Learning from the development routes and models of world-famous hotel groups, let’s talk about what attempts should be made to realize groupization of Chinese hotels

1. Theoretical basis for the development of hotel grouping

In the operation of tourism economy, the production of the hotel industry has the characteristics of localized rigidity. Firstly, the production and supply of the hotel industry cannot be like the supply of other industries. Most industries can produce related products by moving the production workshop to the target market, or even transport the products to the world market without moving the production workshop. The products can be Trade. However, the main production parts such as accommodation supply in the hotel industry are immovable, and the accommodation supply cannot be moved to the source market for consumption. In other words, the transaction objects in the hotel industry production are non-tradable. The time and space constraints and non-tradability of objects make economies of scale manifest and realize in the hotel industry differently from other economic types. Therefore, the regionalized hotel groups we have now do not meet the inherent requirements of the hotel industry. A "desirable" hotel group should be a networked and widely distributed hotel group. This is the inherent requirement that meets the characteristics of the hotel industry and tourism industry. sexual.

Secondly, the supply in the hotel industry not only has a rigid problem that cannot increase "production capacity" in the short term, but also has a rigid problem that cannot reduce "production capacity". Furthermore, the accommodation in supply Facilities cannot alleviate the gap between supply and demand through inter-regional adjustments, so competition in the accommodation supply market has natural regional fragmentation. In a unified market economy, market competition within the same industry is geographically diffuse. However, in the operation of the hotel industry, even in a more developed market economic system, the nature of competition in accommodation supply can only be regional competition. It is impossible to develop in a wide-area direction. Since competition is closed, we should be careful about the issue of profit equalization in the hotel industry; at the same time, precisely because of the natural geographical segmentation of the market, competition is always inevitable, and under such objective conditions, price competition is indeed It is a very important means. We cannot simply condemn the price war in the hotel industry.

2. Analysis of the reasons for the slow groupization of national hotels

Theoretically, the hotel industry should have a strong motivation for horizontal integration (generally called hotel groupization in my country) ) is right. However, in the practice of my country's tourism economy, the horizontal integration of the hotel industry has shown alienation. This alienation phenomenon is not only reflected in the slow progress of horizontal integration, but also in the fact that horizontal integration of hotels mainly occurs within a narrow geographical scope (mainly cities as the geographical scope) and rarely occurs between regions; it mainly occurs in domestic entities It rarely happens between a hotel and a famous foreign hotel group but between a domestic independent hotel and a domestic hotel group. There are many criticisms from all walks of life about the slow progress of China's local hotel groupization, which always seems to be a bit resentful that iron cannot become steel. In this regard, we should conduct objective analysis and judgment based on the practice of China's tourism economic development. Otherwise, there will be a lack of strategic thinking for the development process of the entire local hotel group, which will easily lead to "hurrying to seek medical treatment". Not only will it be impossible to speed up the development process, but it may The opportunity and development direction of "medical treatment" have been lost.

Objectively speaking, the slow development of China Hotel Group is caused by the choice of my country’s tourism development path. The choice of the tourism development path with our country's characteristics has caused the difference between the local hotel group environment and the foreign hotel group environment. This also includes the external international environment for the development of local hotel groups. The development process of foreign tourism is much earlier than that of our country. Therefore, most foreign hotel groups have been tested by the market for a long time and have established corresponding mature strategic capabilities in a competitive environment. Well-known serial brands, large-scale transnational networks, advanced reservation systems, diversified management forms, marketing techniques, rich consumer knowledge and abundant funds have supply advantages in entering the emerging Chinese hotel market. Under an economic background with poor foundation and weak foundation, our country has adopted the unconventional method of "tourism entry, entry priority" on the "Mysterious China" platform to develop tourism. Earning foreign exchange is the main purpose of developing tourism.

This development path will inevitably lead to the fact that the hotels built are mainly based on the overseas customer source market, the safety needs of long-distance tourism and the specific mysterious and unfamiliar perception of China, and the general choice of subsequent consumption patterns by tourists based on prior experience. As a result, these overseas tourists tend to choose brands that they are familiar with. Moreover, the backward national economic foundation and the inherent requirements for earning foreign exchange require a large amount of external funds and "imported" human resources-management strength in the hotel process in my country. Therefore, in the hotel industry In the course of development history, the attitude towards famous foreign hotel groups has been basically encouraging rather than inhibiting. This attitude has obviously greatly reduced the barriers to transnational operations of these groups. Not only overseas tourists prefer these world-famous brand groups, but also domestic tourists also prefer these brands due to the certain fit between the growth of domestic tourists and the growth of these brands in China. This optimizes the development environment of foreign hotel groups from both supply and demand aspects. And one of the reasons why these foreign groups are accelerating their entry into the Chinese market is that they are forced by fierce competition in their original markets. The "oligopoly reaction theory" that explains the motivations for transnational operations reveals such a situation. The "oligopoly reaction theory" believes that in an oligopoly market structure, a small number of large multinational companies watch each other's behavior vigilantly. If one company takes the lead in developing overseas, in order to prevent the competitive environment from deteriorating, the remaining competitors will follow suit. , following the leaders to invest overseas in order to consolidate their competitive position in new markets. The domestic growth space of local hotel groups is being squeezed, and the competition for international growth space is fierce, which is naturally not conducive to the development of local hotel groups.

On the contrary, some people are optimistic that with the continuous expansion of the scale of the outbound tourism market of our country's citizens, our country's national hotel groups are expected to repeat the rapid development of foreign hotel groups with the development of their own residents' outbound tourism. The “path” of development. However, even if the scale of my country's outbound market further expands, the expansion of the market size may largely come from the increase in the number of first-time overseas tourists. Chinese citizens' recognition of hotel brands began with famous foreign hotel brands. Without the development of a strong brand that is based in the country and can generate loyalty among the people, this situation of out-of-sync supply and demand will make the expansion of the overseas market only a "moon in the water, a flower in the mirror" for the current ethnic hotel group. If Coupled with the characteristics of domestic residents’ foreign hotel consumption, it will be difficult for ethnic hotel groups to develop naturally with the rapid development of Chinese residents’ outbound tourism – the scale of domestic citizens’ outbound tourism is neither comparable to that of domestic hotels and other tourism-related enterprises operating transnationally. A necessary condition, let alone a sufficient condition for transnational operations. Obviously, it will take a long time for local hotel groups to start their cross-border operations.

In addition, the alienation of development between China and foreign countries in the process of groupization of my country's hotel industry is also related to my country's specific institutional environment. In the process of local hotel groupization, they have been affected by local protectionism. Local protectionism obviously artificially increases the transaction costs of enterprises grouping through mergers and alliances, and delays the process of horizontal integration. However, out of considerations of political performance and the introduction of foreign investment, local governments may relax their obstruction of the grouping behavior of potential foreign investment actors, thus making the groupization of foreign investment actors face a more favorable environment than that of the original actors. In addition, local protectionism is also reflected in the restrictions on the outflow of investment within the region, often hoping that group actors will invest funds locally, which has also led to the emergence of more local hotel groups in the market.

Second, the property rights of state-owned hotels are immobile. State-owned hotels account for an absolute share of the hotel stock. The inefficiency in production and management of existing hotels and the increased abnormal costs on this basis, like abnormal profits above average profits, attract the entry of more efficient potential competitors. However, in the case of state-owned hotels where property rights are not transferable, Under such circumstances, it is difficult to carry out mergers with stock adjustment as the main feature. To enter the market, you can only build more hotels. This will cause further excess production capacity in the entire hotel market, worsen market competition, and vicious price competition will further affect the hotel market. The development capabilities of my country's hotel industry will worsen the growth environment for group actors, thereby continuing to delay the process of my country's hotel groupization, and the realization of my country's goal of becoming a world tourism power lacks corporate-level support.

When the entire macro-environment is developing in the direction of marketization, it will become difficult for the economy to operate in isolation from the trend of focusing on the role of the market. Therefore, overall marketization will definitely make each hotel "mother-in-law" re-establish itself. Examine the problem of losses under the original system, encourage each hotel "mother-in-law" to pay attention to the role of the market, force them to speed up the decoupling process, and accordingly promote the privatization process of hotels. However, many of these decoupled hotels have appeared in the market in the form of hotel groups. Unless there can be a group conglomeration (that is, a second conglomeration) as the author pointed out in 1997, this new form of The emergence will also affect the development of desirable local hotel groups to a certain extent.

Third, there is a lack of long-term consideration of business strategy. From the perspective of potential actors in groupization, hotel companies in my country tend to focus on business operations, but lack long-term strategic arrangements for operating the industry. Therefore, the actual situation may be that a certain hotel is very successful when operating, but once it expands in scale, it becomes horizontal. The integrated development path has had few successes. This is closely related to the shortcomings in the growth of entrepreneurial capabilities under my country's specific institutional arrangements. Most entrepreneurs in our traditional sense are practical, and the development of hotel groups also focuses on reducing prices through expansion of scale, thereby reducing prices. In order to gain market competitive advantage, there is often a lack of "disruptive" innovation, and there is no courage to reduce prices through value innovation, and at the same time establish and cultivate one's own market brand, let alone form a brand spectrum for different market segments. . It is obviously unrealistic to drive the entire industry to surpass through innovative entrepreneurs formed in just a few years. What’s more, even these few innovative talents may be mostly “poached” by foreign-funded groups. .

Of course, this is also related to the traditional Chinese people's "preferring to be a phoenix tail than a chicken head" and the "taken for granted" concept of business development. As the author pointed out 8 years ago, my country's hotel grouping targets should mainly target those mid- to low-end domestically owned hotels instead of relying on national pride to choose the high-end hotel market where we have no competitive advantage. As a result, from now on, we There have been missed opportunities to stay one step ahead. What is even more unfortunate is that when we are faced with continued competitive disadvantages, we naively take it for granted that we have an understanding and grasp of domestic consumers in operating budget hotels that foreign budget hotel groups do not have. In fact, how much knowledge do we have about consumers in the market? How much consumer knowledge do we have that can be transformed into market competitiveness? How much consumer knowledge comes from actual market research? Our entrepreneurs And the group presidents should be the most aware that in an increasingly competitive market environment, hazy consumer knowledge such as "almost", "maybe", and "should" can only make our local hotels The collectivization once again lost the opportunity to compete with foreign-funded economic hotel groups.

In addition, there is a lack of rigorous strategic consideration of the necessity of transnational operations in the hotel industry. Should all our hotel groups adopt transnational business strategies? What is the strategic purpose of transnational operations? Do enterprises and governments have the same goals for transnational operations?

3. Analysis of the relationship between hotel grouping and networking

Some people point out that the lack of strong group network support is the reason for the slow progress of hotel groups in my country. In fact, this problem needs to be solved A dialectical view. First, judging from the current form of groupization in our country, regional (urban-type) hotel groups do not need a reservation network at all; second, judging from the development process of famous foreign hotel groups, these groups are not modern. Group development begins only when there is a strong reservation network. The reservation network is only needed after the group has progressed to a certain level and has further become an important tool to promote groupization. It does not mean that the reservation network comes first and then the hotel group. And judging from the existing data, whether it is a hotel managed by an international hotel management group, a hotel managed by a domestic hotel management group, or a hotel managed by the owner himself, or whether it is a five-star, four-star or three-star hotel, its consumers The groups mainly come from direct bookings by customers and travel agency bookings. The influence of the booking network is not as great as we imagined. For example, among the five-star hotels managed by International Hotel Management Group, direct bookings by customers account for 60%, bookings by travel agencies account for 20.6%, while the hotel's own reservation system and independent reservation system account for 4.6% and 2.3% respectively.

The proportions of five-star hotels managed by domestic hotel management groups are 42.6%, 29%, 23%, and 2.8% respectively; the proportions of hotels managed by owners themselves are 62.6%, 30.8%, 2.4%, and 3.2%. Among all three-star hotels, direct bookings by customers accounted for 44.6%, travel agency bookings accounted for 20.3%, and the hotel's own reservation system and independent reservation system accounted for 21.1% and 3.1% respectively.