At a time when travel methods are becoming more and more diversified, a unique travel train is quietly entering people's field of vision and becoming a novel choice to explore the world. Among them, the mainland's first world-class luxury tourist train "Silk Road Dream", carefully built by Qingdao CRRC Sifang, is like a bright new star rising in the tourism industry, although the ticket price is staggering, but it still has aroused widespread attention and heated discussions. Today, let's take a closer look at the story behind this mysterious train and see what kind of charm and potential the "train tour" has.
Imagine that in the vast land of China, there is a train like a steel dragon, slowly shuttling between the magnificent mountains and rivers in the northwest, it is the "Silk Road Dream Enjoyment". The train departed from Xining and headed west to Dunhuang. The scenery along the way is like a giant picture scroll slowly unfolding, with deserts, Gobi, salt lakes and other landforms appearing one after another, each exuding a unique charm. Those deserts are like golden oceans, with rolling sand dunes that glitter in the sun; The Gobi is like a barren but powerful world, with strange rocks, telling the vicissitudes of time; The salt lake is like a giant mirror, reflecting the sky and clouds like a dream. At the same time, the train will also stop at many places of interest, allowing passengers to feel as if they have traveled back in time and experienced the weight of history.
Such a wonderful journey is naturally accompanied by a corresponding price. According to the data, the ticket price of the five-day and four-night trip of the "Silk Road Dream" is about 25,000-110,000 yuan, while the ticket price of the nine-day and eight-night trip is between 39,000 and 180,000 yuan. Why is there such a big fluctuation in fare? It turns out that this is because of the different grades of the rooms. Just like a hotel has different levels of rooms, from cosy and comfortable rooms to luxurious suites, each room offers a unique experience for passengers. And it's not "inflated" and it covers all meals, accommodations, tickets, and special experiences during the trip. However, even so, in the face of such high fares, many netizens do not buy it, and many people think that spending tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to take a train is really excessive extravagance and waste, just like throwing a lot of money at will. But what is surprising is that such a top luxury tourist train is often sold out, what is the reason behind this?
In fact, before the "Silk Road Dream", Starbucks Rail Travel Group had already tried in the field of high-quality tourist trains in China. For example, the "Hulunbuir" and the Yunnan Shiping meter-gauge train, which were hard to find when they were launched in 2022 with tens of thousands of ticket prices, and the average occupancy rate in the past two years reached 80%, as if they had become "sweet spots" in the tourism market. The reason why the mainland is vigorously building a top luxury tourist train such as the "Silk Road Dream Enjoyment" is to a large extent to inject new vitality into the domestic tourism industry. Our country has a vast territory and rich tourism resources like an endless sea of treasures. However, it is regrettable that the northwest region is relatively weak in terms of the integration of tourism resources. Taking 2023 as an example, the total annual income of Qinghai's tourism industry is only 43.064 billion, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the 1.46 trillion in Guizhou Province, which ranks first, but there are many tourist attractions in Qinghai, such as Qinghai Lake, Chaka Salt Lake, Dachaidan, etc., each of which is a treasure gifted by nature.
So why is the tourism income in Qinghai and other places not high? Mainly because of the unique geography of the Northwest Territories. Driving there is like walking on a road full of thorns, and there is a certain amount of risk; However, it is difficult to achieve perfection in group tourism and cannot meet tourists' needs for in-depth experience. At this time, the "Silk Road Dream Enjoyment" came into being, it is carefully built around the four aspects of high-end, scarce and niche, private and immersive, and the customized line station is like accurate navigation, which just meets the urgent needs of the market, just like a piece of the puzzle that perfectly fills the gap in the high-end tourist train market, so that middle-class families can also enjoy international and diversified tourism services. So, can "train tours" become popular?
In my opinion, "train tours", especially high-end tourist trains like the "Silk Road Dream", still have great potential. "Silk Road Dream" is like a master key, which can not only meet the pursuit of high-quality travel by middle-class people and above, but also cater to the needs of foreign tourists and students. With the implementation of the 72/144-hour transit visa-free policy in the mainland, a large number of foreign friends have flown to China for tourism like cheerful birds. According to the data, in the first half of 2024, 14.635 million foreigners entered the country at various ports across the country, which makes China's inbound tourism market seem to have entered a fast lane of rapid development. Foreign friends come to China and are keen to visit the city, taste the food, and experience the intangible cultural heritage, and many of them are intoxicated and happy.
According to official data collected by the China Tourism Academy and other officials, Xinjiang and Qinghai are relatively difficult destinations for foreigners to visit China. The five-day, four-night itinerary of the "Silk Road Dream" is like a travel feast tailored for them. During this journey, foreign tourists can participate in the production of intangible cultural heritage thangkas, feel the charm of this ancient art, and feel the treasure in the long river of history; You can visit places of interest and appreciate China's long history and culture, as if traveling through time and space; You can also enjoy a desert dinner, where you can taste food in the golden desert and experience a unique atmosphere.
In addition, in recent years, more and more families, like gardeners who carefully nurture flowers, have begun to pay special attention to the physical and mental health and all-round development of their children. Study trips have become an important way to achieve this goal, allowing children to achieve "unity of knowledge and action" through practical experience, which has been widely recognized by society. In 2023 alone, the number of research trips in mainland China has exceeded 10 million, showing a booming trend. Tourist trains such as the "Silk Road Dream Enjoyment" also provide a new platform for research trips, where children can learn knowledge, increase their knowledge and harvest growth.
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