When going out during the May Day holiday, should you trust Dianping or Xiaohongshu?

Is it difficult to choose food and scenery during the May Day holiday? Dianping and Xiaohongshu have significant differences in recommendations. User portraits, evaluation authenticity, and local life service functions are key factors. We provide decision-making references for you who pursue personalized travel experiences.

If your partner repeatedly rejects your travel plans while you are making them during the May Day holiday, don't rush into a battle with him/her. It may be because you two are using different platforms for reference.

Nowadays, when people are making travel plans, they often divide into the "Dianping Party" and the "Little Red Book Party" in terms of food and scenery. After browsing their respective platforms, the two factions often make very different recommendations. The reason why the "Dianping Party" and the "Little Red Book Party" have different recommendation styles seems to be due to differences in platform user portraits and platform functions. In terms of local life, behind the aggressiveness of Little Red Book, the increasing marketing of merchants and the tone of specific groups seem to have become constraints on its development.

When traveling during the May Day holiday, should we trust Dianping or Xiaohongshu? Users may be able to give the answer only after practicing.

1. Battle in Kaifeng

Half a month before departure, the family members told Brother Pan: "This time when we go to Kaifeng, there are three famous restaurants we must visit, namely Heyuan, Huang's Old Store, and Xingshengde."

However, when Pan Ge opened Dianping.com, he found that these three restaurants were not even in the top ten of Kaifeng's food list. Among them, Xingshengde ranked 11th, Huangjia Laodian ranked 19th, and Heyuan ranked 32nd.

If you want to taste Kaifeng's specialties, why don't you choose the top ten restaurants on the food list, but check in at restaurants outside the top 30? When Brother Pan asked the family member this question, her pupils immediately trembled.

In response to this, the family member told Brother Pan that she searched for "Kaifeng Food", "Must Eat in Kaifeng", and "Kaifeng Food Guide" on Xiaohongshu, and in the drop-down recommendation column, Heyuan, Huang's Old Store, and Xingshengde all appeared. Judging from the amount of interaction among netizens, these three seem to be the top stores in Kaifeng.

Regarding the choice of Kaifeng food, Brother Pang planned to put aside the dispute temporarily, but he and the family members had a disagreement again on the choice of attractions.

For example, after making a travel guide, the family told Pan Ge that the Shanxi, Shaanxi and Gansu Guild Hall was a must-see attraction on this trip to Kaifeng, because she searched for "Kaifeng attractions" and "Kaifeng tourist attractions" on Xiaohongshu and saw this entry in the drop-down recommendation column.

However, after opening Dianping.com, Brother Pan found that in the ranking of Kaifeng attractions, the Shanxi, Shaanxi and Gansu Guild Hall ranked 19th, with less than 500 reviews. It is not only inferior to the Qingming Shanghe Park and Kaifeng Mansion, which are popular scenic spots with more than 10,000 reviews; it is also not as good as Longting Park and Iron Tower Park, which are good places for citizens to relax.

It seems that Dianping and Xiaohongshu have different ideas about recommending food and scenery in Kaifeng; and the two platforms also disagree on travel guides for other cities.

For example, when Brother Pan searched for "Yanbian food" on Xiaohongshu, a restaurant called Qixingbuche became the most popular restaurant on the platform; but on the Dianping food list, this restaurant ranked only 44th in Yanbian.

On the other hand, after Gansu Tianshui suddenly became popular, a local restaurant called Master Wu became very popular on Xiaohongshu; but on Dianping.com, Master Wu only had more than 100 reviews, while local restaurants such as Yingbinlou and Yueman Dajiang had more than 1,000 reviews.

2. What is the difference between “big” and “small”?

Why do Dianping and Xiaohongshu, two "big" and "small" platforms, present different styles in terms of travel guides? The most fundamental reason seems to be related to the user portraits of the platforms.

In October 2023, Guolian Securities calculated the age distribution of users of Meituan's ecosystem and major apps. Among them, Dianping's users aged 19 to 24 accounted for 13.69%; users aged 25 to 35 accounted for 43.67%; and users aged 35 and above accounted for 33.78%.

On the other hand, according to the latest report from Qiangua Data: Xiaohongshu users aged 18 to 24 account for 39.21%; users aged 25 to 34 account for 38.65%; users aged 34 and above account for 22.12%.

It can be seen that the overall age of Xiaohongshu users is younger than that of Dianping users; especially for users under 25 years old, the proportion of Xiaohongshu is much higher than that of Dianping.

In addition, Xiaohongshu's user base is more female and more in big cities. Qiangua data shows that among Xiaohongshu's active users, female users account for 79.13%, and users in first-tier and new first-tier cities account for 69.16%. The different user composition of the platform affects the evaluation of scenic spots and food.

For example, when searching for "Qinhuangdao Tourism" on Xiaohongshu, you will find that Anaya, a seaside literary and artistic holy land, has been visited by countless beauties for checking in and taking photos; however, on Dianping, Anaya Golden Coast Community is not on the list of must-visit places in Qinhuangdao.

In addition to the different user profiles, the difference in recommendations between the two platforms seems to be related to the purpose of scoring. For many users, Dianping is not only a platform for checking ratings, but also a platform for placing orders and consumption. Therefore, some businesses "bribe" users and buy them good reviews with material goods.

For example, when Brother Pan was eating hot pot a few days ago, the waiter said that if he wrote a five-star review on Dianping, he would give him a plate of vegetarian hot pot dishes. The guy who paid the bill said the taste was just average one second, but gave it a five-star review the next second.

On the other hand, for Xiaohongshu users, since they generally do not place orders here and there are no merchant ratings, there are relatively more real reviews. For example, when searching for Cangzhou food on Dianping, 0317 Hot Pot Chicken ranks first on the list with a score of 4.5 points; but when searching for this store on Xiaohongshu, nearly half of the notes are warnings, and some netizens said: "It's very salty, so salty that it chokes my throat." "It's not amazing at all."

3. Local life offensive and defensive battle

With younger users and more authentic reviews, Xiaohongshu seems to be threatening Dianping and shaking its position in local life. Today, Xiaohongshu has not only launched a check-in map in the nearby page to facilitate users to find treasure shops, but also cooperated with some stores to launch group buying and other functions. For example, Brother Pan found a group buying page for Qifentian on Xiaohongshu, where a two-cup set meal of Zhendingliu was priced at 19.9 yuan; while on Dianping, a two-cup set of Zhendingliu was priced at 15.8 yuan per cup.

The reason why Xiaohongshu is catching up with Dianping in the local life sector seems to be due to the vastness of this market.

According to Guohai Securities' forecast: By 2025, the market size of China's in-store catering, in-store comprehensive, and hotel and travel will reach 357.4 billion yuan, 391.7 billion yuan, and 1063.7 billion yuan, respectively. Therefore, it seems difficult for Xiaohongshu, which has many young users with spending power, not to be tempted by the market. However, Xiaohongshu, which seems to have a bright future, may also face hidden worries. First of all, more and more businesses use Xiaohongshu for marketing, which reduces the authenticity of the evaluation. For example, Brother Pang found a coffee shop on Xiaohongshu that was very popular, but most of the users who wrote notes were professional store explorers or the boss's own account.

On the other hand, the problem of filter attractions overturning has also been bothering platform users. Although Xiaohongshu apologized for similar problems in 2021, there are still many types of phenomena being complained about in the platform notes today.

Secondly, recommendations from young women in big cities can easily mislead users of other ages and classes. Since many of Xiaohongshu’s users are young urban women, most of the food and scenery it recommends are from Internet celebrity stores, and the head effect is obvious. For example, the most common comments about the Yanbian Qixing Buche Restaurant mentioned above on Dianping are “good environment” and “long queues”; and some users say the taste is average.

It seems that Dianping is not unable to cope with the aggressiveness of Xiaohongshu; but regarding the choice of food and attractions when traveling, there may be another battle between Brother Pan and his family.

Author: Brother Pang; Producer: Daman; Layout: Yuqi; Source: WeChat ID: IQ Tax Research Center (ID: 1089356)