Workers crowded into the May Day holiday

During the first May Day holiday after the outbreak, 274 million domestic tourists traveled. Workers hit by both the outbreak and work pressure chose to start "revenge travel". This article discusses and analyzes this phenomenon. Let's take a look.

Workers who have been cooped up for three years started revenge travel during the first May Day holiday after the epidemic.

For Zibo, which had already become popular before May Day, the arrival of May Day directly pushed the popularity of "roasting" to another climax.

On the first day of the May Day holiday, crowds began to pour into Zibo. Data showed that nearly 45,000 tourists flocked to a small street in the popular barbecue area of ​​Zibo Qianhai Food City; Zibo Station sent a total of 240,252 passengers during the entire May Day holiday, an increase of 85,000 passengers compared with the same period in 2019, an increase of 55%.

In order to dissuade tourists from leaving, the owner of the barbecue restaurant had no choice but to give himself bad reviews. On April 29, #Barbecue restaurant owner gave himself bad reviews in order to dissuade tourists from leaving# became a hot search. In order to have some free time, the owner of the barbecue restaurant gave himself 17 bad reviews, but the system judged them as malicious bad reviews and eventually deleted them. Currently, the restaurant ranks first on the list of snacks and fast food collections in Zibo City.

In addition to Zibo, other popular scenic spots are also crowded with people.

On May 3, a photo of the "Shanghai Bund" taken by the well-known Weibo photography blogger Artravelersr circulated online. In the photo, the Bund was crowded with people. Many netizens exclaimed: "It feels like Noah's Ark" and "It's full of people!"

Due to too many tourists, the subway doors of Chengdu Metro Line 2 were directly crushed on April 30. According to statistics, during the May Day holiday, the subway doors of Chengdu Line 1, Line 7, and Line 2 were all crushed by people.

The traffic jams caused by the huge flow of people continued throughout the May Day holiday. On May 2, the Weibo topic #五一的堵沾沾起离比# became a hot search, and netizens posted photos of traffic jams at various tourist attractions.

"On April 29, the first day of the holiday, there was a 'boat jam' in the Red Canyon rafting section, and the scene was like dumplings falling from the sky." "On April 30, in Jiuquan, Gansu, the Mingsha Mountain and Crescent Lake scenic area was blocked by camels instead of traffic due to the large number of tourists." "Even the Khumbu Glacier at Mount Everest, which is 5,500 meters above sea level, was still blocked at 2 a.m. during the May Day holiday..."

Faced with the crowds of people jumping around in the Forbidden City, some netizens joked: "There shouldn't be so many people even when the court is held."

How many people actually went out during the extremely congested May Day holiday? According to the latest data released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, a total of 274 million domestic tourists traveled nationwide, a year-on-year increase of 70.83%, and recovered to 119.09% of the same period in 2019 on a comparable basis; 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 in 2019 on a comparable basis.

In fact, the travel boom during the May Day holiday had already been brewing in the early stages.

On April 14, the day before the May Day holiday, train tickets went on sale, and many popular routes were sold out within minutes. Many netizens said that they were unable to get tickets within a second, and they had been waiting for more than ten days in advance but still failed.

Just before the holiday officially started, on the morning of April 28, Shanghai Hongqiao, the largest railway station in the country, announced that "all tickets for that day to stations across the country have been sold out." According to a report by The Paper, the Shanghai Railway Station is expected to send 3.82 million passengers from April 27 to May 4, with an average of 478,000 passengers per day.

This has exceeded the passenger flow during this year's Spring Festival travel rush. During this year's Spring Festival travel rush, the peak daily passenger flow at Shanghai Railway Station was 473,000.

According to data from the National Railway Group, the national railway is expected to transport 120 million passengers during the May Day holiday this year, an increase of 20% over the same period in 2019, exceeding the highest level in the same period in history.

In addition, tickets to various attractions were snapped up long before the holiday. On April 27, the official Weibo account of the Old Summer Palace issued a reminder: As of now, all tickets for the first three days of the May Day holiday at the Old Summer Palace Ruins Park have been sold out. In addition, according to Bailu Video, a Beijing netizen said that this is the first time that tickets to the Old Summer Palace have been sold out in 163 years.

Under the Weibo topic "What do you think about the surge in travel during the May Day holiday" initiated by Phoenix.com, most people believe that it is a revenge travel after the end of the epidemic.

1. Price increase and cancellation of B&Bs and hotels

Under the influence of retaliatory tourism, various "chaos" in tourism consumption have frequently occurred.

In order to fully enjoy the first short holiday after the epidemic, many people have made preparations for travel, accommodation and tourism strategies in advance. However, the price increase and cancellation of homestays and hotels on multiple online travel platforms such as Ctrip, Fliggy, and Mu Niao Homestay have disrupted the original plans of many tourists.

In order to have a smooth trip during the May Day holiday, Qiqi booked a hotel online a month in advance. A few days later, the hotel called and said that the order was cancelled due to store renovations. "I felt something was wrong at the time, so I checked online and found that the link for the same size room was still up and the price had increased by 300 yuan. I called the customer service hotline to protect my rights."

Netizen Jia Jia also encountered a similar situation. "I booked a hotel on March 30, but received a call half a month later saying that my order was cancelled because the contract had expired."

There are many people who have had the same experience. In the screenshots of hotel "cancellation orders" posted by netizens, the hotel gave various reasons for consumers to cancel the order, some saying "there was a flood upstairs and the room was soaked and could not be checked in" or "the landlord resigned because he went bankrupt" or "the house has been sold"...

In order to get more benefits, some homestay operators force consumers to make extra payments before they can stay.

Faced with the sharp price increases of hotels and the temporary cancellation of contracts by homestays, many online travel platforms have responded. According to Phoenix Finance, on April 24, in response to the wave of price increases and cancellations of contracts on homestays during the May Day holiday, Meituan Homestay customer service stated that it is a violation of regulations for homestays to cancel contracts and raise prices on May Day. Any business that complains will be punished if caught.

Ctrip, Fliggy, and Xiaozhu Homestay also stated that if a homestay merchant "breaks the contract", they will coordinate to arrange rooms of the original standard or above for the guests, and the maximum amount of the price difference will be 3 times the room rate of the first night of the original order.

In response, the China Consumers Association issued a public statement, pointing out that deliberate breach of contract undermines consumer confidence and disregards laws and regulations, and this trend must not be allowed to "run rampant."

The People's Daily also commented that raising prices after an order is canceled, or deliberate collusion and joint price-raising not only undermine price integrity and business integrity, but also convey negative emotions to the market and may even be suspected of violating regulations and laws.

In fact, with the general increase in hotel prices, many travelers have encountered "hotel assassins".

According to surveys by multiple media outlets, hotel prices in popular tourist cities such as Xichang, Lijiang, Dali, Xishuangbanna, Xi'an, and Hangzhou have generally increased, with some hotel prices even increasing fivefold.

A netizen on Xiaohongshu posted a price comparison of a homestay before and after the May Day holiday, and found that the price of the homestay, which usually costs 187 yuan per night, rose to 1,260 yuan per night during the May Day holiday, an increase of nearly 7 times.

The prices of homestays in Chongqing and Xiamen, which usually cost 100-200 yuan, also rose to 1,000-2,000 yuan during the May Day holiday. One netizen said, "The room I stayed in last night cost more than 300 yuan, but it went up to more than 1,300 yuan for another night. Is there no one to take care of it?"

Recently, a "2023 National Hotel [Labor Day] Price Comparison Chart" has been circulated on the Internet. According to the picture, the first-ranked Qinhuangdao Lavande Hotel has a weekday price of 159 yuan, and the price soared to 1,099 yuan during the May Day holiday, an increase of 591%; followed by Yangshuo Ningyuan Bureau, with a weekday price of 156 yuan, which rose to 1,076 yuan during the May Day holiday, an increase of 590%; the third-ranked Lushan Jinjiang Star, the room price of 178 yuan on weekdays rose to 1,003 yuan during the May Day holiday, an increase of 463%.

Regarding the skyrocketing prices of hotels and homestays, some industry insiders believe that this is determined by the relationship between market supply and demand. During the peak tourist season, the number of tourists increases and the supply of hotel rooms decreases, so prices will naturally rise. Most hotels also need to make up for the losses in the off-season through the income from the peak season.

However, Zhang Tao, a homestay operator, believes that "the peak tourist season is indeed the best time to make money. Although supply and demand determine prices, we cannot push prices too high. Such behavior can easily lead to loss of credibility and is not good for the homestay itself."

2. Is the online travel platform about to fully recover?

Although there are discordant voices, it is undeniable that the surge in domestic travel enthusiasm is driving the recovery of the domestic online tourism industry.

Data from Ctrip shows that the platform's overall travel orders on April 29 increased more than 10 times compared to the first day of May Day last year, and more than doubled compared to the first day of May Day in 2019. Compared to the first day of this year's Spring Festival holiday, it surged 668%.

On April 29, the platform's scenic spot ticket orders increased by more than 500% compared with the same period in 2019, and hotel and transportation bookings also exceeded the same period in 2019.

Meituan data shows that as of 12:00 noon on the 29th, the number of ticket orders for tourist attractions on the first day of the May Day holiday doubled compared to the same period on the first day of the May Day holiday in 2019, among which the number of out-of-town orders increased by 125%.

In fact, the recovery of domestic online tourism has already been reflected.

In March of this year, at a conference call after Ctrip’s 2022 financial results, CEO Jane Sun said, “Since the first quarter of this year, Ctrip Group’s domestic flight and hotel bookings have exceeded the same period in 2019, and outbound travel bookings have increased by more than 300% year-on-year. The darkness before dawn is over.”

According to a previous report by Beijing Youth Daily, in the first quarter of 2023, domestic hotel and domestic ticket bookings on the Fliggy platform have far exceeded the same period in 2019; international hotel bookings and visa processing volumes have increased more than five times year-on-year.

This year, online travel platforms have frequently launched activities to attract tourists. For example, on April 21, Tongcheng Travel, Guilin Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Film and Tourism, and Xiufeng District People's Government jointly launched the "Fei'ermeng Dream Market"; during the Shanghai "55 Shopping Festival", Ctrip issued 1 billion consumption subsidies to users across the country.

The battle for online travel platforms has shifted from online to offline. On April 18, Ctrip opened nearly 200 new offline stores at the same time. According to official sources, Ctrip has signed contracts with more than 1,300 stores in less than 90 days this year. Not only Ctrip, but also OTAs such as Tongcheng, Tuniu, and Lvmama have also deployed offline stores.

Compared with domestic tourism, which has already passed the darkness before dawn, it will still take time for outbound tourism to recover.

Ctrip data shows that the number of mainland outbound travel orders on April 29 increased by nearly 150% compared to April 1 (usually).

May 1st was also the day with the most outbound tourism from the mainland this year, with the number of outbound tourism orders from the mainland increasing by 30% compared with the previous peak (March 1, 2023).

Although outbound tourism achieved rapid growth driven by the May Day holiday, some problems were still exposed.

For example, in media reports, a travel agency manager said that currently the popular overseas travel destinations are concentrated in Southeast Asia, mainly Singapore, Malaysia, etc., and there are fewer long-distance trips.

This phenomenon occurs on the one hand due to limited holiday time and on the other hand due to the impact of visas and international flight capacity.

According to the data released by Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines in March this year, in terms of international route capacity investment, the three major airlines' capacity investment in March increased by more than 4.5 times, 5 times and 3 times year-on-year respectively. In terms of international route demand, Air China's passenger turnover increased by more than 10 times year-on-year, China Eastern Airlines increased by more than 6.7 times, and China Southern Airlines increased by nearly 4.5 times.

In addition, the large-scale loss of personnel in the tourism industry is also one of the important reasons. For example, there is a shortage of tourist bus drivers in Thailand, with a shortage rate as high as 60%-70%; according to the "2021 National Travel Agency Statistical Survey Report" released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the number of employees in travel agencies was 415,900 in 2019, and the number of employees in 2021 dropped to 278,800, a sharp drop of 137,100 in two years.

Although the arrival of May Day has greatly boosted the rapid growth of the tourism industry, can the labor force and infrastructure construction also achieve high-quality growth after the tourism peak?

For online travel platforms, although there are still many problems to be solved, at least they have survived the darkest moment.

Author: Lin Xiaobai

Source: Bianews (ID: bianews8); accurate, fast and in-depth technology media