Tian Peng, reporter of this newspaper
Since the beginning of this year, the recovery momentum of China's cultural tourism market has been strong. With the opening of the 2023 national college entrance examination today, the upcoming "summer file" that opens with graduation travel may once again set off a wave of cultural tourism consumption.
Wang Peng, a researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview with the "Securities Daily" reporter that the upcoming "summer file" of the cultural tourism market may usher in an explosive period again, with the arrival of the summer vacation to create the "timing", superimposed on young people to increase their knowledge and other considerations, it may become the "main force" of "summer file" travel. Based on this situation, new tourism products and services are also launched in various places in a timely manner to meet the consumption habits of young people.
Parent-child travel or become the "main force" of summer
With the increasingly hot weather and the approaching summer vacation, the cultural tourism market will usher in the "summer season" in 2023, and the travel demand will set off a new climax. According to Huang Yue, CEO of Wooden Bird Homestay, he told the "Securities Daily" reporter, since mid-May, the booking of platform homestays has begun to show an increase momentum, and as of June 5, the number of summer orders for Wooden Bird Homestay has been 6.2 times that of the same period in 2019.
According to the cultural tourism consumption insights data jointly released by Tongcheng Research Institute and Tencent TIM, consumers aged 18 to 25 and 45 to 55 are more than 90% willing to travel in the future, and the main consumers aged 26 to 44 are also more than 80% willing to travel.
At the same time, Cheng Chaogong, chief researcher of Tongcheng Research Institute, told the reporter of "Securities Daily" that according to the pattern of previous years, the first half of the summer vacation will be mainly dominated by the demand for holiday travel and graduation travel for young people aged 18 to 25, and mid-to-late July to early August will be the peak time for parent-child travel.
The reporter of "Securities Daily" randomly interviewed several students and parents in Beijing, and the interviewees expressed their willingness to travel in the summer, on the one hand, to combine work and rest, reward their children's hard study for a semester, and on the other hand, to increase their children's horizons.
An Guangyong, an expert from the Credit Management Committee of the All-Union M&A Association, told the Securities Daily reporter that with the end of the college entrance examination, young people will have more time and opportunities for summer travel, and they will have higher demand for personalized and diversified tourism products and experiences.
The person in charge of a travel agency in Fengtai District, Beijing, told the "Securities Daily" reporter that the number of tourists who have recently consulted outbound travel has increased significantly, and most of them are families, planning to travel as soon as their children finish the exam, so the travel agency specially coordinated and arranged part of the tour schedule, mainly recommended places concentrated in Spain, Portugal, the Balkans and other European countries.
Multi-scenic areas promote "immersive tours" to cater to young groups
"Combined with the pre-sale of summer air tickets and vacation routes, the cultural tourism market will have a good performance in the summer peak season. From a structural point of view, the demand for parent-child travel will be very strong, and the population structure and consumption structure of the entire summer peak season will return to normal. As Cheng Chaogong said, this year's summer cultural tourism market is hot.
In this context, many places across the country have made corresponding preparations around the characteristics of the summer cultural tourism market, and introduced summer consumption promotion policies and measures to further boost consumer confidence.
For example, Henan recently issued the Notice on Several Policies and Measures to Further Promote Cultural and Tourism Consumption, which clarifies eight measures to vigorously stimulate the vitality of cultural tourism consumption and further polish the brand of "Walking Henan, Understanding China". The "Several Measures to Promote the Recovery and Revitalization of the Cultural and Tourism Market" issued by Hebei proposes to accelerate the recovery and revitalization of the cultural and tourism market in Hebei Province from many aspects such as optimizing the layout of tourism product structure and promoting cultural and tourism consumption.
Under the guidance of relevant policies, scenic spots in many places actively create new consumption scenarios to improve service quality and tourist consumption experience. For example, focusing on the trend of summer travel youth dominating, many scenic spots have launched "immersive tours" to meet consumer demand and boost new momentum in the cultural tourism market: Tianjin Digital Art Museum uses digital technology to immerse classic art works and bring new experiences to the public; Xiuhu Park in Bishan District, Chongqing launched an ancient style immersive script experience project, in which tourists tour the scenic area in the way of "people in the play" completing tasks; Shaanxi Huaqing Palace Scenic Area held activities such as the Flower God Audition to create an immersive Tang Palace festival atmosphere.
Wang Peng told the reporter of "Securities Daily" that due to the characteristics of young people's full personality and strong social needs, the demand for in-depth culture and experience tourism is more vigorous, for example, theme markets, role playing, digital technology, etc. are all forms of interest to them. To this end, new consumption scenarios are constantly launched in various places, and various thematic and thematic activities are also launched to better meet the demands of this consumer group, and there will be more and more similar forms or consumption scenarios.
Multi-party participation supports the sustained recovery of the cultural tourism market
"Since the beginning of this year, the recovery progress of domestic cultural tourism consumption has exceeded expectations, and it has shown characteristics such as increasing travel distance and strong willingness to consume at all ages." Cheng Chaogong told the reporter of "Securities Daily" that first of all, the average travel distance has increased by about 30%; Secondly, the willingness of people of different ages to spend is very strong, especially the travel of the old and the young has basically recovered, weekend parent-child travel, especially preschool children's weekend parent-child travel consumption demand is strong, and some high-quality parent-child cultural tourism products are popular for reservations. In addition, middle-aged and elderly groups over 50 years old have the strongest willingness to travel, which directly drives the strong recovery of the traditional group tour market.
In the face of the rapid recovery of consumption in the cultural tourism market, Cheng Chaogong suggested that accommodation, cultural tourism reception units and destinations need to cooperate with each other to accelerate the recovery of the supply side, ensure that service capabilities can keep up with the rhythm of demand recovery, and continue to do a good job in pre-work such as reservation and facilitation during the peak travel season, so as to escort people's good travel experience and increase confidence in consumption recovery.
"The sustained recovery of the cultural tourism market is inseparable from the joint efforts of all parties." An Guangyong said that first of all, the government should continue to increase support for the tourism industry, introduce policies and measures to promote tourism consumption, and encourage people to actively participate in tourism activities; Secondly, tourism practitioners should provide high-quality tourism products and services, pay attention to changes in customer needs, innovate tourism products and routes, and improve user experience and satisfaction; At the same time, offline travel platforms and online travel platforms should provide comprehensive travel information, booking services and personalized recommendations to enhance users' trust and satisfaction with travel.
In addition, in Wang Peng's view, in addition to the above measures, the products and services of the cultural tourism market should also adapt to market changes, make use of diversified technical means such as good integration of media, carry out effective publicity, and create a sense of gravity of cultural tourism resources, so as to provide better and better services. (Securities Daily)