Text/Wang Xinxi
On May Day this year, we will find that compared with previous years, there are 5 anomalies, what is the reason behind it?
The first is the extreme weather anomaly, with China and Southeast Asia being both hot and cold
On May Day this year, the extreme weather was particularly abnormal, Guangdong continued to rain for many weeks, and then hail, and a tornado, and many places in Hebei even had snowfall before the May Day holiday, and it was a heavy snowfall, and the snow on the ground was more than a foot deep, as if returning to the midwinter season.
This kind of extreme weather brought about by the anomaly is not common in previous years, accompanied by heavy rain, snowfall, is "May Day weather is still a little cold" caused heated discussions, while the situation in Southeast Asia is the opposite of the mainland, in Southeast Asia, the El Niño phenomenon exacerbated the high temperature, Bangkok, Thailand felt the temperature over 52 degrees. The driver of the motorcycle felt like he was going to faint outdoors.
This kind of scene of ice and fire is particularly obvious on May Day this year. But despite the unusual extreme weather, it still hasn't stopped people's enthusiasm for domestic and overseas travel, and Southeast Asia is still a popular destination.
Everywhere I went, I felt that there were 100 million people, and the impact of the epidemic completely disappeared on May Day
In the past, it was often crowded with people in some popular tourist cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Lijiang, etc., but this year almost all provincial capitals were crowded with people, "I feel that there are 100 million people everywhere" on the hot search, Nanjing, Yangzhou, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Changsha, Chongqing, Luoyang are all crowded.
Almost regardless of region, regardless of the size of the city, regardless of the degree of tourism resources, anyway, there are people everywhere, netizens sighed, China is still a lot of people, this kind of crowding and crowding is rare in the last 4~5 years.
This means that the impact of the epidemic on the national psychology and on consumption and the economy has completely disappeared, if many people were still worried that there would be a small peak of rebound during the May Day holiday last year, this year's May Day, the impact and worry of the epidemic have been completely erased from the hearts of the people.
There are almost no cold cities, and many unpopular cities are abnormally overheated
In the last year, popular cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Zibo, and Wuzhen were often popular cities, and some cities such as Sanya and Lijiang were unusually cold. But this year, there are almost no cold cities, and even many non-popular tourist destinations are unusually popular.
For example, Changsha. Changsha was not a popular tourist city in the past. But this year, the exaggeration of the flow of people in Changsha is far greater than in previous years, and some netizens photographed the Changsha exit at 3:40 in the morning, which is a grand occasion that is difficult to see in previous years.
Changsha's Wuyi Square, known as the "carnival of 100 million people", is so crowded that the SWAT has begun to pull lines for pedestrians to cross the road. "The ground in Wuyi Square is about to sink under the footing," some netizens sighed. The Pozi Street Police Station has become an Internet celebrity check-in place. Orange Island, Yuelu Mountain, and Wuyi Square are all crowds of people queuing.
In addition, Wuhan, which has been tepid, has become one of the top ten most popular tourist destination cities on May Day. Hanjiang Road, ferry terminal, and Yellow Crane Tower ushered in a large number of traveling special forces, "This situation is not like a tourist, like an attack on Wuhan" Some netizens sighed.
"Those who know are here to travel, and those who don't know think that they are here to fight the Huns, the camels of Dunhuang have walked out of the grand occasion of the Silk Road. Some people describe the grand occasion of Dunhuang this time, and Dunhuang has also become the top ten popular tourist cities on May Day this year.
In addition, Chongqing, Nanjing, Dalian, Luoyang and other non-popular cities in the past have also unusually ushered in huge passenger flows, "Chongqing Bridge is like a pebble under the crowd. "Someone described it that way.
There are almost no cold cities, and many unpopular cities have unusually ushered in huge crowds, reflecting the recovery of consumption, and also reflecting the fact that many consumers have more diversified choices of travel destinations, paying more attention to their own interests and personalized preferences for travel.
Outbound travel began to rebound, with Japan becoming a popular tourist destination
This year, not only domestic tourism is hot, but outbound tourism is also hot. Air China said on its WeChat official account that international and regional routes will recover to 84% of 2019 levels in the summer and autumn of 2024. According to the data of air travel, during the "May Day" holiday, the number of air tickets booked for inbound and outbound routes exceeded 790,000, an increase of more than 1.5 times over the same period last year.
And in outbound travel, Japan has unexpectedly become a popular tourist city. Among the flights to Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea and Thailand are the top three destinations. Japan's major shopping malls are Chinese, holding suitcases in their left hands and shopping bags in their right hands, and even many people go to Japan to buy houses, counting on future appreciation.
The reason why Japan has become a popular tourist destination may be related to the depreciation of the yen, in 2021, 1 yuan could only be exchanged for 15 yen, but now it can be exchanged for 21 yen. The same Hermes or LV bag, if it is sold for 10,000 in China, it can be won for 7,000 in Japan. Many smelled business opportunities and poured into Japan to sweep goods.
Some people think that if a package earns 3,000, if it is a bulk purchase, with a 30% price difference, you can earn 300,000 yuan by buying 100 packages in batches. There are also travel bloggers who say that in Japan now, it is equivalent to a 7% discount on all assets overseas. Whether it is a hotel, a scenic spot, a house, equity, etc., all of them are folded......
Therefore, many people do not travel to tourism, behind tourism is business, investment, tourism, by the way, also make money.
People who get married on May Day fall off a cliff
Many people found that this May Day, the number of marriages ushered in a cliff-like decline, and it unexpectedly became the off-season for weddings. Recently, many wedding practitioners have lamented that this year's May Day wedding business is cold, and there are fewer people getting married, a wedding company said that during the company's May Day, it received 530 games, a year-on-year decrease of 28.37%, which is related to factors such as the year, consumer budget, and changes in the wedding banquet market pattern.
In previous years, newlyweds who want to seize the May Day holiday not only need to start making an appointment half a year or even a year in advance, but also face various price increases, data show that in previous years, during the May Day and Eleventh holidays, the price increase of national weddings can reach up to 20%. However, this year, many wedding people are panicking and waiting for orders, and they have begun to reduce prices and grab orders, even so, in the context of the decline in the number of marriages, the effect of price reductions is still limited.
One reason for the "fading" of this year's May Day wedding business is that this year is 2024, and 2024 is called the "widow's year" and "widow's year" without the "Lichun" solar term, generally speaking, Chinese pay great attention to the meaning and taboo in such an important matter as marriage, so it also affects this year's wedding business.
Secondly, it is also related to the fact that the budget for the wedding has decreased, but the requirements for the wedding have become higher. The demand is more diverse, and in the past two years, new wedding methods such as three-no weddings, minimalist weddings, destination weddings, and appreciation banquets have been popularized. In addition, this generation of young people themselves is the age of marriage is constantly postponed, the number of single people of marriageable age is more, resulting in the shrinkage of the entire marriage market, in addition, many young people's ideas and concepts have changed, many people feel that the wedding is cumbersome and troublesome, time-consuming, laborious and expensive, do not hold weddings, and there are more people who get married in tourism, and various factors have led to the cold of this year's May Day wedding market.
Tourism is hot, not hot to real estate, the property market ushered in an explosive positive
There are fewer people getting married, and the property market has also been affected. The heat of May Day has not been hot to the real estate, and the cancellation of purchase restrictions, sales restrictions, interest rate reductions and other favorable policies, but the property market is uneven, it is still difficult to say that it is recovering, and the location is poor, the house type, and the price is high, and no one cares. In Changsha, there are real estate projects with a maximum discount of 200,000 yuan, and some real estate companies buy houses and send Xiaomi SU7 cars.
Wuhan Qiangge Real Estate, a practitioner in the real estate industry, said that this year's May Day may be the coldest May Day in the history of his business for so many years, the Wuhan property market is polarized, and it is particularly obvious in May Day. Some properties simply lie flat.
As long as the city with a de-stocking cycle of more than 36 months stops supplying land, destocking and suspending the supply of land is a policy level to adjust the relationship between real estate supply and demand, and not to supply land for 3 years, to solve the problem of real estate surplus. Will this wave save the property market? Will housing prices usher in a U-turn? We will wait and see.
Epilogue:
In this May Day, extreme weather is frequent, but it still hasn't stopped everyone's enthusiasm for May Day. Judging from the crowds of people across the country, it shows the huge prospects of China's consumption, and the impact of the epidemic on China's economy and consumption has completely disappeared. On the one hand, it can be seen that young people are more pursuing the happiness of the moment, and life must be happy like a dream. It can also be seen that the pressure of working as a migrant worker is great, because there are few holidays and not many travel opportunities, so even if you know that there are crowds of people everywhere, you have to choose to travel, which is a kind of helplessness.
At present, the recovery of domestic cultural tourism and overseas travel, but the wedding track is cold, and the real estate still needs to be rescued, these phenomena also reflect the changes in the lifestyle and concept of young people, a noteworthy phenomenon is that many young people do not choose to return to their hometowns to visit relatives during the May 11 and other long holidays, but more and more choose to travel, which will make people's feelings and family feelings in the countryside become weak, and the recovery of the rural economy may also have an impact, which is also worthy of our reflection.
Author: Wang Xinxi, Senior Reviewer of TMT This article is not reproduced without permission