Dai Bin | At the Time of Transformation and Reconstruction - Special Comment on the 2023 Labor Holiday Tourism Market

After the implementation of "Class B and Class B management" for the prevention and control of the COVID-19, economic and social development and people's life soon turned to normal, and the turning point of tourism recovery came earlier than expected. After the Spring Festival, the overall situation of the epidemic in the country continued to remain stable. The policies released intensively before the holiday on health, transportation, culture, and tourism all aimed at a common goal, to prosper the market, ensure supply, and strive to create a safe, orderly, and high-quality tourism market environment. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that since April 29, all personnel coming to China can replace nucleic acid testing with antigen testing 48 hours before boarding, and airlines will no longer check the pre boarding nucleic acid testing certificate, which means that all entry barriers related to the COVID-19 epidemic have been eliminated. Years later, looking back at history, the significance of the 2023 Labor Day holiday as a turning point for the tourism industry may become clearer: the Republic has achieved its first centenary dream and is confidently walking on the path of building a socialist modernized country in all respects. Everyone works hard for a better life, and during the rare five-day holiday, families travel and self drive away. We will be filled with tears because the pupils from all directions came to Tiananmen to watch the flag raising ceremony, tourists and citizens sang the national anthem in Nanchang Bayi Square, and also because of the unexpected encounter with green frogs in the scenic spots and blocks, and the "social cattle" in the panda world - the "Three Princes of Xizhimen" - smiling at each other, showing small and exact happiness in the circle of friends, and also because of the congestion of roast Expressway and the crowd in the scenic spot. There were too many happy moments during this holiday, but there were also a few small regrets. It was just right, everything was as normal as life should be.

The decisive victory in the tourism battle against the epidemic has been achieved, and the tourism economy has ushered in a strategic turning point from market recovery to high-quality development

In 2023, the labor holiday tourism market will continue the trend of "high opening, stable growth, and accelerated recovery" since the Spring Festival. According to comparable standards, the number of tourists and tourism revenue will exceed the same period in 2019 for the first time, marking a strategic turning point for the tourism industry from market recovery to high-quality development. According to the official website of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the overall holiday tourism market presents the characteristics of "high in the front, hot in the middle, and rising in the tail, safe, stable, and orderly". Tourist satisfaction, corporate sense of gain, industry confidence, and international recognition have all reached new highs, with no major safety accidents or negative public opinion related to tourism. During the entire five-day Labor Day holiday, 274 million domestic tourists traveled nationwide, a year-on-year increase of 70.83%, and recovered to 119.09% of the same period before the epidemic on a comparable basis; The domestic tourism revenue reached 148.056 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 128.90%, and recovered to 100.66% of the same period before the epidemic on a comparable basis. Tourist satisfaction reached 82.1, an increase of 2.1 compared to the same period last year, reaching a new high. The inbound and outbound markets are also steadily and orderly recovering, with positive public opinion on tourism both domestically and internationally. This holiday, tourists have gone even further. During labor holidays, the average travel radius of tourists was 180.82 kilometers, a year-on-year increase of 81.59%; The average recreational radius of the destination is 15.98 kilometers, a year-on-year increase of 167.16%. The proportion of cross provincial tourists reached 24.50%, an increase of 15.5 percentage points compared to the same period last year; 83.47% of tourists traveled over 100 kilometers, an increase of 9.73 percentage points compared to the same period last year. Domestic air tickets have seen a simultaneous increase in both quantity and price. According to booking data from Qunar.com and latitude and longitude data from Baidu Maps, the average straight-line flight distance of the top 50 popular routes in China during this year's Labor Day increased by 93.2 kilometers compared to 2019. The top ten flight destinations departing from Beijing and Shanghai have an average distance of around 1700 kilometers. The round-trip high-speed rail tickets between Beijing and Tianjin were already sold out before the holiday, and for the first time, all tickets from Shanghai to stations across the country were sold out. Compared to traveling by plane and high-speed rail, more tourists choose to "give me a road and drive away". According to data from the Ministry of Transport, on April 29th, the traffic volume exceeded its historical peak, and the daily average cross-sectional traffic volume of national and provincial roads increased by about 31% -40% compared to 2022. The proportion of cross provincial, long-distance, and outbound tourism has reached a new high in the labor holiday tourism market in the past five years. According to special monitoring by the China Tourism Research Institute, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan, Sichuan, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan, Zhejiang, and Shaanxi have the highest number of tourists traveling, accounting for 57.98% of the total number of tourists traveling in the country; Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, Sichuan, Henan, Zhejiang, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan, and Shaanxi have the highest number of tourists received, accounting for 61.44% of the total number of tourists received in the country; Among cities below the sub provincial level, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Xi'an, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Changsha, Zhengzhou, Nanjing, and Suzhou lead in the number of tourists received, accounting for 16.37% of the total number of tourists in the country. Relatively speaking, the number of tourists from northwest, northeast and other regions is insufficient, and the popularity of Hainan is not high. Traditional tourist destinations far away from the main source of customers and remote areas are significantly undersaturated. Danzhou, Jinchang, Heihe, Yushu, Nujiang, Jiayuguan, Yichun, Hegang, Shuangyashan, and Datong have relatively fewer tourists, with the bottom 50 cities receiving only 1.29% of the total number of tourists received nationwide. This holiday, tourists stayed longer. According to a special survey, the proportion of one-day tourists during holidays decreased by 6.0 percentage points compared to the same period last year, while the proportion of tourists staying for more than 2 days increased by 9.55 percentage points. The rural tourism orders in Wuxi, Jiangsu exceeded 37% of the same period in 2019, with orders staying for more than 3 days increasing by 123% compared to 2019. With the development of individual travelers and smart tourism, tourists rely more on public transportation systems for their travel in destination cities. The diversity of transportation modes and the completeness of infrastructure such as buses, subways, taxis, shared cars, and shared bicycles at destinations allow tourists to freely move around like locals. From the perspective of tourism consumption structure, activities such as catering, shopping, communication, and cultural participation occur more in commercial environments and daily life scenes outside of scenic spots and resorts, and have a cumulative effect on the normal consumption of local residents. In fact, what allows tourists to stay and revisit for a long time has always been a shared and beautiful life with its convenient transportation system, complete infrastructure and public services, modern commercial environment, and high-quality services. This holiday once again proves that a new stage of mass tourism with shared experiences between hosts and guests has arrived. As the focus of tourism work shifts further to cities, it is inevitable that the planning, construction, operation, and promotion of tourist destinations must shift from beautiful scenery to living scenes. This holiday, tourists have had a more cultural experience. In recent years, the integration of art, technology, and tourism has effectively promoted the content creation and scene creation of the holiday tourism market, creating more cultural and tourism deep integration scenes with reference value and promotional value. The China Tourism Research Institute has released 10 classic cases of the integration of art and tourism, including "Hangzhou City Study", "Memories of Yangzhou under the Half Moon", "Song of Everlasting Regret", and "Tonglu Landscape Art Season", before the holiday, which have attracted widespread attention in the tourism market. According to a special survey, 72.53% of tourists participated in two or more cultural activities, an increase of 6.63 percentage points year-on-year. Beijing Yanqing Strawberry Music Festival and other places, Shandong Yantai Midi Music Festival, Changzhou the Taihu Lake Bay Music Festival, Wuzhen Spring Art Exhibition, Minnan Quanzhou Local Life Carnival, Yunnan Touch Your Black Carnival, let this holiday not only be a smoky kebab in the world, but also a fashion combining traditional folk customs and new art, as well as music, opera, dance and dense calligraphy. Disney, Universal Studios, Happy Valley, Haichang Ocean Park, Chimelong, Yinji, Fangte and other theme parks and resorts have incorporated more scientific and technological elements and cultural connotations, fostering a new scene of deep integration of culture and tourism. Thousands of elementary school students from Harbin Polar Park have entered the park to participate in research courses on marine animals such as penguins, beluga whales, and Arctic wolves. This has shown us the spirited study of scholars and the journey of our country and the world. The tourist who said 'The world is so big, I want to go and see' encountered the art of 'letting the world see/the world we see', and the sunshine of 'reading ten thousand books, traveling ten thousand miles' filled the journey of countless travelers. This is the underlying logic of exhibition style socializing, Chinese style Hanfu, boiling tea around the stove, and music gathering, and it is also what Chinese style tourism should look like.

02 The tense and orderly Labor Day holiday of roast while traveling is over. Social questions and reflection of the industry are still going on. Can we have more holidays? Faced with the trend of "people following the crowd", "cars and cars", "siege cities", and "blocking camels" in hot scenic spots, online public opinion has begun to shift from fancy rhetoric to rational exploration of the current public holiday system, such as the necessity of compensatory leave, the possibility of increasing holidays, and the implementation of paid leave. It should be said that the appropriate increase of 1-3 days of public holidays throughout the year is based on public opinion and meets the conditions for economic and social development. It is suggested that the National People's Congress launch the special research work on the revision of the Measures for National Annual and Memorial Day Holidays in a timely manner. The National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and other relevant departments have carefully listened to the opinions of all parties, and effectively promoted the implementation of the task of "optimizing the distribution pattern of national holidays and statutory holidays" in the National Tourism and Leisure Development Outline (2022-2030) based on scientific evaluation, government simulation and stress testing. Fundamentally speaking, the solution to concentrated holiday travel lies in implementing paid leave, allowing the people to truly not only "make their own decisions on my itinerary", but also "make their own decisions on my time". This matter has been called for for many years, and it is time to come up with practical measures and include them in the assessment and supervision matters. How far is the scenic spot free of charge? Scenic spots are a relatively broad concept that encompasses multiple types. The pricing authorities do not require theme parks such as Disney, Happy Valley, Yinji, Chimelong, and Haichang Ocean Park to offer free tours, nor do tourists demand free transportation or access to goods and services. According to documents released by the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and other ministries, the policy of reducing ticket prices has always been aimed at developing state-owned scenic spots that utilize the natural resources and cultural heritage owned by the whole nation. Encouraging state-owned key scenic spots with conditions to lower ticket prices, "making it affordable for the people to play", is an established macro policy and micro regulatory value orientation, as well as the future development direction of scenic spots. Scenic spots with urban park nature, strong local financial capacity, and high governance level, such as West Lake in Hangzhou and Elephant Trunk Hill in Guilin, have achieved or are demonstrating the economic and social benefits of the free model of scenic spots. Shandong Province and Mount Huangshan City are making policy assessment on the exemption of scenic spot tickets, which should become more and more institutionalized and perfect, so that more local residents and foreign tourists can share the fruits of tourism development. How to balance the interests and demands of tourists, residents, communities, and urban development requires more wisdom and patience from scenic spots and price management departments, but the overall direction will not change. Anyway, we cannot enclose all the beautiful scenery and collect tickets, let alone cover the scenery along the line with curtain walls just to collect tickets. Can market diseases such as "unreasonable low-priced tourism", forced consumption, and price fraud be cured? Holidays are the peak period for concentrated travel, and in the absence of short-term supply changes, there is objectively upward pressure on the prices of goods and services in tourist destinations. It should be said that tourists have expectations and are understandable for catering and accommodation operators to moderately adjust prices during holidays. The demands of tourists and regulatory requirements are that the price adjustment mechanism must be compliant, and the prices of goods and services must be open and transparent, especially with clear pricing. Small and medium-sized enterprises and individual businesses must operate with integrity. Enterprises and individuals who violate laws and regulations must bear the cost of punishment, imprisonment for minor offenses, and heavy sentences for serious offenses. Market supervision, price management, social security and other departments should give equal protection to the consumption rights and interests of tourists and residents. Just because the consumer subject whose rights and interests are damaged is tourists, they should not be completely handed over to the cultural and tourism departments for handling. According to the "Three Determinations" regulations, the cultural and tourism departments are unable to provide administrative relief for tourists whose rights and interests are damaged in the social environment by non travel agency organizations. According to the principle of territorial management, each region should focus on catering services outside of scenic spots and resorts, as well as shopping, entertainment, and self funded projects organized by travel agencies in key areas. Authoritative media and government platforms can strengthen the promotion and guidance of residents and tourists in the form of public service advertisements, and have basic discriminatory power against obviously unreasonable low-priced tourism. Tourism services "have no free lunch". Once consumer rights are damaged, personal freedom is restricted, and life safety is threatened, it is necessary to promptly call hotlines such as 12345 and 110 to seek necessary administrative and judicial remedies. How long can internet celebrities stay popular? With the rise of internet famous cities such as Zibo, Luoyang, Xi'an, and Dali, more and more tourist destinations are paying attention to the role and function of traffic in the tourism economy. They hope to create popular projects through special planning, festival events, and cultural performances, and even the short videos of cultural and tourism bureau directors are becoming increasingly popular. At the same time, there are also media and professionals questioning how long internet celebrities can remain popular. Looking at the history of tourism development and destination evolution at home and abroad, we can draw a basic conclusion: tourism needs internet celebrities, but internet celebrities are not everything about tourism. At any time, the image of a city and scenic area is the result of both self shaping and external shaping. A convenient transportation system, well-developed infrastructure, public services and commercial environment, and high-quality lifestyle are all the underlying logic for the development of tourist destinations. Excellent content itself is traffic and channels, coupled with creative promotion based on the underlying resources of the destination, internet celebrities will become famous and become classics. On the contrary, without this underlying logic, no matter how clever the planning is, it won't be popular for long. Compared to popular destinations and scenic spots, some traditional tourist destinations, especially tourist cities with relatively weak local consumption support and mountainous tourist attractions far away from source areas, have both anxiety about insufficient traffic and a sense of powerlessness in creating innovation. The big data monitoring of the China Tourism Research Institute shows that during the labor holiday, the number of tourists in the northwest, northeast and other places is insufficient. The number of tourists in Danzhou, Qiongzhong, Heihe, Baoting, Yushu, Jiayuguan, Yichun, Hegang, Datong, Shuangyashan, Changzhi, Ali, Altay, Wuwei, Karamay, Diqing, Xinyu, Jiuquan, Baiyin, Jincheng and other places is not large. The total number of tourists received by the bottom 50 cities nationwide is only 51.42% of the number of tourists in Chongqing, which ranks first. The tourist attractions that once took off one golden signboard after another and repeatedly broke the historical record of tourist reception have begun to hover between market turning points and industrial transformation. Some traditions are destined to disappear and become turbulent waves in the long river of tourism history; Some will become classics, serving as the foundation of rivers, lakes, and seas, and building the cornerstone of innovative development in the tourism industry. No one will always stand in the center of the stage, waiting for applause to ring. If we still guard the distant scenery and do not understand the changes in consumer demand and the tourism market, even if there are many golden signs attached, we cannot stop the sadness of prosperity always being blown away by the rain and wind, and only a river of spring water flowing eastward.

After the turning point of the tourism epidemic and market recovery, the tourism industry, which has returned to a normal track, has begun to answer the question of industry restructuring and reconstruct the development concept of tourism. After the foreign exchange oriented inbound tourism stage in the last two decades of the last century, the comprehensive development stage of mass tourism promoted by consumption in the first two decades of this century, and the tourism industry after the financial crisis, SARS, COVID-19 round after round of external shocks, it is necessary to seriously consider and reconstruct the development theory of why, who to rely on and what to do for tourism development on the basis of review, and thus reshape the new pattern of tourism development. We must face up to the dual economic and social attributes of the tourism industry, starting from the economy and starting from the culture, and focus development on the people's right to tourism. Allowing the people to have time and places to travel, and being able to afford and satisfy themselves during the tourism process, should and must be the essential regulations and internal requirements of the tourism system, tourism industry, and all tourism related work. To this end, we must take tourist satisfaction as the guide, expand opening up, promote supply side structural reform, and use more efficient market methods and administrative means to promote the deep integration of culture and tourism. We should promote the extensive integration of tourism with agriculture, industry, and service industries, as well as technology, education, art, and creativity, and truly cultivate the tourism industry into a strategic pillar industry of the national economy and a modern service industry that satisfies the people more. Refactoring the elements of tourism resources. So far, the natural resources of mountains, rivers, and water, as well as the cultural resources of heritage sites, are still key factors in attracting tourists to visit. However, innovative creativity and a fashionable and vibrant lifestyle oriented towards the future are more attractive to the new generation of tourists. This is an era where tourists define the tourism industry, rather than the tourism industry defining tourists. When tourists enter the commercial environment and living scenes of their destinations in a self driving, self-service, and independent manner with the attitude of "I make my own decisions on my itinerary", tourism resources will inevitably go beyond the standardized narrative system of natural and cultural resources, absorbing all localized living resources from theaters to markets. New resources include all tangible astronomical, geographical, urban, and rural areas, including investment, production, trade, circulation, and consumption spaces involved in all economic activities, as well as all material and non-material forms of excellent traditional Chinese culture, revolutionary culture carrying the red gene, and socialist advanced culture that highlights national rejuvenation and people's happiness. From this perspective, cultural spaces such as landmark buildings, concert halls, art galleries, and theaters, commercial districts such as shopping centers, restaurants, bars, and coffee shops, as well as "Village Evening" and "Village BA" representing rural cultural revitalization, may all become new tourist attractions and resources. Refactoring the market system of tourist source areas. In the period of relatively fixed demand for inbound tourism and the primary stage of stable consumption growth in mass tourism, tourism operators only need to develop resources and ensure supply. Today, domestic tourists are the main consumers of mass tourism, including retired cadres, middle-income groups, and ordinary working-class people. It is worth noting that rural residents are no longer just passive tourists, but have steadily and firmly stepped onto the stage of comprehensive development of mass tourism as tourists. With the addition of more "small town travelers" and "new generation travelers", tourism demand is no longer fixed, and the tourism market is not flat. Demand is beginning to classify and consumption is beginning to stratify. Some people choose internet famous cities as their travel destinations, some fly to unfamiliar cities for concerts, and some continue to choose reverse, parallel, or special forces tourism. A 100 yuan scenic spot ticket and a 200 yuan hotel accommodation fee may only be a budget that some tourists overlook, or they may be the price ceiling for another group of tourists. The market is getting bigger and the market is getting smaller. In this sense, you can enter any track, but you cannot please everyone. Reconstruct the spatial pattern of tourist destinations. Compared to rural areas, cities have endogenous high-frequency consumption demands brought about by economies of scale and density, as well as well-established infrastructure, public services, and commercial reception systems. In this sense, a tourist destination is the sum of its living environment, and the commercial environment is the key to competition among tourist destinations. If we do not have a clear understanding of this, we cannot understand why some non popular tourist cities, non internet celebrity check-in blocks, and traditional scenic spots did not receive the expected number of tourists during this holiday, while internet celebrity destinations were anxious due to the questioning of "how long can internet celebrities become popular". Understanding this point will lead to understanding and recognition of the strategic judgment that the focus of tourism work in the new era must and can only be shifted to cities. Considering the differences in national conditions and the level of economic and social development in different regions, we also need to focus on the hierarchical classification system of "urban agglomeration - super large cities - large cities - medium-sized cities - county towns - central towns", and strengthen in-depth research on the spatial pattern and evolutionary characteristics of tourism destinations from an urban perspective. National parks representing the most beautiful land, national cultural parks representing cultural heritage, as well as regional development strategies such as Beijing Tianjin Hebei, Guangdong Hong Kong Macao, Yangtze River Delta, and Central Plains urban agglomeration, are reconstructing the traditional spatial pattern of land divided into east, west, and east, as well as the spatial pattern of tourism destination development. Reconstruct the development mode of modern tourism industry. Industrialization is a circuitous production process of "using machines to produce machines", which is based on division of labor and specialization, and aims to improve efficiency and expand the market. Whether we are willing or unwilling to admit it, the traditional tourism development model based on natural gifts and historical heritage scenic spots as suppliers, and wholesale retail travel agencies as channel merchants, still follows the primary industry logic of planting and fishing. Whether we see it or not, the era of modern tourism industry has arrived, relying on theme parks, vacation areas, commercial districts, and homestay intensive development areas as spatial support, supported by technology, art, humanities, capital, and entrepreneurial teams. This era follows the logic of division of labor and specialization, and has introduced digital production methods. Due to the existence of entrepreneurship and innovation, industry boundaries, market entities, and competitive patterns, everything is dissipating and reconstructing. One year ago today, it was the most difficult time in the tourism war against the epidemic. The words we left for history are: 'How should China's tourism history record the five-day holiday of Labor Day in 2022 in a few years? The answer may be: seemingly unremarkable, but it is full of changes and changes.'. Today, one year later, the tourism epidemic has finally achieved a decisive victory, marking a turning point in the market and a time for industrial restructuring.