The entrepreneurial challenge of "outdoor" tourism: before becoming the next outlet, solve these four problems first!

It is another Saturday morning. At Exit C of the south exit of Huixin West Street in Beijing, more than a dozen buses stopped as usual. Flags of outdoor clubs, large and small, fluttered with the wind, and people who were going out in groups of three or five were setting up stalls to buy breakfast.

After 8 o'clock, the subway entrance became empty, and the buses had already sailed to their respective destinations: Dushishan Village, Miyun Gubeishui Town, Bashang Grassland, and even Beidaihe, Taishan and Yantai. ...

This kind of situation will be staged at the south exit of Huixin West Street every weekend, and sometimes there will be a car to pick people up on Friday night. And the Dongzhimen subway entrance. Because there is no shopping and there is no ordinary way, traveling with outdoor teams has become a way for many travel enthusiasts in Beijing and even the whole country. So, is it possible for outdoor travel to become the next mainstream travel mode?

Free travel is a trend, but what if free people can't play?

With the gradual improvement of the spending power of post-80s and post-90s, the proportion of freelancers, mainly young clients and urban white-collar workers, is increasing. According to the data released on 20 13 National Day, the number of free travellers accounts for less than 30% of the total number of tourists. This year, according to the "20 16" May Day Tourism Report and Popularity Ranking just released by Ctrip, about half of the tourists chose to travel independently during the May Day holiday this year, and the proportion of overseas free travel reached 60%.

"Since 20 14, I have found that customers have more and more inquiries about in-depth travel, and the personalized needs are becoming more and more obvious." Wu Fan, a senior travel practitioner and CEO of UUUUke, an outdoor route sales platform, told star pai(startup-partner.com)me.

Although free travel is becoming more and more popular, when you travel by yourself, you have to do the trivial work that was originally contracted by the travel agency. Anyone who has done it knows how much energy it takes. Even so, you will encounter all kinds of problems when you arrive at your destination.

In view of this situation, how does the tourism market respond?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of semi-free travel, customized tour, destination car guide and outdoor club?

In order to seize the increasingly lost market share, traditional travel agencies have launched semi-free products, and many companies and teams choose semi-free travel. However, semi-free travel is still a regular route, and the scenic spots are still not in-depth.

Customized tourism is a very popular industry in recent two years, such as double tour, six-person tour, heart-to-heart tour and so on. Ctrip also launched a high-end swan tour. These projects have developed very rapidly and are favored by many investors. Among them, the second tour won tens of millions of Series A financing, and the six-person tour only completed tens of millions of revenues through the micro-signal of 20 15. Founder Jia said that he plans to land on the New Third Board this year.

Personal tailor's tourism experience is relatively good, but because it needs to provide services to customers 24 hours a day, the cost is high and the audience is limited. The target customers of no second tour are white-collar workers to gold collars, and the six-person tour mainly serves people over 35 years old.

At present, there are services such as "Walking Together" and "Sunshine Car Guide" for destination car guides, but there has been no breakthrough development due to reasons such as price and number of people.

Outdoor clubs should be a relatively cheap free travel mode that can meet people's in-depth and characteristic travel needs at present. Traveling with a group can not only have a unique travel experience, but also the team leader will arrange everything for good transportation. But now outdoor sports are mainly short-term and less long-term.

What are the problems in the development of outdoor clubs?

In the early days, outdoor clubs were unprofitable. Later, a team leader led the team full-time and collected the difference from the activity funds. Now such commercial outdoor clubs are in the mainstream. Nowadays, outdoor clubs are booming all over the country except Beijing and Shanghai. There are more than 65,438+000 outdoor clubs in Xi, Chengdu and even Tibet.

As early as 20 14, more than 30,000 outdoor clubs were registered in China. Green land. Com is a platform for publishing outdoor routes. If you just search for "hiking" on it, hundreds of activity routes will come out.

Although the club is already very popular, there are still problems in the overall development:

First, "it will be disastrous to be stood up", and it is difficult to copy heavy assets on a large scale.

The profit model of outdoor clubs has always been relatively simple, and now it is generally profitable through price difference and selling outdoor supplies.

The price difference mainly refers to the price difference between fares and accommodation. Traditional travel agencies rely on customers to get commissions, and tour guides can earn tens of thousands of yuan a month. Because outdoor activities are fixed prices, the difference that tour leaders can get is limited. According to industry sources, many full-time tour guides "earn more every month."

Long-distance travel is profitable, but the cost is also high. "Go to Tibet for ten days and spend ten thousand less." Sakyo, the founder of Lingrun Outdoor, who has been outdoors for ten years, said, "We can't afford to sign up to stand."

Secondly, some outdoor tour leaders earn profits by accumulating the reputation of team members and selling outdoor products. But most of the products are fake brands, and the sales volume is very average.

Thirdly, because the products are not as standardized as ordinary travel agencies, the experience of outdoor activities is closely related to the familiarity of the tour leader with the destination and the ability to lead the team, which cannot be copied quickly.

Sakyo told me that many outdoor tour leaders insist on doing this just because they like the outdoors.

Second, "people don't raise officials and don't investigate", and vague qualifications lead to security risks.

Qualification has always been a big problem that puzzles outdoor clubs. The qualification of outdoor club is recognized by chinese mountaineering association, and the full name of outdoor club should be "Mountaineering Outdoor Sports Club".

According to the regulations of chinese mountaineering association, outdoor clubs have no right to operate. In fact, only travel agencies have the right to operate tourism. According to professionals, most outdoor clubs on the Internet today don't even have the qualifications recognized by the Mountaineering Association, but because they meet people's travel needs, they have been in a state of "people don't raise officials and don't investigate".

Visitors who participate in club activities often have to bear the responsibility themselves in case of accidents, and it is difficult to hold the team leader accountable. Travel agencies should bear the responsibility if there is something wrong with their participation in activities.

Other clubs subcontract their guests to travel agencies for profit. In case of poor travel experience, casualties, etc., it is difficult for clubs and travel agencies to contact each other and shirk their responsibilities.

Will you eventually be hired by the travel agency?

Although there are various problems in outdoor clubs, more and more people take part in outdoor activities because of its unique experience and civilian price. Take Beijing as an example. Sometimes an outdoor activity can be attended by nearly 200 people, plus it is profitable, so many people regard it as a career, and there are roughly the following directions:

First, set up regular travel agencies. The registration of regular travel agencies requires a lot of money and manpower such as finance and taxation. Only those outdoor clubs that are ready for long-term large-scale development will set up travel agencies. The Scarecrow Travel Agency in Shanghai was originally the Scarecrow Outdoor Sports Association. Now the scarecrow travel agency is still doing in-depth experience tours without shopping. Although the price is obviously higher than that of ordinary group tours, every activity is very popular, and now there are international long-distance lines such as New Zealand and Spain.

Second, service extension. Due to the low profit and high risk of ordinary outdoor activities, some outdoor tour leaders have opened up new business channels, and the company's outdoor business expansion is a direction. Sakyo Lingrun Outdoor has now established an enterprise development base in Fangshan, with considerable benefits.

Third, make a comprehensive platform. Wu Fan, CEO of UUKE, the first leader of the outdoor club of the University, has now set up an outdoor offline sales platform UKE. Although there are competitors such as Greenland and China Outdoor Network, investors are optimistic about this market due to the development of Freetravel in China. In less than half a year, UU customers have got two rounds of financing, and the angel round investor is Hongtai Fund.

summary

In view of the current domestic "semi-green but not red" economic situation, outdoor clubs have better satisfied people's yearning for free travel. However, due to the confusion of qualifications and the limited development of clubs, there is no sign of rectifying the qualifications of outdoor clubs in China at present.

In any case, consumer demand is unstoppable. At present, we are experiencing the stage of germination, growth and outbreak of outdoor sports tourism experienced by Europeans and Americans, but we are not simply copying this process. Compared with other countries, the time window of outdoor tourism from growth to outbreak will be shorter. Let's wait and see.

Exclusive manuscript of Star School by Li Qiao, micro signal tm62532 1.