【Orange Tourism】If you talk about the freshest and most fashionable lifestyle in recent years, camping is definitely one of the representatives.
In recent years, the "out of the circle" of domestic camping has indeed had a certain degree of chance, which is a generally recognized view in the industry. However, since the beginning of this year, with the optimization and adjustment of domestic epidemic prevention and control policies, domestic and foreign tourism has gradually recovered, and the main comfortable and convenient camping has been diverted, and it is reported that the camping industry has ushered in a "wave of closure".
Needless to say, this year will be a year of divergence for the camping industry. Next, the camping market will enter the process of survival of the fittest, entering the stage of competing for better content and better experience.
A number of campsite leaders said that when camping is no longer the top stream and becomes the mainstream, it means that camping has returned to a period of healthy development.
The inflection point in the camping industry has arrived
Since 2021, a camping craze has swept the country, and camping culture has begun to move from niche to public vision.
As of December 22, 2022, the number of notes on camping in Little Red Book reached 4.41 million; From August 2021 to July 2022, the number of video views of camping content on the Douyin platform exceeded 27.4 billion times... In 2022, the campsite is no longer just a niche photo spot, but carries many people's yearning for nature, their desire for freedom, and the dream of camp owners to "make money as long as they enclose the land" - by the end of 2022, there were more than 77,000 camping-related enterprises, of which more than 50,000 were established in the past two years, and many camping enterprises have obtained effective financing in the field of cultural tourism.
However, the "camping" that once flooded the circle of friends experienced a cruel reshuffle period under the reduction of customers, intensified competition and capital "withdrawal" after a round of outbreak in the spring of 2023.
A number of campsite practitioners said frankly that after the convenience of travel in 2023, camping in the suburbs of the city has become a bit of a chicken rib, and the overall passenger flow has fallen by more than 50% this year.
Among them, campsite entrant Li Xingan has witnessed a wave of small-scale campsite closures around him - in 2021, when he entered the game, there were 5 campsites on Haimen Island, half an hour's drive from Xiamen, and as of March 2023, only 1 was still open.
According to the Baidu index, the popularity of the word "camping" hit a high of 3300 during May Day in 2022, and then began to decline all the way. Even if the temperature warms up this year and the peak season arrives again, the popularity of camping has rebounded, only reaching about half of the same period last year.
However, in the view of Liu Hanqi, secretary general of the self-driving tour and camping caravan branch of the China Tourist Car and Boat Association, some of the campsites that have closed down this year have not even been registered, and they cannot talk about bankruptcy, that is, they dried up last year, and this year's stall is not dry and turned to other projects.
"I think this is a good thing that the recovery of the inter-provincial and outbound tourism markets this year has had a diversion impact on the marketization of camping, which has directly triggered the 'wave of closures' of camping enterprises." Sun Jiandong, chairman of Nikko Group, said, "This shows that in the past, camping sites that could be used as campsites with a few tents are now difficult to gain market recognition. On the contrary, campsites with complete infrastructure, comprehensive and resource classes will be more popular with consumers, which is also a process of survival of the fittest in the industry. ”
Orion founder and CEO Mo Zhao believes that after the epidemic, camping gradually returns to normal competition, at this time the core of competitive passenger flow should focus on improving competitiveness, including camp theme, content iteration, brand attractiveness, etc., camping can only be said to be the real arrival of the camping era.
Can exquisite camping stand out?
It is understood that most of the camping projects that have closed since 2023 are not standard or have to end hastily after the wind. In contrast, the overall development of camping enterprises or projects that pursued standardization and standardized development represented by "exquisite camping" showed a sudden trend.
Exquisite camping, also known as "Glamping light luxury camping", different from traditional camping, exquisite camping in addition to tents and other basic equipment, but also bring egg roll tables, cassette stoves, star lights, coffee machines, barbecue equipment and other "film" equipment.
As early as 2020, exquisite camping began to be popular on various online social third-party payment platforms. From the perspective of consumer groups, the players of exquisite camping are mainly concentrated in 21-45 years old, of which new parents and urban middle-aged are the core consumer groups, and small town bourgeois and quality youth are growth-driven groups.
In the past three years, due to the inability to travel far due to the epidemic and the rise of peripheral travel, exquisite camping has shown a trend of fire.
Hold up a tent, set up a canopy, beautifully plate with all kinds of drinks, mood lights stretch from the tent to the grass, Bluetooth speakers and hand-brewed coffee are also essential... Nowadays, as an emerging industry, exquisite camping is popular on major domestic social media platforms and has become a well-known form of camping.
The explosion of exquisite camping is inseparable from people's longing for slow-paced life and yearning for natural scenery, which also represents that the consumption demand of camping enthusiasts is gradually escalating.
Some camping enthusiasts said that before going camping, there was a feeling of "hunger and hunger", as if as long as there was a tree and a lawn, it could be called camping; But now, they are looking for a better environment and higher quality services.
The exquisite camping with a more "atmosphere" and "ritual" just meets the needs of consumers, in line with the attitude of the new middle class and "Generation Z" young people to pursue a trendy lifestyle.
In Shanghai, exquisite camping has even been subdivided into a leisure lifestyle for the elderly, saying goodbye to the elderly life of square dancing and mahjong tables.
Some outdoor goods store operators said that exquisite camping has stronger entertainment and leisure attributes, more variety, wider demand, and more product categories, so it will form a stronger industry driving force.
Sun Jianjun said that according to international practice, when the per capita GDP reaches 12,000 US dollars, the camping industry will enter an explosive growth, which we call an inevitable product of the well-off stage and the stage of a better life. Therefore, from the perspective of economic foundation, exquisite camping has indeed reached a stage of rapid development.
However, with the further optimization of epidemic prevention and control measures, consumers' attention to exquisite camping has begun to decrease, and customer source diversion has become a reality. For many practitioners, the biggest concern is how long can this wind of "exquisite camping" blow, and how to make the popular exquisite camping go further? Stakeholders want answers more than ever.
Wei Dechang, the person in charge of Huawen Travel Sites, said that how to quickly break through the singleness of campsite content and culture and make it rich and sustainable is the biggest problem facing the development of exquisite camping.
In the eyes of the industry, the development of exquisite camping mainly depends on whether the product is attractive enough. In the design of exquisite camping products, there can be two ideas: how to base on the current consumption trend of domestic mass camping, pay attention to the integration of exquisite camping with other outdoor activities or tourism consumption formats, and strive to become a fresh extension of tourists' vacation experience through the development of combined products; Or specialize in niche markets, take high quality and specialization as the development direction, rely on the quality expansion base for product development, and meet the individual needs of adventure tourism, extreme sports and other enthusiasts.
In Sun Jiandong's view, whether it is a traditional campsite or a refined campsite, who has perfect comprehensive supporting facilities and brings rich content experience to customers, who can win customer recognition and create greater value.
Mozhao said that since the beginning of this year, exquisite camping has begun to enter a stable upward period and leapfrog to camping tourism. What can stand firm in the future camping market must be a campsite with a composite theme, such as various themes, such as various themes, such as research, team building, parent-child and other themes, and campsites with more diversified product content.
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How to develop the camping industry healthily
"Camping was also popular a few years ago, but after that, it didn't go well, and many people participated once or twice and didn't come back if they didn't have a sense of novelty or a bad experience." A practitioner who has been rooted in the camping industry for many years said that because of the high cost of camp operation and maintenance and the low customer repurchase rate, the development of the camping industry has been relatively backward, and how to use high-quality services to continue to attract consumers is an urgent problem for the industry to solve.
Under the camping boom, how to ensure the healthy and sustainable development of the industry?
Many campsite practitioners believe that facing the problem squarely and meeting the standardized high-quality development is the future development trend of the domestic camping economy.
In fact, since 2022, from the country to the locality, policies have been introduced to regulate the development of the camping industry.
In November 2022, 14 departments, including the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the State Forestry and Grassland Administration, jointly issued the Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Healthy and Orderly Development of Camping Tourism and Leisure, to promote the healthy and orderly development of camping tourism and leisure, and continuously meet the growing needs of the people for a better life.
In May 2023, 13 departments, including the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism and the Capital Civilization Office, jointly studied and formulated the "Opinions on Standardizing and Guiding the Development of Tent Campsites (Trial)", which sets out requirements for the safety precautions of tent campsites from 20 aspects, including tent campsite site selection, safety management system, personnel registration, fire safety, extreme weather response, and insurance services. At the same time, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism issued the "Guidelines for the Management of Tent Campsites in Shanghai (Draft for Comments)", which includes 14 articles on the scope of application of tent campsites in Shanghai, site selection, site operation, management responsibility, safety management, platform responsibility, ecological environmental protection, and industrial integration.
According to Bai Yufei, a professor at Beijing Sport University, this aspect shows that the "crazy" of the camping industry in the past few years has caused more and more problems in the fields of environment and safety, and it is difficult to achieve orderly and healthy development by relying solely on industry self-discipline, and it is necessary to promote its transformation from barbaric growth to standardized growth through timely guidance and appropriate "constraints" by the government.
On the other hand, camping, as an emerging way of outdoor leisure, has great potential to evolve from an occasional experience to a micro-vacation trend, and its audience scale and market magnitude are far from being explored. With government support, it is expected to play a unique role in alleviating demand contraction and helping consumption upgrading.
In addition, with the liberalization of epidemic control, everyone has more options for traveling. For the camping industry, competition is also rising, whether it is competition between camping and camping formats, or competition between camping and other formats, which means that the quality and service system of enterprises must be improved to meet the needs of consumers.
In Sun Jiandong's view, the camping industry is a typical industry that matches nature, and its essence is to let people return to nature and enjoy the process of nature. If you want to do a good campsite, you must deepen the user's experience - deeply study the consumer experience, deepen their consumption depth, and increase their stay time, which is the key point for the future development of the camping industry. "This requires camping companies and related suppliers to work together to continuously create more new content and new experiences so that users can have more good experiences." Sun Jiandong said.
Mozhao believes that whether it is the operator of the campsite or the service provider of the whole camping industry chain, everyone should truly adhere to the spirit of long-termism. That is to say, enterprises should adjust their marketing strategies in a timely manner, constantly enrich their products, optimize customer experience, and truly adhere to long-term value enterprises.
On the one hand, traditional campsites are facing a cruel reshuffle period, on the other hand, exquisite camping to camping tourism leapfrogging, how much can exquisite camping share in the huge camping market? Please pay attention to the "2023 C Inventory Series Exquisite Camping Salon" continuously launched by Orange Tourism. The first salon of 2023 will invite well-known experts and excellent traders in the industry to focus on the latest development status and trend of the "exquisite camping" format. (Orange Travel Jack)