From a bowl of beef noodles, a one-day stay to a ticket-
Xiaodian launches digital "train"
In recent years, the digital transformation of the hotel industry has been accelerating.
The picture shows tourists relaxing in a bed and breakfast in a tourist attraction in the ancient city of Luanzhou, Tangshan on July 24.
Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Mou Yu
On August 23, citizens used mobile payment methods to pay after shopping at a fruit shop in Fengqing Road, Jinshui District, Zhengzhou City.
Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Haoran
Today's Chinese consumers can easily order a fast food, lock a seat for a movie, buy tickets for a scenic spot, and book a distant hotel as long as they open an online platform.
On the screen, there are plenty of choices, and the touch of your fingertips brings a lot of convenience.
On the other side of the screen, many small life service shops have just launched a digital "train".
Since the main business entities are small and medium-sized enterprises and individual merchants, they are restricted by the characteristics of small scale and scattered distribution, and they are not as simple as commodity retail transactions. The digitalization of the life service industry started relatively late, but the future space is also greater.
What does digitalization mean for merchants in the life service industry?
What efforts are needed behind?
How did the industry transformation happen?
Recently, the reporter interviewed some small shops in the life service industry.
"Going online is a trend." By the second quarter of this year, the number of active merchants on the Meituan platform reached 7.7 million, an increase of 1.4 million over the same period last year.
Speaking of which, digitalization is the general trend.
But for the small stores that have been rooted in the streets and alleys for many years, "turning around" is not so easy.
Zhang Guoren Beef Noodle Restaurant is a Chinese fast food restaurant in Lanzhou, Gansu. It has only one store and has been open for nearly 30 years.
A few years ago, when the takeaway business expanded to Lanzhou, the choice placed in front of this noodle restaurant was: whether to go online for takeaway?
"A bowl of noodles is too thin" "It's a waste of work, people don't make money when they are tired"... Now Zhang Xin, who has taken over the operation of the noodle restaurant, talked about his parents' views at that time.
Due to the lack of awareness of online platforms, parents who have done offline business for decades are reluctant to try it lightly.
"Give me three months to give it a try, and how much I lose will be deducted from my salary." "Post-85s" Zhang Xin insisted that "going online is a trend" and made such a guarantee to his parents.
He firmly believes that when online customers place an order, it is equivalent to promoting the store; when offline customers are inconvenient to come to the store, there is an additional ordering channel, and the two promote each other.
Later, the transformation of noodle restaurants started in a "time-limited" attempt.
Looking back now, Zhang Xin said that last year's epidemic raided and dine-in was suspended. It was because of the four to five hundred orders a day for takeout that made it through.
Now, takeaway sales account for about 20% of the overall sales of noodle restaurants.
Over the years, the development mode of the life service industry has been relatively traditional, and the innovation of the Internet and the popularization of digitization have brought opportunities for change.
Wang Wei, director of the Institute of Market Economy of the Development Research Center of the State Council, believes that the digital transformation of the life service industry has brought benefits in many aspects: consumers get better services and more convenience; more and more scientific and technical personnel and management personnel are engaged in life services Industry, promote the development of the industry; supply and demand docking, and further release the consumption potential.
However, there are a large number of individual industrial and commercial households, small and medium-sized enterprises in the life service industry, and most of them are small-scale community businesses. In the past, they lacked the ability of digital transformation and lack of motivation.
However, during the epidemic prevention and control period, the "home economy" developed rapidly, pressing the digital "fast forward button" for the life service industry.
Since last year, Beijing, Shanghai and other places have launched digital upgrade actions for the catering industry and the creation of digital small store demonstration streets to promote the transformation and upgrading of small stores.
According to data from the Meituan Research Institute, the digitalization of the life service industry has accelerated significantly under the promotion of multiple parties.
In the second quarter, China's consumption of online life services increased by 62.5% year-on-year.
According to data from Meituan’s second quarter financial report, the number of active merchants on the platform reached 7.7 million, an increase of 1.4 million over the same period last year.
"Before operating by intuition and experience, sitting in a hotel waiting for guests, now it is looking for matching guests through data"
Is digitization just coming online?
"Our hotel has been cooperating with online platforms since it opened, but at the beginning, we only knew that online is the trend, and we didn't know how to analyze and use data in depth." The Senbo Designer Hotel in Changsha, Hunan, opened in the second half of 2018 , Zhou Ke, the general manager of the hotel, recalled the initial situation in this way.
In 2019, the hotel business went through a run-in and ramp-up period, but unexpectedly caught the epidemic halfway, and the entire industry fell into a "freezing point".
"The beginning of 2020 is particularly hesitating." Zhou Ke said that since then, the hotel has been centering on the Meituan platform, carrying out revenue management and "making a fuss" from digging in data.
The main customer groups and consumption characteristics of the business district; hotel revenue, the ratio over the same period... Learn to analyze the data of the platform, and then there will be a basis for business decision-making.
At Senbo Hotel, they found that customers are mainly concentrated in the 25-35 year-olds, and business travel and local customers account for a certain proportion.
After understanding the customer group and the purpose of travel, hotel services are adjusted accordingly: for business travelers, laundry services are provided free of charge; for local customers, a projection room is specially built, and popcorn and other gifts are provided... to make the guest room products richer and value-added services more targeted sex.
“In the past, I operated by intuition and experience, sitting in hotels and waiting for guests, but now I use data to find matching guests.” Looking back at many years of business experience, Zhou Ke sighed with emotion.
During the "November" holiday last year, the average price of Senbo Hotel was much higher than that of other similar hotels in the business district; now the daily occupancy rate of hotels can even reach 110%.
Now Senbo has opened three stores, "digital management has become a compulsory course for store management, front desk operations and sales staff." Zhou Ke said.
More and more businesses realize that in addition to providing online services, digital transformation also means changes in the operation and management model. Going deeper is the digitization of the industrial chain and supply chain.
Every step forward, the business structure will change accordingly.
"China's service industry used to be highly dependent on labor. In the future, the digitalization, informatization, and intelligence of the life service industry will become a major trend." Wang Wei said that through the empowerment of digital technology, the development momentum of the life service industry will depend on the past. Land, traditional labor, and small-scale capital are transformed into relying on the support of technology, innovation, and high-quality human resources to realize the transformation of development power.
"Trying very hard to digitize the entire chain is not only to cope with future risks, but also to win the doubling of production capacity."
During the epidemic prevention period, online channels have become a helper for many life service stores to resist the impact and get out of the predicament.
In the long run, what are the benefits of digitalization?
"Mr. X" is the first "Escape Room" game brand store opened from Shanghai.
As a "new star" in the leisure and entertainment industry in recent years, Escape Room has a high online rate like movie ticketing, and online ticket booking is the mainstream.
However, under the conditions of a fixed floor area and a fixed number of sessions, the room escape store has limited capacity to take customers, and the ceiling of business income is more obvious.
However, with the help of digital management tools, "Mr. X" cooperated with the Meituan platform to try the on-the-spot model to achieve a shorter period of time.
For example, for a two-hour theme session, you can enter a group of players every hour, which not only improves store revenue, but also gives more consumers the opportunity to experience "check-in".
The person in charge of the platform introduced that this process puts forward higher requirements for the operation, design, and scheduling of the secret room, but digitalization has created more possibilities for stores.
From front-end consumption to back-end operations, from logistics, inventory to distribution, and services, digitization affects the entire chain of business processes.
"You can't just look at how much money you make from a noodle delivery. The benefits it brings are manifold." Zhang Xin said, the faster the beef noodle shop sells, the fresher the food, and the more customers; takeaway facilitates the flow of ingredients and allows stores to enter. Virtuous circle.
At the same time, take-out can serve customers 3 kilometers away, which is equivalent to attracting traffic to the store. This is especially rare for beef noodle restaurants with fierce competition and three or four beef noodle restaurants at one intersection.
Some life service stores were originally small workshops, but through digital upgrades, they have gradually begun to quantify product standards and try to scale and standardize production processes. This provides a step for small stores to expand their scale and maintain service quality.
"This year we have tried very hard to try the digitalization of the whole chain, not only to cope with future risks, but also to win the doubling of production capacity." said Li Xuebai, a Beijing restaurant owner who has been in the catering industry for 10 years and has promoted digital applications in his operations since last year.
From the demand side to the supply side, from a single point to the entire chain, the digital transformation of the life service industry is gradually deepening.
Many experts pointed out that digitalization in the future may fundamentally change the overall outlook of the life service industry.
At present, the digitalization of catering, tourism and other industries is relatively at the forefront, and more exploration is needed in the fields of medical care, education, and elderly care.
Li Jie