Since last year, the tourism industry has begun to pick up. Not only are tourist attractions starting to come up with tricks to invite tourists, but OTA platforms and homestay platforms are also starting to find ways to retain people. And the May Day holiday two weeks later is a must for everyone. Woodbird, Tujia, and Meituan have their own emphasis, based on the similarity of the overall framework. In the May Day market, where it is easiest to get orders, who is more attractive?
Although the Qingming file ended perfectly, the pressure on the May 1st gear that took over was huge.
According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the number of tourists during the Qingming Festival holiday in 2024 will increase by 11.5% compared to 2019. Focusing on the homestay market, among the three platforms in the first echelon of the domestic homestay industry, Woodbird Homestay Qingming holiday orders increased by 410% year-on-year, Tujia Homestay increased by 220% year-on-year, and Meituan Homestay increased by 170% year-on-year.
The Qingming Festival has continued to consolidate the growth momentum of the homestay market since last year, and at the same time, the homestay market's expectations for May Day are also stronger. Recently, Tongcheng, Ctrip, Qunar, Woodbird B&B, etc. have successively released May Day forecast reports, and the Woodbird Folklore Report shows that as of April 16, the May Day B&B orders have increased slightly compared with the same period in 2023, and the search popularity of inter-provincial B&Bs during the May Day period has increased by 48% year-on-year.
Relying on Internet celebrity characteristic homestays, focusing on multi-person travel, and aiming at low-price marketing, Woodbird, Tujia, and Meituan have their own focuses on the basis of similar overall frameworks. In the May Day market, where it is easiest to get orders, who is more attractive?
1. Wood Bird: Youth, characteristics are still the "main dish"
This year's Qingming file, from the data side, the independent operation of the woodbird performance is more eye-catching. The online celebrity characteristic homestay promoted by the platform still occupies the front row of the listing list.
It is not difficult to observe that the development focus of Woodbird B&B is still focused on the spindle center, that is, the price band of 100-300 yuan.
Judging from the recommendation page of the listing information flow, the Simu house with star service standards is in a dominant position in the recommendation mechanism of Woodbird, and the Simu B&B is subdivided into brand B&B and Internet celebrity B&B, in addition, the label of the annual landlord is displayed at the front end as another guarantee of high-quality housing and service.
The focus of Woodbird's development has not changed since its inception in 2012, and the policy of attracting C-end landlords to settle in has brought more characteristic homestays to Woodbird, such as wedding dresses, caves, wooden houses, castles, etc., which have brought greater differentiated competitive advantages to the independent operation of Woodbird in the early days, and Woodbird's 2023 annual report shows that most of the new landlords are post-85s and post-95s, and the innovation of young landlords provides more fresh homestays, and thus attracts more post-90s main homestay consumer groups.
Judging from the annual report of Woodbird B&B in 2023, 64% of the users of Woodbird B&B are post-95 users, which is consistent with the analysis of Baidu Index.
On the one hand, the structure of young users has allowed Woodbird to firmly grasp the main customer group in the next ten years, and on the other hand, it has taken advantage of the sharing attributes and circle expansion of young users. It is foreseeable that with the development of the homestay market, users' demand for interest consumption and symbol consumption will also recover, and there will be more and more new Internet celebrity homestays with both characteristics and service experience, which will also become the focus of competition.
2. Tujia: Semi-finished products are rented as a whole and transferred back to the original point
In recent years, Tujia B&B has shifted to multi-person travel scenarios, and the APP has been displaying multi-person travel activities for a long time, and Tujia B&B hopes to hit large orders to increase revenue as much as possible.
Judging from the listing page, Tujia shows a large flat and single-family villa that can accommodate 10 people on the front end, and the price of the house is more than 1,000 yuan. The large orders brought by the multi-person travel scenario will certainly bring more profits to the platform, but the market space for more than 1,000 yuan is not large.
From the perspective of the supply side, the 2023 homestay industry data report shows that rooms with ADR of more than 800 yuan account for only 7.9%. The price of 100-300 yuan with B&Bs accounts for nearly half.
From the perspective of consumption, Tongcheng Travel data pointed out that since 2020, the proportion of accommodation consumption in Nanjing has exceeded 50%, while the proportion of multi-bed rooms and suites is relatively low. Although this is only the proportion of accommodation structure in Nanjing, it still shows some problems.
It can be contrasted with each other that it is difficult for Tujia B&B to make much profit from high-price B&B listings, or that it has gone astray.
At the same time, Tujia B&B's multi-person travel is still in a "semi-finished product", although Tujia has been planning activities on the APP homepage for a long time, but as of now, multi-person travel still only focuses on a few cities in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and only a few listings have participated in this activity, and the user experience is not very good.
With the closure of Tujia's self-operation in 2020, the previous one body and two wings have become "multi-person travel" and "selected homestay" walking on two legs. In November 2022, Tujia B&B followed the example of Woodbird B&B for the first time on the product side and relaunched the Internet celebrity B&B as a key focus, and in March this year, the weekly rent became the new fulcrum of Tujia B&B. With the recent proposal of the pyramid system of Tujia B&B, Reserve B&B has come to the forefront as a focus of recent development. If you open the introduction of the Selected B&B, you will find that its meaning is infinitely similar to that of the Internet celebrity B&B, and it also focuses on the characteristics of the B&B.
Going around and around, Tujia B&B has returned to the origin of imitating wooden birds.
3. Meituan: low-cost homestay to maintain stability, and free accommodation marketing
Compared with Tujia and Woodbird, Meituan is relying on low-cost homestays below 200 to support the market. On Meituan's listings, the front-row listings usually have the advantage of low prices, but at the same time, they usually only offer one-bed accommodation, and some say it's not even as good as an internet café for a night.
Low quality has become an obstacle for Meituan B&B to expand its characteristic listings. While continuing to promote the brand concept of "living differently", Meituan B&B extended the idea of low prices to marketing actions, trying to gain attention and traffic by revitalizing the listings through free accommodation activities, but the market feedback was not ideal.
In the early days, Meituan B&B quickly became a new position for the Wool Party, and even formed a community for the exchange of various resources. Although users who have drawn a free homestay are eager to try it out and want to go on a trip, the random place and random time make it difficult for them to arrange their itinerary. Many of the free check-ins are on the same night, and users who want to experience the free nights are powerless. Even if the property is local, it doesn't seem necessary to stay out for a night. It can be seen that if the free B&B wants to perfectly adapt to the needs of users, it is still difficult.
In the eyes of many homeowners, a homestay booking platform with a differentiated product matrix, can polish services, and operate good customer acquisition channels can make orders develop in the long run, and there are not many opportunities to rely on low prices. The price of the entire industry will also be reshuffled this year and return to rationality.
Fourth, the traffic account needs to be calculated behind the involution
Aiming at the May 1st file, there is a new round of competition between Mutumei's three homestay booking platforms.
According to the data of the APP store on April 10, the number of downloads of Woodbird B&B was 8,055> 3,415 for Meituan B&B> 2,495 for Tujia B&B. Overall, Woodbird B&B's ability to attract new users is slightly better.
In the "2023 Hainan Summer Tourism Consumption Trend Report" released by Tongcheng, the demand for standardized hotels in Hainan accounted for 83.9%, a decrease from the same period in 2022 and 2019. In contrast, the demand for homestays accounted for 12.8%, a significant increase from the same period in 2022 and 2019.
2023 is a year of rapid growth in the supply chain of homestays, and the attention of public opinion to homestays continues unabated, and the competition for the head platforms of these three homestays has also aroused a lot of expectations.
Behind this, under the awakening of the existing users of the overall homestay market and the expansion of incremental users, the homestay booking platform competes for users, traffic, and housing. As competition continues to intensify, homestay operators may set their sights on a broader world. Judging from the current situation, the "involution" business of B&B is expected to continue to develop.
This article was originally published by @黑白之键 on Everyone is a Product Manager and is not allowed to be reproduced without permission
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