95% of cultural tourism projects are losing money, understand the reasons and solutions in one article

Recently, I checked relevant information on Google and found a shocking news: only 5% of China's tourist attractions are profitable, and 95% are losing money!

On the one hand, the market is in full swing, and on the other hand, there are tragic scenes of victims everywhere. Isn’t it said that the most promising industry in the 21st century is tourism? Isn’t it said that the era of universal tourism has arrived? What happened to tourist attractions?

One of the reasons: Don’t understand operations and have no planning.

Some people mistake planning for planning. So I found several planning companies to PK their plans, and what was the final result? Ended with failure! Let’s talk about our views on planning and operational planning:

Whether it’s a theme park or a comprehensive cultural tourism project, there are still many issues regarding who should do the operational planning and planning first, and who is more important. Local governments or companies simply do not understand the importance of operational planning and planning!

Many local governments or companies especially like to find some academics to make conceptual plans first and make the pictures more beautiful. They mainly deal with the government. As long as the leaders like it. These conceptual plans do not include market analysis, overall project positioning, industry selection, business combination, development strategy, innovative marketing, operating models, revenue generation and returns, etc. These are precisely the soul of the project's operational planning.

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Academic concept planning is mainly carried out according to traditional routines, changing the text and pictures in other companies' planning texts, and even the pictures are not changed. It can be done in a few days, but in order to fool the layman, some plans that can be modified in a few days have to be said to be done in dozens of days, so as to get a good price.

In fact, it is very difficult to implement an operation plan with top-level design. To operate and plan a cultural tourism project, several related projects need to be implanted, including early market research analysis, project positioning, and business format and industry selection and layout. , generating income and returns, later moving lines, secondary sales, marketing and promotion, basic operations and capital structural arrangements, equity structure, etc. Moreover, the fee is less than 30% of the planning fee. In this way, some companies are still unwilling to pay more for operation planning fees and get a top-level design operation plan, thinking that planning can be done in one step and they can save operation planning fees.

In order for a cultural tourism project to be implemented perfectly and successfully, and to bring huge benefits and returns after the project is opened, if there is no professional operation team that goes deep into the project area to conduct market research, collect local humanities and history, and analyze Surrounding market demand and consumption power data, understanding of the operating conditions of competitors in the same industry, etc., do not do enough preliminary work, and the operation team does not have practical capabilities and successful cases in this industry, but casually delivers a project and plans it first. This is absolutely impossible to have a satisfactory result!

Among the numerous cultural tourism projects in China, how many people have paid a huge and painful price with tears and money? It’s worth taking a warning!

Many people choose academic planning mainly because of their background in state-owned enterprises, their strength and qualifications. Of course, their strength is real, but there is one thing that most people ignore. This kind of state-owned enterprise planners have a superior background and environment. I seek stability, go to and from get off work on time, and rarely go deep into the folk and landscape to experience life.

The operators in the grassroots stage are often different. First, they all come from the cultural tourism industry and have an in-depth understanding of the beautiful mountains and rivers. Second, they have an understanding of the current industry characteristics, market, and future customer groups. They know their needs well; third, they are unconstrained in creativity, and the boss of the operating agency rewards creativity; fourth, they meditate day and night for an idea, read through various classics, and can stay away from home for days and nights. How many academics are there? Can anyone do it? Can someone who is not a big-city academic do it?

Academics are only advanced in research theory, but this is not the case when it comes to putting it into practice. Almost none of these planners have ever worked in the cultural and tourism industry. How can they come up with this lack of practical experience? What about good results? A coach who cannot swim cannot train a diving champion!

Therefore, almost 99% of their plans are made behind closed doors, on paper, unrealistic and unable to meet market demand. When the project team finally discovered that this planning plan could not be implemented, they realized that they had suffered a big loss without planning it first, but they did not want to spend money on planning anymore. In order to save money, they could only find some small companies to repair the original plan. Repair, this kind of tinkering is getting worse and worse, and the more you make it, the more it looks different. This kind of practice that you know is wrong, but you don’t know what to do, but still bite the bullet, is bound to suffer big losses, and it is a common problem across the country! It's everywhere!

Operation planning is the soul of the project. For any successful cultural tourism project, operation experts must first conduct market analysis, precise positioning, industry selection, business combination, development strategy, and innovative marketing for the project. , operating model, revenue generation and return, etc., based on this soul and overall idea, we will guide and connect the next step of planning.

If a project skips operational planning and goes directly to planning, it will inevitably lead to repeated changes. No matter how it is changed, the project will lack a soul and will not be able to be implemented in the end.

Most governments or companies always mistake planning for planning, so they find several planning companies to PK plans, or department leaders who want to save money are blindly confident and play the planning role themselves. After all the hard work, can you imagine the final result?

All planned cultural tourism projects are bound to fail

Yuanjia Village is successful in the northwest. If the case of Yuanjia Village is copied to the south of the Yangtze River, will the local environment be able to adapt to it? Culture can be copied, but its roots cannot be moved. A successful cultural tourism project requires location advantages, culture, weather, geography, people, policies, wisdom, expertise, models and many other factors, all of which are indispensable.

Therefore, we cannot just follow the trend and learn mechanically when we see others succeed. We must combine local culture, characteristics, and folk customs, and rely on a good cultural creativity to do top-level operation planning and business formats. Get twice the result with half the effort!

The second reason for failure: mechanical copying and blind "copy + paste"

Some people are used to copycatting, too lazy to think independently, and cloning has become a trend. I heard that a certain theme project was very successful, so I cloned one; when I went abroad to inspect something and found that it was good, I cloned one.

Some contents of cultural tourism projects can be copied, but not all. The positioning of cultural tourism projects must be adapted to local conditions and combined with the actual conditions of a specific region. A good cultural tourism project grows, rather than being imposed mechanically.

The third reason for failure: excessive innovation and difficulty in implementation

In order to highlight the "differentiation" of cultural tourism projects, some people over-innovate and go too far.

The most common one is a one-sided understanding of "differentiation", thinking that differentiation means absolute uniqueness and exclusivity. This is a terrible cognitive misunderstanding. Some things become absolute to a certain extent and are actually no longer feasible.

Another misunderstanding is to complicate simple problems. For example, some experts may wish to summarize 108 kinds of cultural tourism projects in order to show that they are knowledgeable and well-informed, including all kinds of weird and bizarre things.

In fact, no matter how it is classified, there are only about ten types. Excessive pursuit of novelty can easily lead to niche projects that are not mainstream, leading to narrow alleys or even dead ends.

Another situation of excessive advancement is that some companies are too idealistic when doing cultural tourism projects and are out of touch with the company's development stage and comprehensive strength. Projects must be "based on time, place, and people." People usually focus on "time" and "place," but ignore "people." Three points of planning and seven points of operation. Only when the people are right can things be done right.

The fourth reason for failure: only playing with concepts

The core of cultural tourism projects is promotion, not land speculation, and we cannot put the cart before the horse.

In order to deceive the government into acquiring land, some real estate developers have concocted some concepts that look like cultural and tourism complexes, but in fact they are just real estate with different vests. When the "pseudo cultural and tourism complex" is exposed, the government will be disgusted, and developers may not be able to obtain subsequent land.

Of course, there is another situation where companies are attracted by the government’s “preferential treatment”. For example, if the government wants to create a hometown of a celebrity or a cultural tourism project with a special product theme, it plans relevant characteristic towns and uses preferential policies to attract investment. In this case, companies take a fancy to the government's "preferential treatment" and ignore the market. Feasibility, if investors do not conduct in-depth analysis and jump in on impulse, they will easily be trapped.

The fifth reason for failure: Blind site selection

Overheating investment in cultural tourism projects will cause some people to lose their normal rational judgment. In the land grab, they blindly win some sites that are not actually practical. Unsuitable land.

The surrounding environment of some land parcels is indeed good and looks beautiful, but it is an investment trap. Cultural tourism projects are not traditional tourism real estate, and location selection cannot be as random as tourism real estate. What's more, in the last round of tourism real estate boom, were there still few projects that were half-dead due to improper site selection?

How can we survive when there are so many reasons for failure?

How can one achieve immortality? There really is no magic bullet. The right path in the world is subject to vicissitudes of life, and the greatest shortcut is not to take shortcuts.

1. Look at the market based on big strategies

The reason cultural tourism projects are so popular is because they are driven by policy factors. Enterprises have always been sensitive to policies and are understandable in taking action upon hearing the news. However, if you pay too much attention to policies, it is sometimes easy to get lost, not to mention that the continuity of policies is not reliable. Once the effect of the policy trend disappears, the pigs on the trend will fall miserably.

To develop cultural tourism, we can study and utilize policies, but we must not rely on policies.

The fundamental of running a business is to return to the fundamentals of the market.

Small strategies depend on policies, while big strategies depend on the market.

We must seize the real trend and the real market, and do not mistake meteors for stars.

What is the real trend and market trend of cultural tourism projects? Of course it’s the market, it’s the explosive consumption upgrade in the era of national tourism, and it’s the burgeoning global tourism craze across the country.

2. You must find the soul first

There should be operational planning first and then planning. The first step in operational planning is the project positioning after market research, including strategic positioning, market positioning, name positioning, functional positioning, industry positioning, image positioning, etc.

Positioning is a systematic project. It is not as simple as just coming up with a beautiful slogan. The essence of positioning will be captured in a good name.

A good name is already half the battle, such as Gubei Water Town. Because it is located in a water-scarce area in the north, it focuses on the concept of water, which greatly enhances its appeal to tourists.

After positioning, comes the big idea. The so-called big idea is to combine regional culture and characteristic resources to creatively propose the core super highlight IP and tipping points that support positioning. Without big ideas, project planning will become mediocre, often large and comprehensive, with no bright moon in the sky.

With positioning and big ideas, the next step is systematic professional work, such as product system, business portfolio, development strategy, operating model, economic analysis, etc. These tasks are relatively easy, and of course must be combined with rich experience of.

In short, operational planning must be guided by positioning and big ideas, rather than directly doing systematic professional work. This is the secret of "soul hunting".

3. Resource integration is the key

The core of cultural tourism projects is content, not platform. Operation and planning of a cultural tourism project is only the first step in a long journey of thousands of miles. The subsequent resource integration work is even more important. A good operations planner must be a resource integration expert.

Cultural tourism planning must rely on cultural operations for planning. The main work of project operations is to build a platform and integrate resources. Resources include industrial resources, IP resources, operational resources, channel resources, talent resources, etc. There are many ways to integrate resources, among which cooperation with relevant industry associations is the most critical.

4. Long plan, short arrangement

A successful cultural tourism should have self-hematopoietic function and achieve positive cash flow soon after its launch. No matter how good the resources are, if the ability to monetize the resources is too weak, resulting in excessive emphasis on assets, it will also drag down the company.

Therefore, at the beginning of planning, it is necessary to do a good job in input-output analysis and development strategy design, so as to achieve long-term planning and short-term arrangements. It is necessary to maximize long-term industrial and regional value while also meeting the short-term withdrawal of funds. Otherwise, the ideal is very full and the reality is very skinny, which is unsustainable.

5. Open the mold first and then find the land

The last tip is to open the mold first and then find the land.

In the past, everyone’s habit was to acquire the land first, and then ask someone to plan and decide what the project would do specifically after acquiring the land. First "open the mold" - that is, first plan what kind of comprehensive cultural tourism project you will build, and then find a suitable land according to this requirement.

The essence is to start from the perspective of corporate strategy first, rather than judging projects based on projects.