After the epidemic, the hotel industry changed and shuffled. Is it too late to enter the market now?

As one of the hottest formats in the tourism market, B&B's industry has never lacked topicality.

The discussions and topics about B&B are either due to the rising demand for vacations in Zhou Bianyou, the exquisite content shared by social platforms, or the increasingly fierce market competition among major booking platforms.

However, among all kinds of voices surrounding B&B, the role of the landlord that best embodies the "master culture" seems to be "invisible".

According to "Basic Requirements and Evaluation of Tourism B&B" issued by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on 20 19, tourism B&B refers to a small accommodation facility with no more than four floors of business premises and no more than 800 building areas. People and their owners participate in the reception by using idle resources such as local idle houses to help tourists experience the local nature, culture, production and lifestyle.

The reception of the host (landlord) makes B&B a warmer accommodation space. They are the creators of this space and the first role in the process of bringing housing to the market.

The epidemic brought some cold thinking time for the "B&B fever", and the role of landlords began to change subtly. Some people entered the market at the bottom of the bargain, some people continued to raise prices, and some people left sadly ... 202 1 Is it too late for the hotel industry to raise prices? Market changes, industry transformation, what are the confidence and concerns of new and old homeowners?

Shuffle: After the epidemic, is it too late to join the homestay industry?

The epidemic brought about a major reshuffle in the industry, but most people chose to stay.

At the end of 2020, Feng Weihe, the head of Meituan B&B, shared a set of data at an event: after the outbreak, only 10% of landlords chose to leave their jobs, and 90% of landlords planned to continue their business or even expand their business scale.

Li Hai and Huang Zeng, the landlord of the hotel from Wuhan, once said, "No matter what changes the epidemic has brought to the hotel industry, we have never thought about giving up. For us, being a homestay is a profession. "

The landlord's insistence comes from his confidence in the long-term development prospects of the market.

In July 2020, domestic inter-provincial tourism resumed; During the "Eleventh" Golden Week, the national * * * received 637 million domestic tourists, a year-on-year recovery of 79.0% based on comparable caliber. During the 20021May Day holiday, the number of domestic tourists exceeded 230 million, up by 1 19.7% year-on-year, and recovered to 103.2% in the same period before the epidemic.

202 1 is a special year.

Under the overall stable situation of domestic epidemic prevention and control, the economic internal circulation stimulates the release of tourism consumption potential, and the tourism market accelerates to pick up. The demand for local tourism and Zhou Bianyou has brought many opportunities for the recovery of the B&B market. At the same time, the "frozen" outbound travel has not been lifted, and the return of outbound consumption is particularly beneficial to the high-end homestay market.

From the specific data, in June 2020, Meituan B&B has achieved positive growth year-on-year; During the "May 1" period this year, the demand increased more than expected, and the full-seat rate of Wuhan B&B exceeded 90%.

Demand has returned to the growth track, but the market supply has not fully recovered. It is reported that the number of houses in the hotel industry is about 97% before the epidemic. This market gap is the opportunity for new entrants, attracting more and more new landlords to join. According to the B&B Industry Research Report 2020 issued by China Tourism and B&B Development Association, online landlords will increase by 16.5% in 2020. Especially from the growth curve of 20 18 -2020, although the growth rate has slowed down, the overall growth is still considerable, indicating that the epidemic is still difficult to stop the entrepreneurial enthusiasm of residents.

In addition to the market space brought about by changes in supply and demand, policy encouragement and market environment also play a role in boosting the accelerated expansion of the hotel industry.

In terms of policy, in September, 2020, the General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Accelerating the Development of New Consumption with New Forms and Models, proposing to further cultivate and expand all kinds of new forms and models of consumption, and supporting the development of accommodation by relying on the Internet. Zhejiang, Hainan, Shandong, Jiangxi, Guangxi and other places have also issued relevant documents to promote the high-quality development of the hotel industry.

At the same time, the domestic B&B booking platform has been in full swing for nearly ten years, and the competition among initial players such as Airbnb, Tujia, Meituan and Mubird has intensified, and content platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Tik Tok have also tried to share pies across borders. To be sure, in the battlefield of B&B booking, whether it is to expand the business scale, increase the number of orders, or improve the quality of supply, housing has always been one of the cores that Internet players compete for. The platform's preferential policies for new residents will also give birth to more new homes.

Transformation: 202 1 What kind of hotel does the market need?

Whether it is the growing travel demand after the epidemic or the Internet giant's accelerated layout of the hotel track, many factors are pushing the development speed of the hotel industry back to the right track.

Taking Meituan as an example, the data shows that in July 2020, Meituan B&B has become the first industry platform in China to resume positive overnight growth after the epidemic. In June of the same year, 5438+ 10, Meituan B&B had more than170,000 active landlords and 800,000 online houses in China.

However, as one of the hot formats in the cultural tourism industry, the hotel industry is also facing many transformation challenges.

At one time, due to the low barriers to entry in the industry, the concept of "as long as there is an idle house, you can be a homestay" prevailed. Many low-end homestays, with their comparative advantages of early entry into the industry and low operating costs, barely "shouldered" the barbaric growth period of the homestay industry, but at the same time, they were caught in the competitive trap of homogenization and low quality.

Then during the epidemic, the change of demand side is obvious. Based on the return of outbound travel consumption and the limited distance of some trips, the demand for leisure and holiday in the domestic tourism market continues to rise, and the demand for local tours (urban micro-tours) and Zhou Bianyou is strong. This requires B&B to provide more added value beyond the accommodation function. At the same time, the provision of services other than non-standard design and experience is becoming more and more standardized, especially in health and safety management.

The change of market demand also forces the hotel industry to present three most intuitive transformation trends:

Standardization of homestay housing

B&B is not standardized in terms of theme features, space design and accommodation experience, but it also needs to be standardized in terms of service quality and supporting facilities. If B&B products always provide standardized hardware facilities and thoughtful services, it will also effectively enhance its core accommodation experience and avoid the low quality of B&B housing.

The Standard of Service Quality of Villagers' Hostel issued in September, 2020 can be regarded as one of the attempts to standardize the management of homestay industry. However, the nature of this document is still a recommended national standard rather than a mandatory standard. It only has reference significance and voluntary use scope, and it is not easy to implement it.

During the epidemic, Meituan quickly launched the "Safe Living" activity, and the qualified housing has significantly improved in terms of order volume and conversion rate. In April 2020, when the number of homestays exceeded 6.5438+0.5 million, the first hygienic standard for homestays formulated by enterprises in the industry was issued, including 65438+0.8 hygienic standard and a set of hygienic rating system.

Diversification of product experience

Focusing on the accommodation function, B&B fully taps the local culture and surrounding tourism resources, and provides differentiated accommodation experiences such as "B&B+ attractions/folk customs/culture ……". * * * is the core attraction of B&B. On the one hand, it helps to extend the consumption chain and increase the unit price of guests every night; On the other hand, it is conducive to the sharing of users in the new media era, improving product reputation and the possibility of repurchase.

B&B's product model, which integrates special catering, interactive experience and other services, will also become a powerful way for B&B to cope with homogenization competition.

Wang Anan, founder of Wish B&B, told Zhihui that in addition to the special accommodation in Beijing quadrangles, guests can also enjoy value-added services such as rickshaw tours in Hutong and VIP tours in the Forbidden City, and more experiences of Beijing flavor elements are integrated into their B&B products.

Wang Zhe, the host manager of Ningbo Seven Cats and the co-founder of snail traveler B&B brand, also mentioned that in recent years, with the increasingly diversified needs of tourists (especially young customers), B&B needs to improve the overall competitiveness of its products from accommodation, photography, audio and video, interaction and other aspects. At present, in the homestay operated by the Wang Zhe team, projectors have almost become standard; In addition, according to the theme style of different houses, the accommodation space also includes interactive photo elements such as Hanfu, kimono, and sunset lights of online celebrities. Their latest idea is to integrate the hottest scripts into the hotel and add more interactive experience elements.

Specialization of homestay landlord

Whether it is the standardization of homestay housing or the diversification of product experience, the transformation behind it points to the necessity of improving the professional ability of landlord groups in product design and operation ability.

"After the epidemic, users have higher requirements, which will also force industry operators to accelerate the improvement of operational capabilities and service levels." Feng Weihe, head of B&B of Meituan, once pointed out that due to the low entry threshold of B&B industry and the form of part-time small landlords, many landlords have not received professional training, which leads to the lack of guarantee of service quality and uneven service level.

In this regard, the advantages of the platform in overall planning and integration are once again highlighted. Meituan B&B launched the industry HSR index in 2020, standardized the rating of millions of houses through three modules: service quality, business index and housing quality, and based on this, provided more operational suggestions and optimization measures for landlords. In addition, it also provides free teaching videos for landlords through the "Landlord College" platform to improve the knowledge training system.

In addition, under the background of new media, the landlord's specialization is also reflected in the internet marketing method. B&B Blue Book: China B&B Development Report (2020~202 1) shows that in the B&B industry, 53.63% of operators have official WeChat accounts, 43.32% have Tik Tok accounts, and 17.75% have established independent websites./kloc-0. It can be seen that the self-media marketing method has been widely welcomed by the landlord group.

Worries of entrants: Hot business is not simple.

202 1, B&B is still booming, and market changes and transformation trends provide many opportunities for players waiting for bargain hunting. In addition to opportunities, there are many challenges to enter the industry.

The first is the choice of city and place.

At present, the hotel industry is facing the problem of "uneven cold and hot" in urban distribution. The hotel industry in first-tier cities and new first-tier cities has developed rapidly, especially in Chengdu-Chongqing, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei markets. However, urban choice is also facing the uncertainty risk of policy tightening. At the end of 2020, the Notice on Standardizing Housing Management in short rent jointly issued by the four departments in Beijing made it clear that housing in short rent was prohibited in the functional core area of the capital, which once had a great impact on the hotel industry in Beijing.

After the city is determined, the location of urban homestays and rural homestays will also be affected by comprehensive factors such as traffic accessibility, the number of business districts, the distance from scenic spots, public facilities, target customers, and the consumption power of surrounding markets.

Secondly, the choice of distribution channels.

As one of the * * * economic formats born on the Internet, B&B orders cannot be separated from huge online distribution channels. Choosing a B&B booking platform first means traffic and conversion rate, as well as the subsequent ability to boost the optimization and upgrading of housing. This will test the user scale, housing integration, accurate recommendation algorithm and so on. And its * * * will determine how the platform empowers landlords and houses.

At this point, giants with both traffic, technology and scale are relatively more advantageous. For example, during the epidemic, Meituan's huge traffic base and systematic service ability in the local life field were highlighted in the hotel reservation business.

Peng Xiong, a homestay operator from Wuhan, said that in 2020, Meituan will provide traffic support for eligible homestay landlords; During the "May Day" period, consumers were also given cash back red envelopes through platform promotion activities to increase the booking volume of B. According to Peng, because the traffic of Meituan was more inclined to local tourists, most orders came from Meituan platform.

In addition, we should also consider the ability of hotel business to resist risks.

Bian Yaguang, the founder of Wuhan Residential Apartment, is not only the landlord of the hotel, but also positioned the company as a "value-added service provider of idle real estate". It provides unified housing custody services for owners, part of which is used for B&B's short rent business. ..

Ji Yan, founder and CEO of Orange Road B&B, also introduced that in addition to self-operated housing, its B&B also includes offline custody business and landlord cleaning services. On the one hand, this model revitalizes the idle houses for the owners and saves the trouble of part-time landlords in operation and management; On the other hand, it can also reduce the investment risk of hotel operation as much as possible while ensuring a certain profit rate. Therefore, it has become a new choice for many hotel operators.