By 2019, meituan's domestic hotel room nights exceeded the sum of Ctrip's departments.
Interestingly, Ctrip can hold on not entirely because of specialization, but also because Ctrip is an oligarch in the air booking market.
At present, it seems that the domestic OTA ticket distribution market has been decided, and Ctrip's lying life can continue for a long time.