[Economic Observation] Camping economy ushered in new opportunities for rural revitalization
From farmhouses to boutique homestays, the public’s desire to be close to nature and love the mountains and rivers has never diminished.
The camping economy, which focuses on field exploration, has gradually developed through social media communication in the process.
The rise of the younger generation of consumer groups has led to changes in consumer demand, and the services of homestays and campgrounds are favored.
Compared with conventional leisure travel and vacations, camping prefers outdoor camps in location, especially those that are closer to pristine nature and have unique night scenery.
At the same time, in the way of leisure, more emphasis is placed on doing it yourself, setting up tents, obtaining ingredients and cooking, so it is also considered to be an effective way to develop the quality of young people.
In recent years, the number of registrations of camping-related companies in my country has continued to increase.
According to data from Tianyan Check, over 60% of camping-related companies in my country were established after 2020.
The results of the fourth national economic census showed that at the end of 2018, there were 5 thousand legal person units in China's homestay and campground service companies, with 27,000 employees.
Industry insiders pointed out that the development of the campground industry will also drive the consumption of the RV industry, campsite planning and design, landscaping projects, tents, outdoor products, etc., and stimulate the development of upstream and downstream industrial chains and related industries.
However, the camping economy still faces many bottlenecks in the actual operation process.
On the one hand, in the usual cognition, camping is highly related to survival in the wild, which puts forward higher requirements on the participating personnel's survival skills in the wild and outdoor camping equipment.
On the other hand, the construction of campsites still lacks uniform regulations.
According to the statistics of Camping World, as of the end of 2019, the total number of camping sites in China was 1,778, with the largest number of camps in East China and North China, and the number of camps nationwide was about 56,000.
In related documents, my country's current plan for camping is tied to the RV industry and self-driving tours.
The ambiguity of the nature of campsites has made investors vacillate between real estate and tourism, and practitioners do not know what name to plan and operate camping activities under.
Now, the rural revitalization plan provides solutions for campsite planning and the improvement of supporting equipment.
The State Council’s "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Revitalization of Rural Industries" proposes to implement leisure agriculture and rural tourism boutique projects, build a number of leisure sightseeing parks, country houses, forest homes, and health care bases with complete facilities and diversified functions, and cultivate a number of beautiful leisure Key rural and rural tourism villages, and build a batch of leisure agriculture demonstration counties.
The "Opinions on Comprehensively Promoting Rural Revitalization and Accelerating the Modernization of Agriculture and Rural Areas" also proposed that vigorous implementation of rural construction actions should be based on the actual needs of the decentralized layout of rural leisure tourism and other industries, and new flexible and diverse land supply methods should be explored.
The construction of beautiful countryside undoubtedly undertakes the supply demand of the camping economy.
In 2019, leisure agriculture and rural tourism received 3.2 billion tourists, and operating income exceeded 850 billion yuan.
Up to now, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has accumulatively promoted more than 1,000 beautiful leisure villages with complete functions and outstanding characteristics.
These villages not only have natural scenery that meets the expectations of campers, but also have relatively complete infrastructure and relatively mature tourism services.
It is foreseeable that if the camping economy is introduced into the industrial clusters of rural construction, it will break the single tourism and tourism model, provide more sustainable development power for rural revitalization, and drive more cluster effects and more diverse regional tourism.
Of course, this also puts forward new requirements for camp fire belts, grass maintenance, security personnel training, and consumer education.
Liu Xiaoyan