"Double 11" Tourism Industry War Upgrade: Special Price + Pre-Sale Constitute Marketing Longitude And Latitude Line

This year's "double 11" came very early. Before November, the marketing war of e-commerce platforms has entered a heated stage. Five fold up the whole venue, get a big discount package, and kill large coupons in limited time The playing methods of these e-commerce platforms also appear in the "double 11" marketing war in the tourism industry, and the war situation is upgraded.

In this carnival, the special price and pre-sale jointly constitute the longitude and latitude line of the "double 11" marketing war in the tourism industry. The low price of major platforms stimulates the travel desire of consumers, and the rich and colorful pre-sale products directly empty the pockets of young people. The only relief is that this may be the cheapest trip in recent years?

A large number of pre-sale products also provide a large amount of cash flow for many tourism enterprises. However, whether such pre-sale "Opium" will impact the price system and operation of tourism enterprises remains to be determined.

Fierce battle of "double 11" for tourism enterprises

Like the e-commerce platform, the tourism industry has launched the "double 11" marketing activities early. Following the anniversary activities on October 28, Ctrip's "11.11 tourism Carnival" was officially opened on November 1 and ended on November 11; the "travel bee snatching Festival" of Ma honeycomb entered the warm-up stage from November 6, and the formal activity lasted until the end of 20; Feizhu and Taobao synchronized, and the pre-sale was started on October 21; the activity tickets of pig's B & B lasted from October 21 to November 15; Wanda liquor Stores and resorts also launched the "double 11" promotion on the official wechat platform on November 1; Huazhu group's "double 11" activities will be carried out in stages from October 23 to November 13

In 2013, Taobao travel started the "double 11" marketing prelude of the tourism industry. Now, when you open the apps of various OTAs, you can almost see the "double 11" promotion activities. From the first hotels to today's airlines, scenic spots and travel agencies, the participants of the "double 11" in the tourism industry have become more and more extensive, and the battle lines have become longer and longer, and more and more tourism products have been sold. According to Feng Rao, director of the Ma honeycomb Tourism Research Center, the promotional products involved in this "travel bee snatching Festival" cover all kinds of tourism products of major domestic destinations, such as hotels, transportation, tickets, vacations and local tours. Ctrip also said that this year's "double 11" covered all kinds of people and users with the most comprehensive product line of more than ten categories.

"The" double 11 "has become an artificial consumption festival for all the people to revel in, and its influence is growing. As a consumer industry, tourism is hard to stay away from it." Liu Simin, a tourism expert and director of the Tourism Research Institute of the cultural and creative industry research center of Beijing Foreign Studies University, believes that although there is a big gap between tourism products and general products in terms of morphological characteristics and long decision-making cycle of consumers, participation can gain marketing benefits. "In addition, the pre-sale products can completely adapt to the needs of consumers through different combinations of pre-sale products."

From the data released by the participants afterwards, in addition to the advertising benefits, the "double 11" has a more obvious effect on the performance. During the past five years, the average annual increase of purchase orders of "double living" group was more than 60% in the past five years. Wang Xin, executive deputy general manager of marketing department of Wanda hotels and resorts, also said in an interview that "double 11" activities can not only promote the sales of products through promotion, but also bring a lot of exposure to the brand through participating in activities on the platform. "

In this special year, "double 11" marketing activities may still be an opportunity to turn over. According to Ctrip, in order to meet the needs of the epidemic situation, Ctrip's "double 11" marketing activities focus on free travel, private groups, destination participation, and surrounding tours. For self driving tours, Ctrip has also increased subsidies for car rental. In terms of product structure, more products with long time such as pre-sale and promissory notes are mainly used, and the service guarantee of refund at any time is used to reduce the order cost of users.

Compared with previous years, the types and methods of preferential products have been constantly upgraded. Before the "double 11", xinxinfeifei was launched by airlines and xinxinzhu by hotels became the main products. Some hotel products such as catering, entertainment tickets or local characteristic experience were still popular. Huazhu, Feizhu, etc. are targeting members with the "double 11" discount. According to Huazhu group, in addition to the pre-sale coupons, during the "double 11" activities, when you log in to the app of the Chinese society of housing, you will receive the "super rights and interests gift package", the ticket of rongchuang paradise, as well as the xibeiji card, Didi coupon bag, breakfast coupon, delayed check-out coupon and other welfare packages. According to the data, as of November 3, the accumulated sales amount of Huazhu group's "double 11" promotion activities exceeded 15 million yuan, and the accumulated sales rooms and nights exceeded 70000.

"Marketing tourism products through the" double 11 "campaign is needed by the tourism industry facing development difficulties." Li Xinjian, Dean of the school of tourism management of Beijing Second Foreign Studies University, further said that how to timely innovate and supply leisure and holiday products in line with the normalization of epidemic prevention and control is also an important test point for the tourism industry under the new development pattern. In a sense, the sales performance of "double 11" can also be used as the tourism enterprises in the epidemic Under the influence of the situation, it is a "touchstone" to enhance resilience, timely response and transformation and development.

Opportunities and risks of pre-sale mode

If the special price constitutes the longitude of the "double 11" and the pre-sale mode is the latitude line, the combination of the two constitutes the key feature of this year's "double 11" marketing war in the tourism industry. In March this year, the hotel took the lead in launching pre-sale to recover funds. The "double 11" continued the special pre-sale, and expanded to airlines, scenic spots and holiday products.

Compared with the pre-sale products of "Xinxiang Airlines" and "Shenzhen Airlines" in the two years, the pre-sale of "Xinxiang Airlines" and "Shenzhen Airlines" has increased significantly, The sales volume of Shanhang magic carpet has exceeded 38000.

In terms of hotels, many hotel groups tried to pre-sale products during the "double 11" last year, but the quantity was limited and there were many restrictive clauses at that time. The reporter found that this year's Hotel pre-sale price is more favorable than in previous years, and the restrictive terms are much less. Basically, except for the Spring Festival, which can not be used or need to be increased, almost all holidays are covered.

However, some people believe that the special price pre-sale will damage the pricing system of the hotel and other suppliers. However, Huazhu group told reporters, "as a festival promotion, special price pre-sale will not affect the hotel's own price system. The basis of pricing ability lies in products and market." They believe that the "double 11" Carnival itself is very popular among the new generation of consumers and has a higher acceptance. The participation of the hotel group is more hope to participate in the marketing activities of the younger groups through the development of new marketing ideas and methods, and enhance the brand influence.

Liu Simin believes that in the formulation of price strategy, product suppliers will have certain considerations. "We will consider the sale requirements beyond the" double 11 "period to set a reasonable price. We will not only focus on the" double 11. " Facts have proved that with the improvement of domestic epidemic situation, the hotel price system has recovered well. According to public data, as of September this year, the average RevPAR of Huazhu hotels has been restored to more than 90% of the same period last year. Wang Xin also said that the price of Wanda hotel has been adjusted through the revenue system, and the price of Wanda hotel has gradually returned to the level before the epidemic.

"The premise of development is survival. It is also necessary to promote sales collection and balance revenue and expenditure in the form of discount. " Li Xinjian said. But he also admitted that how to balance brand value and current revenue is indeed a problem for high-end brands, including high-end hotels. In this regard, he believes that the key to solve the problem lies in the judgment of these brands on the future development trend.

Liu Simin believes that if the price and quantity are properly controlled, the brand will not be affected. He further explained that "hotels will open up periods with high vacancy rate according to their experience and inventory. Through the promotion of double ten, we can not only revitalize the inventory, but also win word-of-mouth and get advertising effect with a small amount of money."

At present, there is not much public pre-sale write off data, but the interview results show that the write off is generally maintained at about 50%. According to Wang Xin, Wanda hotels and resorts in different channels and platforms write off the proportion is not the same, self owned platform write off rate is higher, about 50% ~ 60%, some OTA channel write off rate is generally about 40%, there are some individual items, the write off rate is about 30%. According to Ctrip's data, as of October 28, 2020, the transaction volume created by Ctrip's live broadcast matrix, including "boss live broadcast", "weekend shop search" live broadcast and "overseas local" live broadcast, has accumulated more than 2.4 billion yuan, and the product write off rate is nearly 50%.

Advance payment for future travel provides liquidity for hotels and saves money for consumers, but the risk is two-way. For consumers, the current pre-sale mode has no industry standard, how to protect the rights and interests of consumers?

Liu Simin believes that although there is no industry standard, consumers will have electronic contracts when purchasing, and travel agencies generally also have model contracts jointly formulated by the Bureau of culture, tourism and industry and commerce, which can be used as the basis for rights protection. Therefore, consumers must keep their eyes open and see clearly the requirements when purchasing in order to protect their rights and interests.

Different from Liu Simin's emphasis on consumers' initiative to protect their rights, Li Xinjian believes that the particularity of the epidemic situation has raised new problems on the practicability of consumption and the guarantee of supply. For example, if the supplier of tourism products goes bankrupt due to the epidemic situation, the loss of consumers' purchase object will cause many problems. The lack of timely supervision and relevant regulations also makes large-scale pre-sale have certain risks. Therefore, it is necessary to regulate the access conditions and safeguard clauses of pre-sale to protect consumers' rights and interests to the maximum extent.