There are 166,000 campsite enterprises in the mainland, of which Beijing has the largest number, which can be called the "camping city".
Text: Ma Lianhong
"It's a lot cheaper to camp than to go out!"
During the just-concluded May Day holiday, Mr. Xiao Li's family drove two hours to camp in Miyun Reservoir, renting a car, purchasing ingredients, renting venues and tents, and the expenses were only more than 1,000 yuan.
There are many people who have the same idea as Xiao Li. According to Meituan data, leisure camping orders increased by more than 300% year-on-year during the May Day holiday.
So many people love camping, so what about the camping business? According to the 2023 financial report of the "first share of camping", the company's revenue reached nearly 1.5 billion yuan, a record high. In the dialogue with camp enthusiasts, equipment rental and camp operators, the sports business found that the demand for public camping is unabated, but there is still a long way to go to make it into a 100-billion-scale industry.
01
Lightweight camping is on the rise
Traditional camping pursues an ascetic-style "moving camping": bring your own tent and sleeping bag.
But young people are playing a very new kind of camping – lightweight camping, where they can relax in nature and enjoy the scenery without the stress of heavy gear. According to Xiaohongshu data, there have been more than 7.23 million notes on "camping", of which more than 40,000 are about "how to reduce camping equipment and weight".
There are platforms that specialize in renting camping equipment, such as canopies, tents, sleeping bags, folding tables, Kermit chairs, etc., which is a relatively new business.
According to Hu Yiping, a partner of Beijing camping equipment leasing "AC Camping Society", leasing is a more acceptable way for novices to get started, camping equipment rental starts at 50 yuan per capita, and the average rent of an order is about 300 yuan, and during the peak season and non-holidays, there are 20-30 orders per weekend, and holidays may double. The most convenient thing is that these equipment can be transported to the corresponding camping destination through flash delivery, cargo pulling, etc., and provide customers with construction guidance remotely.
There are also rental services at the campsite, as is the case at the "Riverside Campground" in Miyun, Beijing, where Mr. Li's family went: "There are too many people during the May Day period, especially near the stream, there will be two to three rows of canopies, and the wind ropes are intricate, but 90% of these people are day campers, and there are very few overnight stays." ”
The picture is from Mr. Xiao Li
The Miyun Reservoir is a must-visit destination for camping enthusiasts in Beijing, with plenty of cars rushing here every weekend, and several campsites near the riverside campground. The camp here can use charcoal barbecue, no bonfire, there is only one supporting toilet, men and women share, when there are many people, the queue will be very long, the sanitary conditions are very poor, and the public toilet outside the camp will take a quarter of an hour to arrive.
02
166,000 campground businesses
Beijing is the "Camping City"
The campsite business has a great regional character - as of April 29, 2024, there are 166,000 campsite-related enterprises in the mainland, and 19,000 campsite-related enterprises have been newly registered.
From the perspective of registration, since 2014, the number of registrations of campground-related enterprises in mainland China has increased year by year, of which from 2014 to 2019, the growth rate of registrations has basically remained between 20% and 40%, in 2020, the number of registrations of campsite-related enterprises in mainland China surged by 120.3% year-on-year to 11,000, on this basis, in 2021, it increased by 109.9% year-on-year to 24,000, and in 2022 and 2023, the number of registrations of campground-related enterprises in mainland China increased by 51.4% year-on-year respectively , 84.1% to 36,000, 67,000.
Beijing is the city with the largest number of campsite enterprises and can be called the "camping city". According to the data, Beijing is the city with the largest number of campsite-related enterprises in the country, with 7,193, followed by Chengdu and Chongqing, with 5,760 and 5,001 respectively, followed by Xi'an, Guangzhou, Haikou, Hangzhou and other places, with a stock of less than 5,000.
In terms of fees, Beijing is probably also the most expensive. According to the statistics of the camping enthusiast platform "Quye", the average price of 72 paid campsites in Beijing is 264 yuan, and 80% of the campsites have a price of more than 150 yuan. A netizen said that in Beijing, even if you bring your own tent and the camp only provides lawn, you will be charged 100 per person per person.
This statistic image is from "Fun Wild"
Friends in southern cities said that they could camp in the park. "The park in Foshan, Guangzhou is basically open to everyone, and they all bring their own equipment, no money, if there is no equipment, they can also be rented, dozens of yuan, no open fire, can use electricity." Mr. Tan said that his circle of friends often has people camping in the park under the "small waist" of the Canton Tower.
According to public information, at the beginning of 2022, Guangzhou opened lawns and set up tent areas in 24 parks and green spaces on a pilot basis, and by the end of 2023, Guangzhou will increase the number of open green lawns and understory spaces to 112, serving a total of 10 million people.
Although Beijing's Chaoyang Park, Olympic Forest Park, Wenyuhe Park, Yongding River Leisure Forest Park, Nanhaizi Park and other parks are open for camping, as a densely populated city, Beijing has a permanent population of 21.858 million.
03
The camping industry is not cool, but transformed and upgraded
Camping spans multiple industries and can be divided into three parts according to the degree of relevance: equipment sales, equipment leasing and site operation.
In terms of camping equipment sales, the financial report of the "first camping stock" Mu Gaodi shows that tents are getting better and better. In 2023, Mu Gaodi will achieve a total operating income of 1.456 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.40%. The business is mainly divided into its own brand and camping tent OEM business. The former is mainly sold domestically, while the latter is mainly for overseas markets. In 2023, Mu Gaodi's domestic revenue will surpass foreign revenue for the second consecutive year, and the revenue of its own brand business will reach 926 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 31.25%.
In the eyes of the industry, this confirms that other brands have placed fewer orders, and it is also a process in which bad brands are eliminated and the industry is reshuffled.
However, from the perspective of performance growth rate, Mu Gaodi's "lack of stamina" - the lack of follow-up in the high-end market, resulting in its performance growth is not as expected, and the main cost-effective camping products are more popular with consumers at present.
Campsite operation is a more common business, enterprise survey data show that campsite-related enterprises have relatively low entrepreneurial costs, more than half of the enterprises registered capital within 2 million yuan, followed by between 2 million yuan and 5 million yuan, accounting for 11.2%; Enterprises with start-up costs of 50 million yuan or more are the least, accounting for 3.2%.
However, according to Song Jie, the owner of "Huanye Light Luxury Campground", operating a campsite is not a one-time investment business, but a bit like "krypton gold" - "the site is not rented, and the equipment alone is about 1.1 million", "I bought more than a dozen tents at the beginning, and then I needed to buy more and more, and I bought them all with the money I earned".
The picture is from Huanye Light Luxury Campground
Founded in June 2021, Huanye Light Luxury Campground is located at the foot of Qingyang Mountain, Changlinhe Town, Hefei, Anhui Province, 30 kilometers away from Hefei City, and is a demonstration campsite in the Yangtze River Delta. Since its establishment, the camp has undertaken more than 1,000 team building activities from many enterprises, and there are also paragliding, kayaking, scooters, off-road vehicles and other projects.
"It was too cold on our side in March this year and the camp was not very good. The camp in April is generally better than last year, Monday to Friday the company team building, we do the package is more cost-effective. There are more individual camping on weekends and holidays, and there are significantly more consultation calls before May Day, with about 20 reservation calls a day. Song Jie said.
However, not all campsites are so prosperous, and some campsites have no supporting services, and the customer repurchase rate is very low: "Now the cost of putting traffic is high, not to mention, our camp has to rent pit places for a long time, but there are only two seasons of the year to do business, except for holidays, basically no one comes, and I feel that I can't do it anymore." ”
There are also some "Internet celebrity" campsites that were built during the epidemic, and the business is not as good as before, and the excessive packaging makes consumers disgusted: "A place with a good scenery is full of artificial traces after it is fenced off, and the aesthetics are the same, Internet celebrity moon lights, banners, ...... What's the difference between this and my café in the city? ”
epilogue
From refinement to the "lightweight" of rental equipment, the main reason for returning to low-cost camping is the decline in mass consumption power on the one hand, and the involution of camping brands on the other hand, and the low profits.
As a result, the camping industry has not experienced the "fever" that people feared, but has gradually grown from the initial rough explosive growth to a more standardized and market-oriented operation. iiMedia Consulting released a report saying that it is expected that the core market size of China's camping economy will rise to 248.32 billion yuan in 2025, driving the market size to reach 1,440.28 billion yuan.
However, the current pursuit of camping by consumers is not just looking for a natural place, but more about the pursuit of emotional value and social attributes, the industry needs to continue to innovate content and experience, think about how to integrate camping into the existing outdoor industry system, provide consumers with richer products, and turn traffic into "retention", in order to make the camping business longer.
Note: Except for the cover from Osports, the rest of the pictures used are from the interviewees