From traditional camping to exquisite camping, camping is out of the circle

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Under the influence of the COVID-19 epidemic, everything is temporary, especially tourism. The epidemic brought the entire tourism industry to a standstill, and the trend of camping came into being.

According to official data, the number of camping-related notes released in 2020 will increase by 271% year-on-year, and the number of pageviews will increase by 170% year-on-year.

This spring, the enthusiasm for camping has been unprecedented. On May 4, Ctrip released the "2022 May 1st Holiday Travel Report", showing that camping travel is an area that has received additional attention this year. On the first day of the May Day holiday, the popularity of "camping" on the platform reached a historical peak, and the search popularity increased by 90% from last week. Various data are enough to glimpse people's enthusiasm for camping.

What happened to camping? Will camping become the new wealth code?

From traditional camping to sophisticated camping

Before camping was out of the loop, camping was a more niche form of travel - camping was considered an ascetic type of travel with all the gear in one backpack, or the camp provided all the camping gear and just traveled A relaxed travel experience for those who go to experience.

It can be said that traditional camping is minimalist, and can even be simply understood as a simple and simple mountain life with limited modern equipment and using one's own field knowledge and skills. Of course, traditional camping is not an all-out survival challenge, but an advocacy of direct and deep interaction between humans and nature. What is needed for camping is nothing but the necessities to maintain "alive in the mountains".

The current popular camping is exquisite camping that integrates outdoor aesthetics and lifestyles. This is evident in photos of camping on social media. No matter from the perspective of composition, appearance, or equipment, compared to hard-core traditional camping, exquisite camping pursues a sense of equipment, mood and comfortable experience.

The emergence of exquisite camping is inseparable from the epidemic . You must know that before the outbreak of the epidemic, with the acceleration of urbanization in China, the improvement of residents' income levels and the transformation of consumption structure, the development of tourism has been improving. According to data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China, in 2019, the number of domestic tourists in China reached 6.006 billion, and the domestic tourism revenue reached 6.63 trillion yuan.

In 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic has swept the world, and the tourism industry has suffered unprecedented losses. Affected by the epidemic, the number of Chinese tourists has dropped sharply in 2020. In 2020, the number of tourists in China was 2.879 billion , a year-on- year decrease of 52.1%; tourism revenue was 2.23 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 66%.

At present, although the decline in the number of tourists has narrowed every quarter as the epidemic is effectively controlled, the tourism industry is still in a downturn despite the local upward trend of the epidemic. In particular, the "epidemic tsunami" set off by Omicron around the world has caused the domestic tourism industry to suffer from repeated regional epidemics and to recover weakly.

Therefore, affected by the epidemic prevention and control policies of various places, micro-tourism with local tourism and surrounding tourism as the background has developed rapidly and has become an important direction of tourism development . Camping has begun to become a way to travel locally and around. Lakesides, grasslands, and parks may all become temporary places for people to rest.

In fact, when Sanlian Life Weekly reviewed the history of camping in the world, it also found that every rise of camping trend was related to economic crisis or disaster : "The Great Depression in the 1920s made the rich people in continental Europe open up cheap vacations; The financial crisis in the 1990s made the British people replace their air tickets with tents." Now the rise of camping under the epidemic may prove this law.

At the same time, for modern people who have lived in cities for a long time, under the epidemic, there is a desire for nature and fields. What people want to escape is far from just working and living in the city, but wanting to take off their masks and breathe the air, and feel freedom in the face of the vast mountains and fields. What people want to escape is the shackled and altered daily life, if only for a few days or even a moment.

Data shows that first-tier and new-tier urbanites are the main customers for camping, and the comfort and leisure brought by camping attracts these young middle-class people. For young modern people, whether it is a lazy camping that "checks in with a bag" or a demolition camping like moving a house, camping is not just a place to sleep, but a temporary escape from the hustle and bustle of life. Among the tourist sources of camping consumers, Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai, and Guangzhou are among the top four, and together they contribute more than 30% of the tourists.

Under such circumstances, whether it is a real move or a fake follower, to a certain extent, camping has become the most out-of-the-circle activity today.

Camping Economy with Fire

Camping is on fire, and the camping economy is also on fire.

The first is the camping equipment, from the kitchen system - tableware, plates, kitchen knives, cutting boards, buckets and food incubators, refrigerators, to the sleeping system - beds, moisture-proof mats, mattresses, pillows, sleeping bags, blankets, lamps, all is necessary camping equipment.

According to data released by Tmall on April 1, 2021, the scale of camping supplies such as tents and outdoor furniture has doubled for two consecutive years. Outdoor hand-washing pots and retro gas lamps have become the most popular items on Tmall 618. New. During the Dragon Boat Festival in 2020, the bookings of tent camping-related tourism products on Fliggy increased by 72% compared with 2019, and the average consumption amount continued to increase.

It's money, of course, that underpins all this good experience. As far as hardware tents go, Nordisk is at the top of the camping trip. As one of the earliest outdoor fashion brands in the world, Pyrenees is known as "the LV of the camping world" with its technical materials waterproof and windproof, with a strong Scandinavian style and prices ranging from several thousand to tens of thousands of yuan. In addition, there is also a set of titanium Snow Peak cups. Its minimalist industrial wind ring has countless powders. It is known as "the Apple of the outdoors". The noble metal material meets the risk of easy wear and tear in the field.

The full set of equipment also needs to be equipped with Petromax's outdoor retro handmade atmosphere kerosene lamps, which range in price from hundreds to thousands; SOTO's integrated portable folding cassette stove, Chums' outdoor folding chairs and folding carts, and Naturehike's Rainproof and sunscreen canopy; the price of portable outdoor power supply varies from 3000-10000 yuan according to the capacity of lithium-ion battery.

Driven by such consumption, it is difficult for the camping economy to fail. According to data from Tianyancha, there are currently about 54,000 camping-related companies in China. Among them, 8,758 related companies will be added in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 227.52%, achieving the largest growth rate in the past decade. In 2021, there will be 21,000 new related enterprises, a year-on-year increase of 139.50%, which is the year with the largest number of related enterprises registered in the past ten years.

With the masses flocking to it and the profits being considerable, the capitalists couldn't help but take action . In November last year, the newly established outdoor camping lifestyle brand “Big Hot Wilderness” received two consecutive rounds of financing with a total financing amount of 10 million yuan. Fund; In March of this year, "Hi King Wild Luxury Camp" received millions of dollars of angel round investment from Boting Travel, and its positioning was precisely anchored to exquisite camping; in April, the outdoor lifestyle brand "ABC Camping Country" gained hundreds of dollars $10,000 angel round financing, the investor is Tsingshan Capital.

It can be said that under the professional service and rich activities, camping has quietly completed the consumption upgrade. For example, in order to create a "home service" experience, some camping bases will also provide "full support" camping facilities and venues, so that users can experience exquisite life without moving. The price per person ranges from 500-1000 yuan, special car transfers, food and accommodation, tents, sky screens, fish fishing, bonfires, hot pot small barbecues, all arrangements will be satisfactory. But these are only the minimum standards for exquisite camping, which can be regarded as a "luxury version of the farmhouse experience".

The price is generally between 3,000 and 5,000 for the exquisite camping of literary and artistic models composed of wooden houses, starry sky, RVs, music festivals and other elements, and people can see the Milky Way in the translucent dome tent by looking up. There are also some wild luxury hotels with magnificent scenery such as Shangri-La, Xinjiang and Tibet, and the price has nearly doubled.

What else is needed for long-term development?

Although camping looks promising at present, it still faces many problems if it wants to develop in the long run.

Obviously, the sense of ritual created by spending money may not be able to exchange for an equivalent experience. Of course, equipment is necessary, but sophistication is for the circle of friends. In many cases, such sophistication cannot stand scrutiny. Tourists who are planted in various large-scale grasses first need to face the Internet celebrity camps with "inconsistent pictures and texts" and serious homogeneity.

After all, half of the skills of the merchants are reflected in their ability to publicize, and tourists only need to deal with the psychological gap when facing the real thing. It is normal for tourists who are "planting grass" to find that the pictures and texts do not match. The tents are often unspeakably empty and comfortable, and there is often a big gap between imagination and reality. Although it is exquisite camping, after all, it is in the wild, and it is difficult to be as comfortable as home.

For example, the tent hotel of Nanjing Olympic Sailing Camp once reached 2388 yuan/top/day; Tangshan "Mine Leye" camp, the highest camping package for two days and one night on weekends reached 2398/group, and the camping price was close to five-star hotels. However, on social media, many netizens said that mosquitoes, humidity, and low temperatures made "the first camping in my life" not perfect.

At the same time, camping has a strong seasonality. For camping, the environmental force is the main influence. Overcooling and overheating are not the first choice for camping. The camping fever is generally sluggish in winter, especially in the northern region. ". In addition, the camping industry still lacks unified industry norms, and many enterprises still face many problems in construction and operation.

In addition to consumer experience, camping also has a certain degree of impact on the environment. In addition to professional camping sites, most people choose to camp in areas near water and with flat grass. However, after the tent is removed, there will always be disposable garbage in one place, which can even pollute the water in serious cases.

In the final analysis, the impact of the epidemic and the increase in the demand for leisure consumption have made camping rise in mass travel, but under the rendering of major social media, camping is more like a utopia built with money , only a small part of the new middle class. Fighting for equipment, luxury, and wildness in the battlefield makes camping a display board for a luxurious life, which is getting farther and farther away from the popularity of the public.

If you blindly pursue the beauty under the luxury filter, there will only be a carnival of consumer desire deep in human nature. When the tide recedes, people will move to the next consumption outlet, which is ultimately not suitable for the long-term development of an industry.

Camping should be aimed at the public, young people and the future. New young people who yearn for outdoor life should not be shut out due to factors such as price, traffic, and poor information. Only by grasping the needs of the mass market for camping life can we Seize the future of camping.

People hope that this way of play can solve life needs, research needs, play needs, exploration needs, social needs, etc., so that camping can continue to develop as an industry for a long time.