Online travel: Where is the next trend?

When Liang Jianzhang returned to Ctrip in 2013 , he probably never imagined that from the moment he returned, the market would undergo astonishing changes.

On June 19, 2015, Ctrip announced the issuance of senior convertible bonds with a total value of US$700 million due in 2020 and senior convertible bonds with a total value of US$400 million due in 2025. Prior to this, the industry was hotly discussing the topic of "capital support after the collective losses of online travel": although the four major OTAs suffered collective losses in the first quarter of 2015, after the financial report was released, Qunar obtained US$800 million in financing, and after Ctrip invested in eLong , it received a further investment of US$250 million from Priceline. Earlier, Tuniu received US$500 million in financing led by JD.com.

In addition to these major OTAs, traditional travel agencies are also increasing their investments to build their own "Internet + Tourism" concepts: On August 28, 2014, China Youth Travel Service invested 300 million yuan in Aoyou.com; on October 27, Tengbang International acquired part of the equity of Xinxin Tourism for 195 million yuan, successfully entering the online travel industry; at the end of the year, Utour invested in Youzai Network.

In the entire online travel industry, the continuous influx of hot money has led to a frenzy of price wars in the entire market. However, the question arises: in this fiercely competitive market, are there any new areas with strong development potential? Or even, can this area create another giant?

Where is the new market amid price wars?

Price wars are becoming the main way for OTAs to compete, whether in air ticket business, hotel business, outbound travel or ticket business, and are expected to continue for a longer period of time.

Take Q1 2015 as an example. Qunar increased its investment in hotel business. Its 50% cashback and other activities made the previously quiet online hotel booking market lively. This round of promotion not only attracted the follow-up of peers, but also triggered a backlash from regional associations. An anonymous hotel industry practitioner told NetEase Technology that Qunar's subsidies have significantly promoted business growth, but using a similar taxi subsidy method to subsidize users is, to a certain extent, an impact on the pricing system of regional hotel associations, and a backlash is inevitable.

Hotel subsidies are just the beginning, and the impact of the price war continues.

Recently, major airlines have been reducing the commissions of ticket agents, which has cut the profits of the agent chain to a certain extent; for price comparison platforms, the price advantage of air tickets has been significantly reduced: as the most frequent business, the profit margin of air tickets itself has been compressed, which is bound to affect the platform's revenue generation. An insider of Ctrip told NetEase Technology that the past price war of air tickets has come to an end. With the reduction of agent commissions as the fuse, airlines have begun to operate more travel products on their own, which is the main purpose of this "commission adjustment".

In the opinion of industry insiders, price war is the only way for mature products to achieve sales growth; therefore, once the space for price wars in air tickets is reduced, war will inevitably break out in the hotel business, "For highly competitive categories, the best way to reduce investment is mergers", and so Ctrip invested in eLong, hoping to force Qunar to submit; however, since Qunar ultimately refused to merge with Ctrip, price war will become the only and most effective way to compete in the hotel booking field.

But in fact, the battle to cut the cake in the online travel market has just begun.

Data shows that with the liberalization of outbound tourism and the increase in the number of countries that have implemented visa-free travel with China, the window for outbound tourism is opening up: in 2014, the number of Chinese outbound tourists exceeded 100 million for the first time, and it is expected that the number of outbound tourists will reach 135 million in 2015, a year-on-year increase of 16.8%. In the face of this huge potential market, in addition to traditional OTAs, a large number of entrepreneurs are also eager to get a piece of the pie.

Mafengwo CEO Chen Gang said in an interview with NetEase Technology that the online travel market has begun to differentiate. "In the pre-OTA era, platforms such as Ctrip were oriented towards standardized products. In the post-OTA era, platforms that are based on service experience and provide differentiated products have begun to rise." Chen Gang and Mafengwo have a very clear goal. Through the accumulation of travel communities, they have begun to upgrade to a travel transaction platform and provide users with high-quality travel services.

Of course, this is just an upgrade of communities like Mafengwo in their transformation into service platforms. For a large number of entrepreneurs, directly improving mature services and differentiated products has become the focus of each company's efforts.

When will leisure tourism explode?

In the entire leisure tourism market, there are companies like Mafengwo that have been upgraded from communities, and there are also many products and services that focus on outbound travel categories, such as traditional group tours, self-guided tours, customized tours, and free travel.

Last year, the war of words that broke out between Tongcheng and Tuniu also demonstrated the desire of both parties to seize the top spot in leisure tourism.

Regarding the possibility of a merger between the market leader and the second largest player, Yu Dunde, founder of Tuniu.com, emphasized in an interview with NetEase Technology that although competition in this field is fierce, he does not consider the opportunity of mergers between similar companies. "The market for leisure travel is large enough, and Tuniu needs to continue to invest in one category."

On the other hand, Tongcheng.com CEO Wu Zhixiang told NetEase Technology that competition with Tuniu is also helpful to Tongcheng, not only in terms of business. "As long as we don't break the bottom line of the policy, focus on internal strength and reputation, and don't engage in vicious price competition to hurt consumers, it will be beneficial."

The final foothold of the competition between the two sides is undoubtedly the sensitive word of price, but for the entire leisure tourism market, only if players are willing to continue to invest in the market can it accelerate its formation. Previously, Tuniu announced that it would complete localization in 100 destinations in the future, which is also one of the most important investments in outbound travel.

However, outbound tourism still needs to face new problems. The outbound tourism market has promising prospects, but the Internet penetration rate is not high. According to iResearch monitoring data, the growth rate of China's online tourism market transaction volume will remain above 20%. In 2014, the scale of China's online outbound tourism market reached 19.74 billion yuan, and the Internet penetration rate was less than 10%.

Prior to this, the fields of air tickets and hotels experienced 3-5 years of intense competition before the penetration rate was stretched to 30%-40%. In the field of outbound tourism, online travel agencies of all sizes hope to use capital to shorten the decades-long journey of traditional travel agencies and exchange funds for the number of customers and market share.

Jiang Tao, partner of Gobi Capital, expressed the same view. He believes that although there are no new innovation opportunities in online travel at present, the intervention of capital will accelerate the development of hot areas of the industry. "In the past, it took 3-5 years for the market to grow, but now VC investment may shorten this period of time."

In addition, in this round of rapid industrial development, we have to see the changes in the consumption upgrades of users in the leisure tourism market. If group tours are the starting point, then products such as self-guided tours, free travel, and customized tours are bound to be the users' continuously upgraded demands for tourism services.

Where are the opportunities for entrepreneurs?

A large number of entrepreneurs have also turned their attention to leisure tourism, resulting in the extension of various models, such as customized tours with consulting models, customized tours with single purposes, and so on.

According to the 2015 China Private Report jointly released by China Merchants Bank and Bain & Company, by the end of 2014, the number of high-net-worth individuals in China with investable assets of more than 10 million yuan exceeded 1 million, and the average investable assets per person were about 30 million yuan. In this regard, Jia Jianqiang, the founder of 6renyou, said that this part of the users is consistent with the brand positioning of 6renyou, and customized travel for family users will see a major explosion; Jia Jianqiang told NetEase Technology that if the annual travel consumption of the mass wealthy family users is calculated between 50,000 and 100,000, this will be a trillion-yuan market.

In addition to family tours for 6 people, there are also customized tour platforms targeting high-end users, such as Youxin, which announced that it will soon complete a new round of financing and will be listed on the New Third Board. In an interview with NetEase Technology, Jiang Songtao, the founder of Youxin, revealed that Youxin's positioning determines that user acquisition will rely on a large number of banks and financial service platforms; Youxin currently has nearly 100 travel consultants in the team, and these consultants will provide travel plans for a large number of destinations.

Among this wave of startups in the field of customized free travel, some similarities are that, in the specific tourism business structure of their companies, they rely heavily on travel consultants and travel experts to provide differentiated and personalized services, which determine the user's choices.

"Expert customized services are a balance between standardization and differentiation," said Zhang Pinghe, founder of WorldBang Travel Network. Zhang Pinghe told NetEase Technology that service is the most important thing for free travel. Currently, there are more than 2,000 experts on the WorldBang platform, which can basically meet the questions of users during travel. He believes that for users, the high price of customized free travel in the past is something that many users are unwilling to choose. Therefore, when he founded WorldBang, he defined the use of high-quality services and relatively favorable prices to meet the needs of a large number of users for outbound travel.

Outbound travel has begun to shift from being the exclusive domain of elite users to more middle-class users. In the era of consumption upgrade, outbound customized travel will become the hottest area in the entire online travel market. In the foreseeable future, in addition to air tickets and hotels, the focus of competition in the online travel market will be leisure travel, and this market is bound to have great potential.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.