New Oriental overweight layout of research tourism, is it "predators into the water" or "cunning rabbits in three caves"?

In addition to deepening the education industry, New Oriental has once again increased research and tourism.

According to enterprise survey information, Guangzhou Sanmao Information Technology Co., Ltd. has undergone industrial and commercial changes recently, and the information behind the equity of Beijing Dongfang Zhuoyong Investment Management Co., Ltd. shows that Beijing Dongfang Zhuoyong Investment Management Co., Ltd. is wholly owned by New Oriental Education Technology Group Co., Ltd. At the same time, the registered capital of Guangzhou Sanmao Information Technology Co., Ltd. has increased to about 765,438+068,000 yuan, an increase of 7.53%. The company's "Sanmaoyou" APP is a global service platform for tourism cultural knowledge content.

This means that New Oriental, a giant in the field of education, has begun to increase the layout of research tourism business when the tourism industry is still in darkness. What impact will this move have on the entire research market?

Lay a foundation for expanding online business

It is not a whim for New Oriental to lay out tourism business.

In fact, in June+10 last year, Sanmaoyou received tens of millions of A+ rounds of financing, and the investor was New Oriental, only three months away from this industrial and commercial change.

As early as the initial investment in Sanmaoyou, New Oriental revealed that as a content service platform, it was optimistic about the development trend of Sanmaoyou from the content of cultural tourism to the content of pan-education. In addition, New Oriental and Sanmaoyou have a strong synergy in business. This round of financing funds are mainly used to study the curriculum content, jointly create children's general education courses and expand the resources of high-quality content.

Sanmao Tour starts with tour guide service and constructs the content ecology of PGC+UPGC+UGC. On this basis, it began to upgrade and transform into a cultural learning platform, extending historical and cultural training courses, online cultural exhibitions, tourism FM and other sectors. At present, Sanmao Tour is positioned as a knowledge platform for tourism cultural content, 20 19, 1 1, and has also won tens of millions of A round strategic investments from sogou.

The constant increase in the number of trips to Sanmao by New Oriental is generally regarded by people in the industry as an attempt to preempt Puckilo and seize the favorable position of the track during the low period of research tourism.

As a subdivision of tourism, research tourism has undoubtedly been seriously affected by the COVID-19 epidemic. According to the survey data of People's Cultural Travel Think Tank, according to the situation that the epidemic was controlled in April last year and the economic operation returned to normal in May, the epidemic at least led to a 35-40% reduction in the overall income of research and tourism enterprises throughout the year.

"Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic at the beginning of last year, our research business, especially overseas research business, has been suspended, and it is completely cold now." Wu Jiao, the head of Mr. Ruby's studio, told reporters that similar small institutions either cut off their research and tourism business or completely transformed.

"We didn't give up the market, but the market gave up on us." Wu Jiao said helplessly that only students can have services. At present, the epidemic situation in COVID-19 abroad is rampant, and even if students dare to go, it is difficult to get a visa.

With the strengthening and promotion of domestic epidemic prevention and control level, many research routes have been indirectly pressed the "pause" button. Take Beijing as an example. Not long ago, the draft for soliciting opinions on research published in Beijing pointed out that in principle, primary schools do not leave Beijing, and secondary schools do not leave the country to carry out research trips.

What kind of courage and strategy does New Oriental have to overweight this seemingly "loss-making" business? The reporter contacted New Oriental, but as of press time, New Oriental has not responded to the interview.

In fact, many people in the industry are optimistic about this move of New Oriental. "The New Oriental Research Division is very mature, with a mature supplier system and customer sales system, which is much stronger than most professional travel companies." Yang Wei, CEO of the study tour circle, said in an interview that the domestic research of New Oriental has never been taken seriously by the group until the outbreak of the epidemic. At this time, the purpose of investing in Sanmao Tour is obvious: the scene of offline travel is online.

In Yang Wei's view, on the one hand, New Oriental has made a breakthrough in the overall layout research, on the other hand, it is also a touchstone in the field of online education in New Oriental. At present, New Oriental is not a head enterprise in online education, but with years of brand building and curriculum accumulation, New Oriental has the ability to become a head enterprise. At this stage, by investing in Sanmaoyou as a pioneer strategy, it can provide suitable opportunities and materials for the growth of internal teams and the strategic thinking of investment.

The COVID-19 epidemic has greatly affected the overseas study and training business of New Oriental, leading to the direct suspension of its international research module. AARON Li, an associate professor of Liaoning Economic Management Cadre College, pointed out in an interview: "This also prompted New Oriental to make a decision, and finally chose to invest in Sanmao Tour to increase the layout of the research tourism market. Under the macro background of the current suspension of international research, it is wise to activate the implementation market of domestic research travel courses. "

advantages and disadvantages

As the big brother in the domestic education field, the strength and achievements of New Oriental in the education industry are obvious to all, but it is like a little boy in the tourism market. What are the advantages of starting from Sanmao Tour and cutting into the track of research tourism?

Li Hui used "predators entering the water" to describe New Oriental's overweight layout and research tourism market. At present, Sanmaoyou has nearly 20 million registered users and about 4 million paid users, and the repurchase rate is around 30%. In AARON Li's view, the multi-dimensional development of Sanmao Tour and various payment modes are conducive to the formation of a virtuous circle of content realization. Therefore, its existing business philosophy, technological innovation and operation mode can be directly used by New Oriental. On the other hand, the data shows that 70% of the profits of Sanmaoyou APP platform come from the tour guide service and 20% from the course section. "It can be seen that the mature tour guide service project will become an effective supplement to the domestic research business module of New Oriental." AARON Li said.

When interviewed by reporters, Wang Cong, head of the Tourism Industry Innovation Center of Jiangsu Institute of Technology, analyzed the advantages of New Oriental from the perspective of tourism industry chain. She believes that New Oriental, as a well-known educational institution in China, has a deep understanding of the integration of "tourism+"by taking advantage of Sanmaoyou. Its essence is the multi-integration of tourism, science and technology and education, which is also an innovation in itself. This enterprise strategy is a comprehensive embodiment of innovation promotion, which can greatly enhance the level of competition and cooperation among enterprises in the tourism industry chain, realize the coordinated development of enterprises, and thus greatly increase the competitiveness of enterprises.

Compared with developed countries in Europe and America, China's research tourism market started late, but the market demand is strong and the development speed is fast. Therefore, travel agencies, consulting agencies and some non-profit organizations are scrambling to occupy the research tourism market. Travel agencies and land agencies develop products based on their own advantages in overseas land service resources, but most of these products are mainly cultural tourism, and some will establish cooperation with local schools to lead students to visit schools. Summer classes, summer schools and summer camps organized by overseas institutions are to join foreign classes and experience real foreign courses.

Because it involves tourism and education, how to balance the proportion of scientific research and tourism has been a topic of discussion in the industry until the Ministry of Education issued a document. In 20 19, the Ministry of Education took study tours, summer camps and winter camps as important carriers to educate teenagers about patriotism, revolutionary traditions and national conditions, and incorporated them into the daily moral education, aesthetic education and physical education of primary and secondary school students, so as to enhance their understanding of nature and society and cultivate their sense of social responsibility and practical ability. Support all localities to build a number of research and travel bases relying on natural and cultural heritage resources, large-scale public facilities, well-known universities, industrial and mining enterprises and scientific research institutions, and gradually improve the reception system.

The above policies have also released a signal: after all, "research" comes before "tourism". This undoubtedly laid a market foundation for New Oriental, which started with education.

However, although New Oriental seems to have many advantages in the research tourism market, the challenges it faces cannot be ignored.

The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the whole tourism market has never stopped. "At this stage, investing in a pan-tourism enterprise is bound to take great risks. However, as an established enterprise, New Oriental has relatively good risk control and coping ability. " Yang Wei said frankly.

In addition, it is difficult to achieve profitability in the short term, which is also a major difficulty that New Oriental needs to face. AARON Li said that the market reputation and social benefits of Sanmaoyou's development and operation are directly related to the overall influence of New Oriental. Although research tourism has been included in the school education and teaching plan by the Ministry of Education and other 1 1 departments, most primary and secondary schools and research institutions have not completed research tourism in the sense of curriculum.

"The main characteristic business of Sanmaoyou is the self-help tour products on Sanmaoyou APP. The existing domestic research module of New Oriental is not positioned in research tourism." AARON Li pointed out that how to adapt to or cut into the market of the above-mentioned research travel courses and implement the "four-five-six, first-year, second-year, first-year, second-year" research travel courses in primary and secondary schools still needs further research and design.

Constantly "tossing" to find a way out

Although the tourism industry started with a "difficult" start in 20021,the overall direction of the future has not changed.

The Analysis Report on the Development Prospect, Trend and Current Situation of Research Travel Industry in 2020 shows that with the urgent need of students in school, the school popularization rate of research travel will increase rapidly in the next 3-5 years. According to incomplete estimates, the overall scale of the research travel market will exceed 1000 billion yuan, and the market scale will further expand with the demand for research travel of adults and elderly people. In the future, the cross-border integration of schools, study agents, training institutions, travel agencies and other related enterprises will become the main direction of the development of research travel, and the concentration of research market is expected to increase. At the same time, through the integration of educational elements, research tourism has created more value and formed differentiated competition with ordinary tourism products. Consumers are less sensitive to the price of research tourism products, so the profit rate of research tourism industry can be better guaranteed.

"In fact, the epidemic has changed not only the business data of the whole year. The epidemic can make the peak in Spring Festival travel rush cool, which shows that the consumption scene and mode of the whole society have undergone profound changes. The research tourism market of 202 1 may be more difficult than that of 2020. " In Yang Wei's view, whether it is the transformation to education or the use of existing communities to develop private domain traffic maps, research tourism enterprises are also very capable enterprises. He suggested that research-related enterprises continue to "toss" and constantly break through consumption scenarios, such as finding business scenarios that can be broken now around tourism.

"Enterprises and institutions involved in research business are making use of the cold winter of tourism to create the connotation of development: on the one hand, through learning and training, further cultivate talents and seize the backbone; On the other hand, if the consumer market is blocked, we will find ways in the capital market to increase shareholders, increase capital and share, and share the pressure. " Wang Cong believes that in addition to the above measures, it is necessary to seek a cross-border "package policy". In 2020, policies on rural revitalization, education, sports, environmental protection, cultural tourism, etc. All of them can be effective, and enterprises can also expand some semi-public projects, such as camps, outdoor sports bases, youth hostels and other internationally mature projects.

Author: Zhang Yaxin