The change of contemporary young people's consumption outlook is reflected in all aspects, they no longer blindly follow the trend of pursuing big-name fashion, nor do they show off consumption, but pay more attention to the sense of experience and quality-price ratio, saving money but not reducing taste, which has become the most important feature.
When choosing a hotel for travel, the hotel with both appearance and cost performance can also capture the "heart" of this young people, if the service is a little more enthusiastic, and occasionally a little surprise, then this hotel will properly become the hotel "ceiling" in their eyes.
To meet the accommodation needs of this part of the guests, it has also become another subdivision of the hotel business, positioned in the national preferred business travel hotel brand of the city convenience has always been favored by consumers because of its high appearance and high cost performance, since the previous year after the upgrade of version 4.0 continued to improve, both "high value" decoration style and intelligent room service system, more popular with young guests.
Recently, on the "Top 100 Hotel Brand Influence List in May 2024" exclusively released by Milestone Research Institute, City Convenience Hotel once again ranked first in the economy hotel brand index ranking, and the continuous "record" also made the upgraded City Convenience brand influence and product strength verified and recognized by the market.
The reasons behind how the brand hotel can present a high-quality room environment and service under the premise of ensuring the investment cost and return, and gain the love of young people, are worth further digging and exploring.
01
What do young people care more about when they stay in a hotel?
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, young people pay more attention to the quality-price ratio when staying in a hotel, and the sense of experience is the first factor that determines how they evaluate a hotel whether it is good or not.
In terms of how to make young people live better, Urban Convenience 4.0 has made great efforts. For example, the latest flagship store that has just opened for a month, City Convenience Hotel (Changsha Yaoling Second Xiangya Hospital Subway Station Branch), from the decoration style to the service system, to the furniture, linen, aromatherapy lighting, all of which are upgraded and renovated from the goal of how to make young people live better.
First of all, one of the biggest changes is the visuals. When guests approach the hotel, the first thing that catches their eye is the window-style door, which contrasts with wood grain color and earth gray, highlighting the exquisite elegance and atmosphere of the hotel door, which is also one of the most recognizable brand features of City Convenience 4.0.
This visual enjoyment continues from the door to the hotel rooms, and the decoration continues the colors of nature as a whole, focusing on earth gray, warm moon yellow and azure, so that the hotel space presents a sense of tranquility and warmth. In addition, the lighting is precisely controlled, so that the space is staggered and full of layering, which not only improves the overall environmental quality of the hotel space, but also allows people in the depths to feel comfortable and at ease, which is a kind of enjoyment conveyed from the eyes to the bottom of the heart.
It is worth noting that after the guests enter the lobby, the functional area of the "arc" layout can realize intelligent check-in, luggage storage, independent shopping and other functions, and if necessary, you can open the service mode that is not actively disturbed, so that young people who claim to be "i people" feel more comfortable.
The second highlight of the change is the greater focus on the details of sleep. One of the core values of a hotel is to give guests a good night's sleep, especially for young people. City Convenience 4.0 has created a "six-dimensional sleep culture" based on human nature and user emotional insight, providing a comfortable, reassuring and relaxing sleep environment and services in six aspects: field, light, fragrance, listening, washing and lying.
For example, the aromatherapy system that can relieve anxiety and assist sleep, contains special spices such as bergamot and sandalwood, which can stimulate the brain nerves to secrete dopamine and other happy hormones and improve the mood of guests; The room lighting is also specially designed, for light-sensitive guests, after turning off the lights with one key, coupled with high blackout material curtains, you can enjoy a dark enough sleeping environment without worrying about being "shaken" awakened.
Not only that, the problem of hotel sound insulation, which has always been criticized, has also been specially upgraded and transformed by City Convenience 4.0. For example, the thickened sound-absorbing carpet in the corridor, the three-layer hollow soundproof glass, the double-stop door of the guest room, and the addition of 360-degree sealing strips have improved the sound insulation effect of the door by more than 20%. All the details are designed to make the hotel more comfortable and quiet.
Another major feature of the improvement of Urban Convenience 4.0 is that the overall style is more youthful. On the one hand, the change based on the accommodation experience is the addition of a naughty and cute green cat starting from the hotel logo element, which is also a super IP created by the brand's Dongcheng Group, which is a sign of its embrace of young users.
After this series of innovative upgrades, the Changsha flagship store of the city's convenient 4.0 has received good user feedback, from the business performance of the opening month, the overall occupancy rate can reach more than 85%, and the average room price can be maintained at more than 280 yuan, the overall performance is also higher than the surrounding hotels of the same level, and the Dragon Boat Festival period is almost full.
Among the feedback from the guests who have checked in, there is no lack of praise for the decoration environment of the new store and the attentive service staff, among which some guests mentioned that they are old users of the city convenience brand, and its new stores in different cities can always bring people different surprises.
This may be the reason why City Convenience 4.0 has been loved by residents for so long.
02
How to balance upgrading quality and cost control?
From the perspective of the general trend of the development of the hotel industry, budget hotels are still the cornerstone of supply to meet the demand for public accommodation. Especially based on young customers, the data shows that young people's per capita travel consumption intentions, spending 500 to 2,000 yuan per trip accounts for the majority, of which in terms of hotel choice, the choice of economy hotels accounts for 60%, and comfortable hotels account for 54%.
In the space of its acceptable price, it is the quality of accommodation and the accommodation experience that can be felt that prompts young people to make the final decision. Spending the price of an economical stall, but enjoying a mid-to-high-end level of accommodation and service, is the real cost-effective hotel choice in their eyes.
Based on such a demand upgrade, for the owners of economic hotels, how to complete product transformation and upgrading within a controllable cost, and how to improve services to meet the needs of the current customer group are all challenges that need to be faced.
In this regard, Urban Convenience 4.0 provides a new way to solve the problem. From the perspective of positioning, as one of the core brands of Dongcheng Hotel Group, City Convenience is to serve business travelers who are higher than the traditional economy from the day of its birth, and is positioned as the preferred business travel hotel in the country, and its products can adapt to the economic and mid-end consumer groups.
Since the launch of the brand, after nearly 20 years of development, Urban Convenience has served more than 680 million people, iterated 4 intergenerational versions, and 8 product upgrades before it has today's version 4.0. Not only does the brand and tonality keep up with the trend of the times, but its attractiveness and stickiness to investment franchisees are also the same.
Or in the case of City Convenience Hotel (Changsha Yaoling Xiangya Second Hospital Subway Station Store), according to Wenlv, it is not the first time that the investors of the store have invested in joining the Dongcheng brand, and it is only after seeing the early operating results and being satisfied with the return on investment cycle that they have positioned the new property in the city convenient.
On the one hand, it is based on the optimism about the prospects of the hotel market, especially after the iteration of market supply in a special period, there is a great demand for hotel products with superior geographical location and good product services; On the other hand, the existing investment and operation experience makes investors more interested in and handy in the hotel business, and they choose to join the city convenience 4.0, out of trust and higher expectations.
According to Ms. Ding, the manager of the store, in an interview with Wenlv, Dongcheng has followed up the whole process of the store from site selection to preparation, reconstruction, and follow-up operation. After the renovation is completed, there are 68 guest rooms, whether it is close to the Second Xiangya Hospital, or located in the Yaoling business district, it is only 2 kilometers away from Wuyi Square, the most popular business district in Changsha, and Helong Stadium, a popular venue for various activities.
However, the expectation of investors is to increase the unit price of guest rooms, attract more high-end guests from the perspective of product quality and service, and then shorten the return on investment cycle.
From the perspective of investment costs, according to the information displayed on the official website of Dongcheng Hotel Group, the renovation cost of a single room in its urban convenient hotel stock starts at 20,000 yuan, and the cost of a single room in a rough room starts at 70,000 yuan. If the property is located in a non-first-tier city, the cost of stock renovation will be between 2 million yuan and 3.5 million yuan, and it will also fluctuate differently due to the difference of the property.
And the slogan of "saving half of the investment, selling the price into the mid-range" can really attract investors. The expectation given to Ms. Ding by the investors of City Convenience Hotel (Changsha Yaoling Second Xiangya Hospital Subway Station Branch) is that they hope to return their capital within three years.
As for how City Convenience 4.0 can achieve product quality upgrading and control costs, Li Xiaolin, Chief Product Officer of City Convenience Business Group, revealed the key: in the process of product development and design of Dongcheng Group's products, in order to ensure that the investment model and cost of products are controllable, so that cost performance becomes the first standard, and at the same time, to ensure large-scale replicability, the group proposed and implemented the "New Four Modernizations" for store construction, that is, design modularization, production scale, on-site assembly, and material generalization.
It is also based on the assembly mode that the preparation period of City Convenience 4.0 can be shortened from more than 100 days in the traditional mode to 45 days, and the efficiency can be improved and the total price of core products can be reduced by 20% while ensuring 100% replication of product standards.
The innovation of the Dongcheng Group does not stop there. It is reported that Dongcheng has not only established an assembly research institute, but also proposed a research and development platform to realize the research and development of multi-brand products on one platform, improve construction efficiency, shorten the construction cycle, and be more conducive to product maintenance and iterative upgrading. For the hotel format with sales time, shortening the construction period is to seize the profit cycle.
03
What new opportunities will the upgrading of accommodation demand bring to hotel operations?
It is said that demand drives market changes, and the iteration of the national preferred hotel brand represented by Urban Convenience 4.0 is also the epitome of the upgrading of public accommodation demand.
Continental economy hotels are after 2000 ushered in a rapid layout and development stage, international brands and local brands emerge in an endless stream, such as Home, Hanting, Seven Days Chain and other still common economy hotels were born at that time, but also effectively meet the accommodation needs of business travelers based on cost performance and comfort needs at that time, and open the development process of large-scale chain and brand of Chinese hotels.
With a history of nearly 20 years, Dongcheng Group has focused on the public accommodation track since the birth of the brand, including the core brand of urban convenience, and has taken cost-effectiveness as the core competitiveness of its hotels. Cheng Xinhua, founder and chairman of Dongcheng Group, also mentioned in a public speech that the mission of Dongcheng Group is to let mass travelers spend less money and live better.
It allows consumers to spend less, not at the expense of product quality and guest experience, but to transfer the cost-saving space to the product research and development stage, through the optimization of design, research users, production process optimization, through the transformation and innovation of materials to reduce unnecessary waste, so as to achieve the purpose of reducing costs and making hotel prices more affordable.
Such a product positioning is precisely in line with the consumption concept of contemporary young consumers, which is reflected in the results of hotel operation, which is the visible return on investment and the rapid increase of franchised stores.
According to publicly available information, Dongcheng Group currently has more than 3,500 hotels (including contracted contracts), and the number of registered members of Dongcheng Club operated by it exceeds 88 million. It is worth noting that young people account for a large proportion of its members, with a compound growth rate of 22% in the past four years, 55% of members' room nights, and a repurchase rate of 47%, proving that its membership stickiness is very high.
Seizing the opportunity in the mass accommodation market, which is dominated by young customers, will also continue to be a long-term optimistic opportunity for Dongcheng Group and its core brand City Convenience 4.0. According to the plan previously announced by Dongcheng Group, it hopes to reach 150 million members in the next five years, and enter the top 10 in the world in terms of the number of guest rooms in five years and the top five in the world in 10 years.
On the one hand, the confidence of such a grand goal comes from the confidence in its own products and brand capabilities, and Cheng Xinhua, as the pilot, has found a competitive bow and crossbow model for Dongcheng Group that "focuses on × efficiency and × culture"; On the other hand, investment opportunities brought about by changes in the supply structure of China's hotel market are emerging.
Relevant data show that 80% of China's stock hotels are mass hotels, with a total of 11.3 million rooms and 2.5 billion room nights consumed every year, most of which are economy hotels and mid-range hotels. This part is also where Dongcheng Group's advantageous market lies, and under the dual impetus of demand reversal and continuous improvement of chain rate, Dongcheng's expansion and growth will also usher in new accelerated growth possibilities.
In the process of achieving this goal, there are also high hopes for Urban Convenience 4.0, which is the core brand. According to Li Xiaolin, in the next three years, the brand plans to sign contracts for more than 1,000+ stores, and will face a broader market, from the two lakes to the southwest and north China, to achieve a wider regional coverage.
Wenlv will continue to pay attention to whether the youthful positioning, cost-effective advantages, and high-quality products and services can support the realization of Dongcheng Group's dream and the strategic goal of City Convenience 4.0, and bring more surprises to consumers and hotel investors.
Cover image: Photo.com
Body image: City Convenience Hotel