Universal Studios Beijing has been officially opened for more than a month, and its consumption high heat effect has been reflected in the past National Day holiday, and a new top theme park has also begun to show its pull effect on the consumption of cultural tourism in a region and the consumption of domestic theme parks.
Universal Studios has "leveled" the gap between the international theme park between Beijing and Shanghai, the construction of the Tongzhou Cultural Tourism Zone, the continuation of Beijing's investment in Universal Studios, and the possibility of the emergence of the world's largest Universal Studios, indicating that a dedicated, high-focus and industrialized theme entertainment agglomeration area will appear in the future.
Coupled with the blossoming of Legoland in Chengdu, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing, the outline of the new competitive development pattern of China's theme parks "two superpowers" and more powerful is more obvious.
Based on two perspectives, namely universal studios Beijing's pull effect on regional theme park consumption, overall consumption and even national theme park consumption; Universal Studios' pull effect on regional industries or socio-economic spillovers, we interviewed Zhao Yang, chairman of tea global theme entertainment association Asia Pacific, focusing on the old trend and new situation of China's theme parks, the consideration and impact effect of international park brands continuing to "expand their territory" in the Chinese market, and the evolution trend of the domestic theme entertainment industry under the epidemic, such as China's "Orlando".
Zhao Yang, Chairman of tea Global Theme Entertainment Association Asia Pacific
Universal Studios, a major change in the pattern of China's theme parks
According to public data, from September 20 to October 17, the number of visitors to Universal Studios Beijing was nearly 600,000 (times), which coincided with the National Day and was a high point of consumption.
According to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce, on the seven days of national day, the average number of people entering the park in the universal resort exceeded 25,000 (under the condition of flow restriction), of which about 50% of the ticket-buying tourists from other provinces and cities accounted for it, driving foreign consumption to increase by more than 15% year-on-year.
Referring to Qunar data, the popularity of Hotel reservations in Beijing during the National Day holiday increased by 57% over the same period in 2020, and Beijing hotels were 598 yuan per night, which was about 100 yuan more expensive than the same period in 2020.
Qunar data also shows that the total number of tickets sold by the top 50 theme parks in China during the National Day period increased by nearly 20% compared with the same period in 2020, of which the ticket sales of Shanghai Disney were twice that of last year.
It can be seen that two points, one is that Universal Studios Beijing brings about the renewal of domestic theme park supply, forms a spillover effect of supply and consumption, stimulates theme park consumption, and forms a synergistic effect between points and surfaces; second, Universal Studios directly updates the supply system of Beijing Theme Park and the entire cultural tourism consumption, driving tourism consumption, especially forming a more effective attraction for foreign tourist consumption.
These two aspects of information are also the entry points for analyzing the changes in the pattern of domestic theme parks.
Image source: Universal Studios Beijing official website
The opening of Universal Studios Beijing has achieved the balance between Beijing and Shanghai in the top theme parks, coupled with The Chimelong in Guangzhou and the world's largest LEGOLAND in the future in Shenzhen, thus forming a new situation in which the Beijing-Shanghai theme park "Double Heroes" stand side by side, the three major park brands in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and the giant parks in the north, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen have undergone deep changes, and the pattern of China's theme parks has undergone deep changes.
Zhao Yang, Chairman of the Asia Pacific Region of TEA Global Theme Entertainment Association, believes that the similarity between Universal Studios Beijing and Shanghai Disneyland is to improve the product quality, experience content and service standards of the regional cultural tourism industry. The difference is that due to the large difference in the target customer groups of the two resorts, the surrounding formats may also have different developments, such as Shanghai Disneyland for parent-child families, there are a lot of parent-child homestays in the surrounding area, as well as children's amusement formats; Universal Studios Beijing is aimed at young customers, and then there are likely to be many formats related to young people's consumption around.
Zhao Yang said that the international large-scale tourist resort projects have settled in China, which is a very good situation of healthy competition and mutual prosperity from the perspective of the industry. From a large scope, these international tourist resorts will start very late in the Chinese theme entertainment industry of various standards raised, to promote the domestic quality project standards and international level, or even beyond, but also for China, Asia-Pacific tourists to provide high-quality entertainment experience projects, from a small regional scope, different sizes of international resorts in different magnitude of the city, the local and surrounding economic, humanistic holiday model has a role in promoting.
He also said that after the opening of Shanghai Disneyland, Shanghai has added many high-quality cultural tourism landmarks, including Haichang Ocean Park, Shanghai Planetarium, etc., which has driven the tourism development of the entire Yangtze River Delta and provided more choices for local residents in Shanghai, "Similarly, we have seen that the Tongzhou District Government is planning many urban tourism projects around Universal Studios, and has also brought richer content to the entire Universal Studios tourism circle." Therefore, these international projects strictly speaking, there is no competitive relationship, and the difference in position and target customer base will play a leading role in the theme park industry. ”
In addition to Universal Studios and Disney, Legoland's plans are also worth paying attention to. According to the latest news, China's first LEGOLAND landed in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, is expected to officially open in October 2023. In addition, Legoland Shanghai plans to start construction in November this year and open in 2024; Legoland Shenzhen will officially start construction in September 2021, with the opening time in 2024.
Combined with the expansion layout of many of China's large-scale theme parks in the sinking market, the new power pattern of China's theme park market two supers (Disney, Universal Studios) and many strong is more obvious, of which the head pattern of the theme park in the first-tier cities has been basically determined, the second- and third-tier cities and even lower-tier cities sink the market, the competitive situation is more obvious, filling the gap, new and old iterations and new and new confrontations, etc., will be part of the performance, to promote the reform of the domestic destination supply and demand system.
Will China have "Orlando"?
Zhao Yang believes that with the opening of Universal Beijing Resort, the layout of China's theme entertainment industry has formed a layout from South China to East China to North China, and the three most dynamic regions of China's economy have completed the landing of international tourism resorts. From a small point of view, its opening will have a very great role in promoting the economic empowerment of the capital economic circle, and at the same time, to some extent, it has changed the situation of a single high-quality product in North China, and has also added very young and dynamic products to Beijing with a long history, attracting more young, parent-child families and other high-spending customers, and the stay date of tourists in Beijing will increase by 1-2 days, which also increases the opportunity for other surrounding formats in North China and drives the development of tourism in the whole region.
In this regard, the understanding of Universal Studios Beijing should be placed on a broader level, specific to two dimensions: the direction of Universal Studios Beijing, and its pull effect on regional cultural tourism and social economy.
According to the plan, Universal Studios Beijing will also build the second and third phases of the project, as Universal's fifth park project, the largest of all the projects in Universal City Theme Park, respectively, Osaka, Japan and Universal Studios Singapore 2 times and 5 times. In addition, Beijing will also build a new type of consumption agglomeration area around Universal Resort.
Universal Studios Beijing is not only a strong product mononuclear, but also plays an important role in the Tongzhou Cultural Tourism Zone, the sub-center of Beijing and the social economy of Beijing.
Zhao Yang said that Universal Studios Beijing has played a very positive role in the urban construction and employment of Tongzhou District, and for characteristic towns such as Zhangjiawan Characteristic Town, which has formed an industrial linkage around it, in the future, by combining overseas theme entertainment experience, IP content, creative team, investment and Chinese culture, it can solve the pain points of many homogeneous urban projects at present, and can also create regional uniqueness and diversity.
He believes that the development of the theme entertainment industry is first inseparable from the support of the local government, the government's policies on land, construction, etc., as well as the support of the investment environment is the foundation, TEA Global Theme Entertainment Association, as a non-profit industry association, can serve as a bridge between the government and cultural tourism enterprises, to assist Tongzhou Cultural Tourism Zone to introduce high-quality theme entertainment industry industry members, from IP, concept design, deepening design, construction, to operation, market promotion, and even the final link of the sales channels. TEA Global Theme Entertainment Association gives Tongzhou Cultural Tourism Zone a solution for the cultural tourism industry, and also looks forward to completing a new content of international IP and Chinese culture integration with the strong support of Tongzhou Cultural Tourism Zone, presenting it to consumers in China and even the world.
Universal Beijing Resort has become a platform for industrial "container" attributes, accommodating and connecting industrial elements directly or indirectly related to itself, and the typical dotted line surface logic.
The efficiency of core projects, the pull effect of industrial spillover, the construction of industrial circles and new industries, and the vitality of regional economies have formed the key factors for the destination government to actively support and promote the investment and construction of large-scale theme park projects.
Referring to the "Evaluation of the Driving Effect of the Shanghai Disney Project on Economic and Social Development", during the construction of the Shanghai Disney Project from 2011 to 2016, the project's fixed asset investment pulled an average annual gdp of 0.44% on Shanghai' GDP, and an average of 62,600 new jobs were created annually, bringing about obvious socio-economic pull effects.
An important reference data, shanghai disney opened in 2016, the added value of Shanghai's tourism industry that year was 168.97 billion yuan, an increase of 6.9% year-on-year, and this growth rate in 2011-2015, the average annual average of only 2.1%, a significant difference.
Orlando, USA, is a more typical reference destination.
Zhao Yang once mentioned that Orlando went from an agricultural city dominated by orange production to the world's first global tourist capital with an annual number of more than 70 million tourists, which took a very short time. The local government divides urban planning and construction into two parts, the first phase is used as a tourism development belt as a guide, and the main content is composed of Universal Studios, hotel groups, shopping groups, and theme entertainment project gathering areas, which has played a very great role in promoting the rapid gathering of popularity. Subsequently, the second phase of the 18-square-kilometer project was used to create a vibrant central area of the metropolis.
In the urban planning and construction of the Orlando government, the first introduction of Disney, Universal Studios and other leading enterprises, and then equipped with a large number of A3 land next to Universal Studios (covering an area of 12-80 hectares, a plot ratio of 0.75-1.5 development intensity, with the ability to attract consumers in surrounding cities), the government's strict access mechanism to ensure that the area has sufficient tourism attractiveness. The entire city of Orlando is planned around the themed entertainment industry.
Zhao Yang also mentioned an important detail, the top five tourists visit Orlando to spend the top five are: dining, shopping, amusement, food and hotels. The revenue sources of Orlando's theme parks are very diverse, and the proportion of secondary consumption is very high, which is a very healthy park business model.
He said that most of the domestic theme parks are "fighting alone", there is no relevant industrial chain, the similarity of experience content is too high, there is no outstanding IP content, so there is no competitive advantage in the second match, and it is difficult to break through the single income structure that relies on tickets.
This reveals several core messages:
1. Universal Studios and Disney have played a cornerstone role in the rise of Orlando as the global theme park capital, ensuring a large number of continuous passenger flows. At the same time, its better revenue structure ensures the possibility of continuous operation. On the basis of these two, on the one hand, Universal Studios and Disney can expand their scale and make themselves bigger; on the other hand, more theme entertainment projects have been newly built and landed, linked with the passenger flow and overall consumption environment that Universal Studios and Disney have formed, and synergistic mutual promotion, everyone has formed a new industrial chain, and the marginal effect of each other has been improved.
2. The phenomenon of consumers "seeing the new and forgetting the old" is obvious, and the continuous emergence of new project formats is very important in continuing to win repeat customers and attract new customers, so Universal Studios, Disney, etc. will have reserved land for the iterative upgrading of future project products. Orlando, by continuously expanding the scale and updating the content, forms a theme park cluster, and also continues to do new destinations, forming theme entertainment products and consumption scale effect considerations, theme entertainment is getting bigger, and it needs to be industrialized;
3. "The Orlando government's strict access mechanism, the whole city is planning around the theme entertainment industry", which is also the key, pointing to "high quality, long-term consideration, focus, and circulation".
Zhao Yang believes that Orlando's success is mainly reflected in the strategy of scale and branding, a successful international tourist destination is not a climate by relying on a park alone, it must be complemented by the whole format of the theme park, Orlando is not only a park, but a variety of large theme parks, with many head IP small formats, including indoor parks, theme catering, theme hotels and other cluster formats, thereby driving the economic development of the entire region.
These are of great reference significance for Chinese destinations.
Zhao Yang said that China's theme entertainment industry started late, but due to the rapid development of China's economy, especially for the efficient control of the epidemic, the national demand for the theme entertainment industry is extremely large, has been using the fastest speed to catch up with the international, Shanghai Disney International Resort and Universal Beijing Resort will become similar to Orlando's international areas, "Of course, to become such a large-scale area, first of all, there must be strong government support, including land, policies and investment environment, etc., at the same time, It is also necessary to have a strong consumption power market in the region, the people's demand for leisure and entertainment needs to have a strong economic strength, and China's rapidly developing national economy will be a strong driving force. ”