Employee "share" sells barbecue boss live broadcast when the Internet
celebrity traditional travel agency "fancy self-help" in epidemic situation
In the past 4 months, Su Feng, the head of Xuzhou Yuping International Travel Agency Co., Ltd., did not do anything. "After working in this business for 7 years, I finally got a foothold. The turnover increased year by year, but because of the epidemic situation, I encountered an unprecedented dilemma. It seems that when I returned to start my business overnight, everything must start again!"
For Su Feng, this time in the past was supposed to be the spring of tourism and the most prosperous time for business, but the current status quo is "only out but not in." He calculated an account: Before the Spring Festival, about 1 million yuan of prepayment for tourism was returned, and expenditures for promotion, exhibitions, gifts, etc. were floated. Every month, there were hard costs such as basic wages for employees, social security, and rent. A loss of about 1.6 million yuan.
What made him even more helpless was that the "May Day" small holiday just passed. The company only accepted a few tourists from the province. He "handed over" the tourists to his colleagues, and then he gathered a small group. On Mother's Day on May 10, the company made a "Thanksgiving Trip" parent-child tour, and only old customers came to the show.
He observed that in the recent period, some small travel agencies around him went bankrupt, or simply switched careers. "Some travel agency bosses have started real estate sales, but most of them are in their 30s or 40s. It is difficult to compete with young people for the same position."
Su Feng's experience reflects the common dilemma faced by current travel agencies. Tourism is one of the industries most affected by the epidemic. Data show that during the Spring Festival of 2020 alone, the loss of the tourism industry is at least 500 billion yuan. Travel agency "zero income", tour guides become anchors to sell goods, employees switch to micro business ... Nowadays, how should many travel agencies with different sizes and different positioning carry out self-help, get out of the shadow of the epidemic as soon as possible, and can they use this as an inflection point and embark on The path of transformation and development? Recently, reporters from China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily interviewed many travel agency companies.
Peers are all doing micro-business
On January 24, the General Office of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued a notice requesting national travel agencies and online travel companies to suspend the operation of team travel and products, and suspension of travel by travel teams. Since then, Su Feng's first thing to wake up every day is to open the phone to brush news and pay attention to the latest industry policies. However, he opened the circle of friends and found that many colleagues around him no longer send pictures of travel beauty, but instead began to do business.
"I can earn a little!" Su Feng finally couldn't sit still. He first sold Xuzhou local specialties in the circle of friends. And other specialty foods.
But he soon discovered that this road would not work. "The peers are all doing micro-businesses. Due to the epidemic situation, the economy has been sluggish, plus inexperience in this industry, let's close it." Su Feng said helplessly.
At that time, Su Feng also had the idea of closing the door in his mind, but he was still reluctant. "Even if you lose money, you have to support it! As the company's founder, you have to break all the customers you have accumulated over the years. It hurts!" Su Feng comforted himself and encouraged employees to continue to insist.
At the same time, Liu Hao, head of Huangshan Shiyou International Travel Service, is also experiencing a painful self-help. "At this time in the past, a turnover of 300,000 yuan was a piece of cake, but from the end of January to April this year, we had no income." Liu Hao, who has worked hard in the tourism industry for nearly 20 years, admitted that the epidemic will soon end. At the end of March, I plan to revive, but as the situation becomes more severe, I become more and more anxious and anxious.
At first, Liu Hao was somewhat resistant to Wechat. He felt that he was "screaming" in the circle of friends every day, and some were "faceless." But the travel agency was unable to resume work and he began to "compromise." Beginning in March, he "moved" Huangshan local specialties such as Huangshan Biscuits, Stinking Mandarin Fish and Maofeng Tea into the circle of friends.
"On the best day of the business, only seven or eight orders were sold. Most of the time, there were no orders." One week later, due to the bleak business, Liu Hao gave up Weishang again. Some people advised him to be a distributor of e-commerce brands, but he refused. "On the one hand, the technology industry has expertise and is not good at e-commerce. On the other hand, I really don't want to leave the tourism industry. My roots are here."
The epidemic forced out "different industry cooperation"
Just when Su Feng and Liu Hao "want to break their heads to save themselves", Xu Huayu, the head of Anhui Global Cultural Tourism Group Co., Ltd., the largest local travel agency in Anhui, began a new approach of "joining vertical and horizontal lines".
"The more you have no business, the busier and more tired! A lot of things have to be smoothed down and reconsidered." Since the epidemic occurred, the management and employees of its 14 branches have been busy helping themselves and taking time to improve Enterprise training and future development plans prepare for the recovery of the tourism industry.
"The research and travel business, which accounts for one quarter of the company's total business, has stopped, and the overseas travel business is also uncertain." Since the outbreak, the company has quickly cooperated with government departments to suspend business, refund fees, and protect consumer rights to the greatest extent. At present, Business revenue has been severely lost, and there are still some overseas travel business prepayment fees that cannot be refunded.
Xu Huayu is a "veteran" in Anhui's tourism industry. During the SARS outbreak in 2003, he founded this travel agency on the sea, enjoying the dividends of the tourism economy and experiencing the pains of tourism reform. After nearly 30 years of hard work in the tourism industry, he recalled that after the SARS year, the tourism industry ushered in a wave of "retaliatory" consumption, indicating that the epidemic did not hurt consumer confidence and only brought a short-term "physical change" The impact of the second epidemic on the tourism industry is undoubtedly catastrophic. The impact is long and the scope is wide. The tourism market will undergo disruptive "chemical changes", and I have a feeling that I can't grasp the future.
To this end, the company had to carry out self-rescue, support the enterprise, stabilize customers, employees, and cash flow without lowering the budget target, the total salary for the year, and voluntarily laying off employees.
"Executives cut their salaries by 40% and employees by 20%. They only paid RMB 1,240 per person for basic living expenses, just to keep the company alive." Xu Huayu said with emotion, "The company is like a home with more than 300 employees. It's set. "
Initially, he sent a message to 100 friends in the WeChat address book. He wanted to integrate idle resources across the industry and conduct business cooperation. Immediately, he received many responses that expressed support.
Subsequently, Xu Huayu reached an agreement with an agricultural product company to provide raw material products and obtain food-related business procedures and licenses. Since April, the company is located in a 300-square-meter flagship store in a commercial complex in Hefei. The sales window has been transformed into a sales window for stewed vegetables. Customer service staff "transformed" into food salesmen, recommending stewed goose and other dishes to customers.
"These new measures are all for the survival of employees, but they will be considered as" doing no business "if they are put in the past." Xu Huayu lamented that the epidemic broke the traditional thinking and forced the company to practice new ideas. Now, he brings a circle of hair friends every day, mobilizes employees to help surrounding farmers sell strawberries, and contacts with local cherry growers to plan a series of online sales activities.
In addition, the company cooperates with industries that are less affected and in need of labor to provide "shared employee" services, and appeals to employees to find a way out if they can find a way out, and the company can go through the "stop pay and stay" procedure and help purchase labor insurance. The company "goes home" after going through the storm.
During May 1st, Wuhu Branch took a bigger step and "shared employees" with a local well-known barbecue restaurant. After market research and professional training, several female employees of the company have arrived and are competent for cleaning, material selection, stocking, frying and roasting. The branch's WeChat official account also posted an advertisement-"Left-hand travel, right-hand catering, don't give up, don't give up!"
It's still hard to stop losses if the surroundings become "hot spots"
Relative to the downturn in long-distance travel, Xu Huayu was somewhat overjoyed. The rural tourism poverty alleviation project created by the company at Maying Base in the suburbs of Hefei is gradually regaining popularity, and the parent-child travel business is welcomed. Many parents bring their children to experience life and labor fun.
"At that time, I wanted to attract young people who went out to go home and start business through research trips, parent-child travel, firefighting, catering, and specialty sales, so that poor households could be employed and turn blood transfusions into hematopoiesis." In fact, Xu Huayu proposed the concept of "travel life" to employees very early , Advocating "travel is a way of life", but then only stayed in the concept. At present, because of the epidemic situation, travel agencies have to make a fuss about "life" and start to "deeply cultivate" the surrounding tourism, short-distance travel and other fields.
"Rejuvenate homestays, ancient villages, leisure bases in Huangshan, Lujiang, Jiuhuashan and other places around the city, create multi-themed tourism products such as farming, pastoral, classical, and poetry, and attract tourists through discounts." Xu Huayu believes that under the current situation, the surroundings Travel will definitely be the starting point for travel agencies, but the profitability of such products is meager, and the company's stop loss can only be a stubborn salary.
Also in Jiangsu Province, Su Feng also actively changed his mind and set his sights on the "niche" route around. "Our travel agency used to take the" Famous Mountains and Famous Rivers "route. Now, we are trying to find tourism resources with good scenery and good air to create short-distance routes."
"It must be a step faster than other travel agencies! As long as we don't lose money, we will form a group." With this mentality in mind, Su Feng and his staff have launched short-distance routes in and around the province around the needs of travel, vacation, and convalescence. More than two days.
"We are a traditional small and medium-sized travel agency. We have no strong capital. We only raise funds while keeping, retaining old customers and taking the opportunity to attract new customers." Su Feng admitted that he did not know how long the company can last, but he is firm now. Objective: To do a good job in the main business of tourism, make the surrounding tourism products solid and detailed, and restore vitality as soon as possible.
"At the moment, travel agencies are looking for new starting points, opening up diversified business channels, and expanding travel services to life services, which can help companies save themselves and expand new spaces for enterprise development." Yao Lizhong, associate professor at Huangshan College of Tourism, suggested that travel agencies can Promote health and safety education, popular science tourism, and surrounding tourism to empower tourism and health, plan and construct new tourism projects and formats in a targeted manner, and reconstruct attractiveness and competitiveness.
Traditional travel agencies must firmly turn to "online"
"Many high-quality homestays are too simple to promote. I will discuss cooperation with the homestay owners through short videos and live broadcasts to show the whole picture of the homestay and room facilities, bring traffic to them, and drive sales." ", Often appear in Xidi Hongcun and other scenic spots, live broadcast of human scenery and tourism knowledge. In his view, opportunities are hidden in the crisis, and now may be an opportunity for the transformation of small and medium-sized travel agencies. In recent days, he often brainstormed with his employees to think about how to expand cooperation forms such as "Internet + tourism" and "tourism + local products" in the future.
In fact, Xu Huayu has been thinking about the online transformation of traditional travel agencies, but considering the large investment in building a network platform system alone, it can only be prohibitive. The epidemic made him deeply aware that traditional travel agencies have fewer types of products, from procurement to production to landing, and prefer workshop-style production and management, just like a "boutique", with a fixed source of customers, but few product choices; Internet platforms Supermarkets have a variety of line products to choose from, with a higher degree of openness and more convenient to purchase products.
In his view, traditional travel agencies can no longer stick to the "boutique" thinking and take the "procurement, sales, service" one-stop business, they must firmly turn to online, "access" the emerging Internet platform company, the two sides share products , Passenger flow and services. For traditional travel agencies, this is not only the iteration of technology, but also the reconstruction of internal information management system.
"With the widespread application of VR, 5G, Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence technologies, the industry will definitely face changes and reshuffle, and companies that keep up with the times can survive." Xu Huayu said that to some extent, the epidemic accelerated The transformation process of travel agency enterprises.
"'Pause' does not mean 'shutdown', we must turn crises into opportunities, and achieve new breakthroughs and upgrades in operations, brands, and content." Yao Lizhong believes that under the influence of the epidemic, travel agencies want to transform and develop, they need to seize the "digital transformation" , Change models, reinvent yourself ”and other keywords. While controlling costs and improving efficiency, we must vigorously promote digital transformation, and actively transform the remote office and online operations in the fight against epidemics into a normal working mode.
At the same time, Xu Huayu called on the travel agency to save itself and hope that the relevant departments would conduct in-depth research on tourism enterprises and formulate more targeted support policies for the travel agency ’s business nature, format and actual damage, so that the subsidies will be truly implemented.
(Intern Zhang Fan also contributed to this article)
China Youth Daily · China Youth Daily reporter Wang Haihan Wang Lei Source: China Youth Daily