Dai Shuai (left) explains at Putuo Mountain (taken in 2021). Courtesy of respondents
With the arrival of the 12th "China Tourism Day", many places in China have launched online "cloud" tours and offline activities to benefit the people, which not only show the scenery of mountains and rivers and the emerging tourism formats, but also boost the morale of domestic tourists.
Since the outbreak of covid-19, the tourism industry, as a clustered, liquid and highly accessible industry, has continued to be affected. In the "Several Policies on Promoting the Recovery and Development of Difficult Industries in the Service Industry" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and 14 other departments in February 2022, tourism and catering, retail, highway, waterway, railway transportation, and civil aviation are included in the category of "difficult industries in the service industry".
According to the data released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the number of domestic tourists in 2020 was 2.879 billion person-times, down 52.1% year-on-year; in 2021, the total number of domestic tourist trips was 3.246 billion, an increase of 12.8% year-on-year, recovering to 54.0% in 2019; in the first quarter of 2022, the total number of domestic tourists was 830 million, a decrease of 194 million over the same period of the previous year, down 19.0%.
The decline in the number of tourists also directly affects the employment choices of tourists.
"The tourism industry is highly dependent on the spatial movement of people, and due to the impact of the epidemic, the main body of the tourism market is facing increasing operational difficulties, and the loss of business and technical backbone is serious, which is also a fact that needs no words." Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Research Institute, said.
Under the industry crisis, how can tourists find a new way out? In a sense, as the basic support for the operation of the tourism economy, the difficulties encountered by the tour guide group in the epidemic, the transformation attempt to seek opportunities in danger, and the adjustment and exploration of the direction of talent training are providing an observation side for exploring this issue.
In the "employment window period", the fundamentals of tourism are still there
In March 2022, the Huangshan City Tourist Guide Association issued a "Recruitment Notice for Tea Pickers in Huangshan District", which made the public pay attention to the phenomenon of "employment window period" during the epidemic period when tour guides could not practice normally.
For the vast majority of tour guides, the pandemic is a watershed in their careers.
Hua Fuyu, a 26-year-old girl who won the title of "Yunnan Gold Medal Tour Guide" in 2019, used "the world turned upside down" to describe the change in work status before and after the epidemic, "The work of tour guides before 2020 is relatively stable, in general, after receiving a tour group, resting for a day or two, the travel agency will soon notify to bring the next group, and the arrangement is very compact." As soon as the epidemic came, many of the business of travel agencies were stopped, tour guides did not have basic salaries, and their income depended on the labor fees of the group, and no group to bring meant that there was no income."
Under economic pressure, many of the peers that Huafuyu knows have moved to other industries during the epidemic period, engaging in online ride-hailing drivers, insurance brokers, Internet marketers and other work.
According to the national travel agency statistical survey report released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism every year, from 2019 to 2021, the number of direct employees of travel agencies nationwide will drop from 415,941 to 278,772, and the number of tour guides who have signed labor contracts will drop from 121,710 to 94,332.
Hua Fuyu also considered changing careers, but she still has hope for the future of tourism in her heart, "Where I live, I can see the Yulong Snow Mountain when I look up, and the number of times I have led the group to climb the Snow Mountain since the epidemic has been greatly reduced, but there are still many development opportunities around the Snow Mountain, people have always been enthusiastic about travel, and recently the state has introduced so many support policies, which also inspires us practitioners."
Since the release of the "Several Policies on Promoting the Recovery and Development of Difficult Industries in the Service Industry Sector", many places have successively issued implementation measures to help tourism enterprises bail out, involving reducing operating costs, providing financial support, stabilizing employment, and releasing tourism consumption potential.
In addition, in view of the new problems encountered by the tourism industry in the context of epidemic prevention and control, various localities are also exploring new ways to test the waters. For example, Yunnan recently launched two types of insurance for group tourism, "Yunnan Travel Agency Liability Insurance Additional Epidemic 'Circuit Breaker' Trip Cancellation Loss Insurance" and "Group Accident Insurance Additional Travel Infectious Disease Isolation Allowance Insurance", which provide a new idea for reducing the business risks of travel agencies and helping the recovery of the industry.
In Dai Bin's view, despite the impact of the epidemic, the fundamentals of travel demand are still there, "from the market data and industrial trends in the past two years, where the epidemic is controlled, where the cultural leisure and tourism consumption will recover rapidly, which is the source of confidence for the tourism industry to adhere to high-quality development." The introduction of a number of supportive policies is like providing a 'timely rain' for the tourism industry, but tourists must rebuild their competitiveness if they want to survive in the changed market."
Transformation exploration in crisis
Under the epidemic, new opportunities are still brewing in the tourism industry.
According to The data of Tianyancha, from the perspective of the number of registrations (the status of all enterprises), more than 1.15 million tourism-related enterprises were established in 2021, and the number of new additions reached a record high; in the first four months of 2022, the number of new related enterprises reached more than 179,000.
"In the past, the cookie-cutter standardized products in traditional tourism could no longer meet people's needs. After this 'epidemic', tourists pay more attention to safety, quality and personalization, which also provides ideas for the development and transformation of tourism enterprises and tour guides. Dai Bin said.
The post-90s male substitute coach who graduated from university in 2012 has been a tour guide in Putuo Mountain for 10 years. After the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in 2020, Dai Shuai opened the "Putuo Mountain Xiaoshuai" account on social platforms to broadcast the scenery of Putuo Mountain live and share short videos he made with online tourists.
After the account has been operating for a period of time, there are more and more messages in the comment area that hope to "follow the group", and with the "restart" of offline tourism, Dai Shuai realized that the opportunity for entrepreneurship has come. In August 2020, he quit his original tour guide job and co-founded a travel company with self-media traffic as the carrier with several friends, HeartTalk Tourism, and launched the Putuo Mountain offline tour group business, and the entrance to the group was set up in the account.
"Compared with traditional travel agencies, we have made more explorations in service details, for example, the group staff will be subdivided into two groups of lecturers and housekeepers, with lecturers responsible for on-site explanations and butlers undertaking logistics services. Considering that most of the tourists are young people who value the sense of experience, when arranging the travel route, we appropriately slow down the pace so that the explanation and communication of each attraction can be more adequate. Dai Shuai said.
Updating the commentary is a link that Dai Shuai attaches great importance to, "every commentary will be put on the Internet display, if there is repetition, it will affect the perception, so even in the same attraction, our commentary must continue to look for different angles, try to bring new experiences to tourists and viewers."
However, in the context of the tightening of epidemic prevention and control policies, since March 2022, the tour group has been in a closed state, "at present, the 'Putuo Mountain Xiaoshuai' has 11.261 million people to pay attention, the tour group has been open for more than a year, and more than 30,000 tourists have been pulled online, but even if the losses caused by the epidemic are not counted, the profits of the tour group are still very small, and the bulk of the revenue is still the online income of live streaming with goods and advertising fees."
It is worth noting that in addition to the "vertical" efforts of pulling the line online, the "horizontal" breakthrough of the professional boundaries of tour guides from research and study trips is also a choice for transformation.
Jiang Chan, a post-90s girl who has been a tour guide for 5 years, has noticed the development prospects of study tours since 2019, and now, she has grown into the executive vice president of Shandong Yonghui Rural Ecotourism Development Co., Ltd., and has identified study tours and labor education as the strategic focus of the company's development.
"In the study tour and labor education, the organization and coordination, the explanation of the course, and the implementation of the team reception can make full use of the skills accumulated when you were a tour guide before. At the same time, study tours and labor education also involve curriculum research and development, scene and teaching aids creation, etc., even if the team cannot be received due to the epidemic, it can also carry out course research and development and internal promotion, and the impact on work and income is relatively small. Jiang Chan said.
Talent training must also keep up with changes
"Today, 3,000 students have graduated, and I would like to recommend it to enterprises and institutions such as tourism, hotels, catering, leisure, and outdoor sports." In May 2022, a letter of recommendation written by the dean of Shandong Tourism Vocational College for all graduates appeared on the public account of the college.
Near the graduation season, under the low tide of the industry, the employment choices of tourism students have also attracted a lot of attention in the industry.
In the circle of friends of Li Yan, deputy dean of the School of Tourism Management of Lijiang University of Culture and Tourism, there has been no shortage of forwarding recruitment information for tourism institutions around the world recently.
"Before the epidemic, the tourism management students, the professional counterpart employment rate has been maintained at more than 80%, 2020, 2021 these two years, affected by the epidemic, travel agency recruitment decreased, this number decreased to about 60%, but the overall employment rate can still reach more than 98%, the number of students to go to other industries such as hotels has increased, the number of people who stay in the travel agency industry has decreased, and the number of full-time tour guides in recent years should be minimal." Li Yan said.
Li Yan noted that from 2020 onwards, there will be no more students going to travel agencies for internships, "the travel agencies themselves have reduced their business, there is a certain loss of employees, and it is impossible to guarantee stable teaching and internship arrangements." In addition, during the epidemic period, the school strictly controlled the school gate, the enterprise personnel could not enter the school, the effect of online teaching was limited, the frequency of cooperation between the school and the travel agency was greatly reduced, and the school turned to seek cooperation with high-end hotels, scenic spots and other enterprises."
Hua Fuyu still remembers the feeling of sitting in the first row of the tourist bus for the first time during his junior internship, "The travel society assigns each intern student a master, generally speaking, that is, the brothers and sisters of the same school, they will tell you the whole process of leading the group, including how to deal with the unexpected situation of tourists." When it is the turn of the teachers and sisters to intern, it is you who will teach them. After the epidemic, without internships, this intergenerational continuity is basically broken, which is a pity for students who still want to work as tour guides in the future."
For the reduction of the demand for tour guide talents, Wang Yuqin, professor of Shandong Tourism Vocational College and host of "Shandong Vocational Education • Wang Yuqin Famous Teacher Studio", also has a lot of feelings, "In the past, the students of our college, including tour guide majors, the ratio of social needs to the number of graduates was 10:1, and students were asked to leave by enterprises before they graduated. However, in the past two years, due to the impact of the epidemic, the professional situation of tour guides has changed, so our thinking of cultivating students should also change, increase the content of new formats such as study tours, network anchors, and labor education in the curriculum design, and encourage students to intern in research bases, labor education bases and other units, so that students can learn more skills and continuously broaden employment channels."
It is worth noting that at the release of the research results of the 2022 China Tourism Science Annual Conference, the research group of the China Tourism Research Institute released the "'10+1' Trend Forecast for tourism talent demand" in the next 5 years, and professional tour guides ranked first in the demand for tourism talents.
At a time when tourism is still recovering, where do tour guides go? Everything has yet to be verified. (Li Xuan)
Source: China Youth Daily