Young people don’t celebrate the New Year properly anymore. The festive atmosphere has faded, so should we change the way we live?

As the Spring Festival approaches, many people are looking forward to going home for the New Year. For some young people, there may be more ways to celebrate the New Year. Behind the young people's pursuit of individuality and self-demand, businesses need to understand and adapt to changes and seize market opportunities. Let's take a look at the story in this article.

Sociologist Fei Xiaotong said that China is a typical "rural China" where home is hometown and hometown is home. Then the Spring Festival is the most influential cultural symbol of "rural China", with the dual attributes of "rural dominance" and "elder-centeredness".

Throughout the ages, the Spring Festival has been an extremely important festival, carrying the multiple meanings of family reunion, ancestor worship and praying, and celebrating the New Year. “Whether you have money or not, go home for the New Year” is a common way to celebrate the New Year.

But today's young people's attitude towards the Chinese New Year has become "less traditional" and they have come up with many new ways to celebrate the New Year.

They are not satisfied with the traditional way of celebrating the festival by returning to their hometowns, visiting relatives and friends, and eating and drinking to their heart's content. Instead, they choose to spend the festival in a more diverse and free way.

This change has not only attracted widespread attention from society, but also hides some new business trends.

1. How do young people celebrate the Chinese New Year?

1. Dahua coordinates and operates in a major Internet company in Beijing

"I won't be going home for the Chinese New Year this year. I have already booked a package tour to Harbin during the Spring Festival. I will travel around Harbin for six days and five nights. This Spring Festival, I will try the Northeastern specialty iron pot stew in the Ice and Snow World." Dahua is a busy migrant worker in Beijing. She is usually busy with work and always has to work overtime. She has wanted to go to Harbin for a long time, but has been troubled by the lack of holidays.

This year is Dahua's seventh year working in Beijing. In previous years, like millions of other workers, she would rush home as soon as the Spring Festival came. However, the Spring Festival was nothing more than family reunions and visiting relatives and friends.

"Where do you do your job?" "How much do you earn?" "Are you married?" "Do you have a car and a house?" "Why don't you find a boyfriend?" ... Faced with the endless urging of marriage and comparisons from relatives and elders, she always feels more anxious.

After turning 30, she finally figured it out. Instead of trying to please others, she should treat herself to a truly free trip. So she made an appointment with her college classmates to go to Harbin, which she had always dreamed of, during the Chinese New Year. Compared with the state of eating and drinking at home, which makes her gain ten pounds every Chinese New Year, traveling can make her feel more happy physically and mentally.

"One of the body and soul is always on the road." Dahua said, "The present situation" cannot be changed, but "poetry and distant places" have always been a good medicine to cure anxiety. Seeing different scenery and experiencing different customs and practices can make you feel the vastness of the world. You can also be liberated from the distress of running around for a living and working hard for trivial matters, and experience the romance of "living somewhere else".

In addition to Harbin, Dahua has many other places she wants to visit, such as Sanya, Mangshi, Xinjiang and Xishuangbanna, all of which are cost-effective choices. "In the rest of my life," Dahua said she wants to visit all of them. "Just think about it, when they are still drinking and talking nonsense at the table, you are playing in the snow in Harbin. It's so cool."

2. Cheng Cheng works in a Shanghai state-owned enterprise

"I would rather exchange my life for money than go home for the New Year."

Like Dahua, Cheng Cheng, born in 1991, does not plan to go home for the New Year this year. However, he is not going home for fun, but to make more money.

"If you work during the Chinese New Year, you can get three times the salary in a day." The Chinese New Year is not only a time for family happiness, but also a good time to make money. According to Cheng Cheng, his life in Shanghai is very stressful. Every month, after paying off the car loan and mortgage, there is not much left. He just wants to make more money during the Chinese New Year.

Cheng Cheng also took advantage of his expertise in photography and took a part-time job in wedding planning. He said that many people get married during the Chinese New Year period, and he could earn 1,800 yuan a day as a photographer in Shanghai. But when he goes home, not only will his income be zero, but he also has to spend a lot of money on visiting relatives and friends. After calculating this "economic account", Cheng Cheng chose not to go home for the Chinese New Year.

When asked if he missed home, Cheng Cheng said that because of the epidemic, his company did not allow him to go home across provinces, and he had not been home for three years. He had become accustomed to staying alone in a big city for the Spring Festival. In fact, returning home is not the only way to celebrate the Spring Festival. Now that social media is so developed, you can always make a video call to relieve your longing for your parents.

"Last year, I had a New Year's Eve dinner with my family via video. I took screenshots and printed them out to keep as photos. It was very meaningful. Although it's a bit regrettable that we can't meet in person, what's more important is that the whole family is together and our hearts are together. This is the real 'reunion'." Cheng Cheng also plans to take his family to see the Bund in Shanghai via video during this year's New Year.

Distance has not blocked their longing for each other. This generation of young people express their blessings through "cloud New Year" methods such as video calls and social media, so that they can convey their love no matter how far away they are.

3. Selena works at a Shanghai health care product company

"Being single in a foreign country, I am urged to get married during every festive season." In the past, every Chinese New Year, Selena was troubled by the problem of not being able to find a partner. Faced with relatives' urging to get married, Selena even wanted to "rent a boyfriend to go home for the New Year."

This year, Selena found a way to balance it, which is "being in Cao's camp but heart is with Han" - although she is in her hometown, she "will never compromise."

"Every family used to be very busy during the Spring Festival, such as preparing New Year's goods, cleaning the house, pasting Spring Festival couplets, setting off firecrackers, visiting relatives and elders, etc., but now I prefer to choose a simple and convenient way to spend the New Year." Selena told the author, "The first thing is to give up visiting relatives."

In Selena's opinion, relatives are becoming more and more "selfish" nowadays. They have to "make trouble" whenever they get together. They either preach without boundaries and urge their relatives to get married or have children, or they compare with each other openly or covertly and gossip about others behind their backs. It is really disgusting and has no nutritional value.

"Relatives appear to be at peace with each other on the surface, but in reality, there are undercurrents. Most of them are only interested in saving face and will never help you when you are in trouble. Instead, they will add insult to injury. The older I get, the more boring it is to get along with these people." So Selena decided not to visit relatives during the Chinese New Year and completely liberate herself.

Instead, Selena would choose to take short trips around, attend parties with friends, watch movies, go to KTV, go out for dinner, attend friends' weddings, etc., focusing more on personal freedom, independence and experience rather than traditional family reunions and celebrations.

2. What business opportunities are there for young people who “don’t celebrate the New Year properly”?

The Chinese New Year is sacred. The older generation would insist on going home for the New Year even if it meant riding a long distance on a motorcycle. But for the young Generation Z, this feeling is unfamiliar. Their happiness of going home for the Chinese New Year is not even as great as getting tickets to their idol’s concert, co-branded figurines, or buying a newly launched Huawei phone.

The various ways of celebrating the New Year reflect the young people's pursuit of individuality and self-determination. From a deeper perspective, this phenomenon is the result of profound changes in the economy and society and the change in the consumption concept of the younger generation. For businesses, understanding and adapting to these changes is the key to seizing market opportunities.

First, the online tourism industry has developed rapidly. Like Dahua, many people choose to travel during the Spring Festival to "change places and stay for a while."

According to a report released by online travel platform Ctrip on January 5, as of that day, bookings for travel products during the Spring Festival were up 45% from last year, and long-distance travel orders were up 72% year-on-year. Compared with the recovery during the New Year's Day holiday, the "volume and price" of Spring Festival travel is rising even more: from January 1 to 5, bookings for Spring Festival products increased at an average daily rate of 30% month-on-month.

On January 9, Tongcheng Travel also released a report stating that the number of inquiries for domestic long-distance vacation products increased nearly 20 times year-on-year in the past week.

Secondly, the experience economy continues to heat up. Unlike the past when people stayed at home during the Spring Festival, young people now prefer experiential consumption, and businesses have launched various experience activities related to the Spring Festival.

For example, some tourist attractions have begun to launch special New Year experience tours, allowing tourists to feel the traditional New Year atmosphere during their travels; some catering companies have launched New Year’s Eve dinner reservation services, providing special services such as door-to-door cooking and private customization, and some KYVs have also launched New Year’s Eve singing packages, providing supporting proposal and engagement services.

Furthermore, personalized products related to the Chinese New Year are in high demand. Young consumers of Generation Z are taking over the purchasing power for Chinese New Year goods and becoming the main force in purchasing Chinese New Year goods. According to a report released by CBNData, in terms of budget planning for Chinese New Year goods, about 40% of young consumers set their budget at around 2,000 to 5,000 yuan, and some young people who are "not short of money" even have a budget of 10,000 yuan. Among them, 86% of young consumers purchase Chinese New Year goods through online e-commerce.

Young people’s pursuit of personalization provides businesses with room for innovation. Businesses can provide a variety of customized New Year goods and gifts for New Year scenarios to meet consumers’ needs for uniqueness and emotional expression.

In addition, social consumption has also become a new hot spot. When it comes to socializing during the Chinese New Year, many people always think of eating, drinking and drinking together, but many young people are not like this. They like board games, script-killing, camping, gatherings, outdoor skiing, etc. These new social needs have also driven changes in the consumer market.

For businesses, this market demand can be met by providing services such as venue rental and event planning.

The Spring Festival is not only a time for weary wanderers to return home and soothe their homesickness, but also a good time for businesses to make money. Behind the "young people not celebrating the New Year well" lies rich economic connotations and business opportunities. Businesses also need to break away from traditional thinking, keep up with the pace of the times, and constantly innovate and seek change in order to remain invincible in the fierce market competition.

References:

1. "Where did everyone go during the most fun Spring Festival holiday?" Beijing News
2. "Travel is booming during the Chinese New Year: Why do young people want to "celebrate the New Year in a different way"? "Phoenix.com
3. "Where do young people today go to celebrate the New Year?" Cultural Industry Review

Author: Ning Que

Source public account: Chief Business Review (ID: CHReview), delves into business logic and helps value growth.