Securities Times reporter Wu Zhi
During the Spring Festival in 2022, both the box office and the number of moviegoers dropped significantly compared with the same period last year. An important reason is that movie ticket prices have risen.
In addition to the rise in ticket prices, the difficulty of refunding tickets has once again been widely "spit out" during the Spring Festival this year.
At a time when the audience's enthusiasm for watching movies is sluggish, it is an important task for movie theaters to improve consumers' movie-watching experience, and too strict restrictions on cancellations and changes are obviously not conducive to the overall improvement of movie-watching experience.
However, some practitioners told the Securities Times reporter that most theaters had to raise the threshold for refunding and changing movie tickets due to the trouble of ticket fraud.
In addition, consumers also need to abide by the refund regulations of third-party ticketing platforms, making it more difficult to refund movie tickets.
Only 30% of the theaters support refunds
The difficulty of refunding movie tickets is a common problem.
In recent years, despite appeals from many parties, the problem of difficult ticket refunds has not been fundamentally resolved, and it is still difficult for most consumers to obtain convenient refund and change services.
Taking Shanghai as an example, the Maoyan platform information shows that only 104 of the 322 theaters in Shanghai supported refunds on February 14, accounting for about 30%.
On the ticket purchase page, many cinemas still clearly stipulate that once a movie ticket is sold, it is non-refundable and non-exchangeable.
Looking at the country, there are differences in the proportion of refundable cinemas in different cities, but it is generally less than 50%.
For example, among the 143 cinemas in Wuhan, 57 support refunds, accounting for about 40%, while Beijing and Chengdu both account for about 30%, and in some cities, only 20% are refundable.
Recently, the reporter randomly selected 8 theaters within 5 kilometers of Longhu Tianjie shopping mall in Baoshan District, Shanghai. Among them, 5 theaters only support ticket change but not refund; 2 theaters do not support refund or change.
The only theater that supports both rebooking and ticket refunds stipulates that free refunds are available 24 hours before the opening, and a handling fee of 5 yuan per ticket will be charged 16.7 hours before the opening.
Some viewers told reporters that if the theaters in popular schedules are full, it is understandable that they do not support cancellations and changes, but in non-popular schedules, watching movies is often a temporary decision, and some theaters require 8 hours or even 24 hours before the opening. Refund is not really meaningful.
Some viewers believe that the 5 yuan refund fee for a single movie ticket is too high.
The reporter learned that most of the refund and change policies are stipulated by the theater itself, and the refund and change fees involved are also collected by the theater itself.
Platform refund rules are strict
At present, many users are accustomed to purchasing movie tickets through third-party platforms such as Maoyan and Taopiao Piao. Therefore, in addition to complying with the theater's cancellation and change regulations, users are also limited by the ticket purchasing platform, which invisibly increases the number of refunds and changes. difficulty.
As stipulated by the Maoyan platform, V1-V2 members can only refund once a month, V3-V4 members can refund twice a month, and V5 members can refund three times a month.
Tao Piao Piao platform stipulates that ordinary users and members can use the refund service twice a month, members can also exchange points for refund services three times a month, and Black Diamond members can enjoy unlimited refund services.
This means that even if the studio supports refunds, users may not be able to refund tickets due to platform rules.
In addition, there are some small platforms with complicated refund procedures, such as inability to operate online, or refunds only by phone; plus movie tickets redeemed by cards and coupons, and some special shows usually cannot be refunded, and the actual refund ratio of movie tickets is at a low level. .
In 2019, when the Maoyan platform was listed, it announced the platform refunds.
The data shows that the platform has launched a refund service since the second half of 2016. In 2016, 2017, and the first nine months of 2018, the refund rates of movie tickets sold on its platform were 1.7%, 2%, and 1.3%, respectively.
Maoyan said that the platform provides membership services associated with movie theaters, and membership benefits include discounts on movie tickets and more convenient refund and change services.
Cinema: closing refunds is helpless
The industry has long discussed whether it is reasonable for theaters to refuse to provide refund services.
Although there are currently no relevant regulations that explicitly require cinemas to provide ticket refund services, the mainstream view is that according to the Consumer Rights Protection Law and other relevant laws and regulations, cinemas unilaterally stipulate that movie tickets will not be refunded or exchanged, which is unfair and unreasonable to consumers. .
In addition to legal regulations, the current domestic theater attendance rate continues to decline, and audiences are less motivated to watch movies. Providing convenient cancellation and change services will help theaters to improve service levels and attract audiences to return to theaters.
Based on this, a number of theater managers told reporters that the actual cancellation policy implemented by the theater is much looser than that of the platform.
The reporter visited a number of theaters in Shanghai a few days ago. Most of the theater staff said that if there are vacant seats for the show selected by the customer, they will usually change the ticket for the customer, or even change the show to a different day.
However, after booking and collecting tickets through the platform, the process involved is complicated, and refunds are generally not supported.
"The theater is also helpless to close the refund function, mainly because they are worried about third-party ticket swiping. In order to increase the attendance rate, some film-related parties have made false hype, and they have booked movie tickets and only refunded them before the show, causing losses to the theater. But there are indeed many customers. If there is a need to cancel or change the ticket, if you buy the wrong ticket, as long as there are still seats, we will change it for them." Li Jindu (pseudonym), manager of a movie theater in Yunnan, told reporters.
The behavior of relying on the cancellation and change policy to swipe tickets has always existed.
In April 2018, the movie "Later Us" was released after a large number of pre-sale tickets were locked, and after guiding the theater to improve the film arrangement, a large number of abnormal ticket refunds were made, which caused a storm of public opinion.
Since then, Maoyan temporarily closed the refund function for a while.
Since 2018, there have been domestic calls for improving the difficulty of refunding movie tickets.
In September 2018, the China Film Distribution and Projection Association issued the "Notice on the Regulations on "Refund and Change" of Movie Tickets, requiring all operators in the film market to take effective measures to effectively improve the level of ticketing services, continuously improve the audience experience, and strive to improve the film industry. social credibility and credibility.
However, the notice is more of a requirement for theaters to clarify the rules for refund and change, so that users can understand the theater's refund and change policy before purchasing tickets, rather than forcing theaters to provide refund and change services.
This notice has also become a reference for ticketing platforms and theaters to formulate refund and change policies.
Li Jindu said that what the theater can do now is to charge a fee for refunding and changing the ticket. This fee is mainly to make up for the possible losses caused by the brushing of tickets. If the refund is completely free, the theater will be very uncomfortable.
However, if ticket swiping is controlled in the future, both theaters and platforms are willing to provide higher-level services for moviegoers.