Written by Lai Hsien-ki
Editor/ Chen Dengxin
Typesetting/Annalee
With the opening of the Paris Olympics as scheduled, the popular schedule is frequently searched, and the "dark war" between major travel platforms is about to come to an end temporarily.
As early as the beginning of this year, Fliggy announced that the official flagship store of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games has settled in and officially launched operation. Tongcheng Travel has not only launched domestic group routes, but also launched local destination group products in Paris during the Olympic Games; Caesars Travel, which is deeply involved in outbound travel, has also launched more than 10 group tour packages and ticket hospitality packages for the Paris Olympic Games......
The quadrennial event attracts the best athletes from around the world and serves as an arena for major travel platforms. In recent years, travel platforms, especially OTP platforms represented by Fliggy, are experiencing the impact of platforms such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu. Among them, Douyin has entered the wine and tourism market in a high-profile manner, and the GMV of wine and tourism reached 60 billion yuan last year, and Xiaohongshu, which has long become an important platform for tourism decision-making, is also attracting more and more wine and tourism businesses to settle in.
In short, when Douyin and Xiaohongshu entered the game, "Fliggy" was by no means restless. Variables loom in the online travel landscape, and the current "Olympic tour" is a microcosm.
It's expensive, but it's not worrying
Fliggy wants to share the cake of the "Olympic tour", and its ambitions have long been visible. As early as the beginning of February this year, Fliggy announced that the official flagship store of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games has entered and officially launched operation, where consumers can book travel packages that include the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics and the viewing experience of the popular Olympic events, and claimed that "this is currently the only online sales channel for Paris Olympics viewing products in China." ”
It is understood that the official flagship store of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games is part of the strategic cooperation between Fliggy and On Location, a high-end experiential hospitality service platform. And On Location is the exclusive service provider for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Milano Cortina 2026 and Los Angeles 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games hospitality programmes.
Zinc Scale previously searched for the official viewing flagship store of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games on Fliggy and found that the lowest price of the opening ceremony "Bridge 360 Package" launched by it is 80,216 yuan/person, and the lowest price of the 3-night local "five-star hotel + track and field, diving, gymnastics ticket package" starts at 95,640 yuan/person.
Among them, the "Pont 360 Course", which is a traditional Parisian bistro on the Pont Alma, where you can watch the ceremony while dining, is currently sold out. In addition, some of the most popular events have been sold out. As of the end of July, when Zinc Scale consulted the customer service of the official flagship store of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, the other party said that there was no Olympic package, "it will not be sold off the shelves." ”
In addition, Fliggy data shows that since July, the number of air ticket bookings to France has increased by more than 70% year-on-year, the number of hotel bookings in France has increased by more than 1.5 times year-on-year, and the turnover of visa processing services to France has increased by more than 1.4 times year-on-year.
But of course, far more than just Fliggy gets a piece of the "Olympic tour", after all, no travel platform will miss this event: Ctrip data shows that summer travel orders in France increased by 80% year-on-year, and chartered car travel orders increased by more than 50% year-on-year. Li Jiang, director of Ctrip's chartered tour in Europe, said that due to the impact of the Olympic Games, the number of inquiries for chartered tours in France and neighboring countries has soared, and "France, Italy, Switzerland" and "Benelux" are popular consultation routes; Data from Tongcheng Travel shows that in the first two weeks of June, the popularity of air ticket bookings from major domestic cities to Paris in July increased by more than 70% year-on-year, the popularity of local hotel bookings in Paris increased by nearly 150% year-on-year, and the popularity of group tours to France during the Paris Olympics increased by 225% year-on-year.
Image courtesy of Caesars Travel
In addition, Caesars Tourism, which is deeply engaged in outbound tourism and was once strongly bound to the Olympic Games, has also won the status of the exclusive agent of VIP hospitality products for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games in Chinese mainland and Hong Kong S.A.R., as well as the sales agent and service provider of the official hospitality project of the 2024 European Cup in Greater China (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan). The price of the "7-day viewing tour of Paris one place" is 49,999 yuan per person, while the price of the "10-day viewing tour of one place in France" is 62,999 yuan per person, and the price of the "2024 Paris Olympic Games - France-Italy-Switzerland 13/14 Day Viewing Tour" including the weightlifting final is divided into 76,999 yuan, 78,999 yuan and 79,999 yuan according to the departure place.
Zinc scale noticed that before the opening, the opening ceremony VIP hospitality package priced at 42,400 yuan for Caesars Travel was sold out, while the VIP hospitality packages such as table tennis matches, swimming competitions and badminton competitions were still on sale, with prices ranging from 2,508 yuan to more than 8,000 yuan.
The "Douyin people" began to conquer the city
"In fact, the Olympics or the European Championship will not only drive tourism during the competition, but also long-term event tourism business opportunities, such as the ice and snow tourism fever caused after the Winter Olympics before. We need to tap the potential of cultural tourism from the long-term effect. Cheng Chaogong, chief researcher of Tongcheng Research Institute, once analyzed in an interview with "Yicai".
In fact, there is no doubt that the Olympics and the summer vacation will bring about the tourism heat, but under the boom, the undercurrent flows. Perhaps, even such a high-priced "Olympic tour" package will not be able to alleviate the anxiety of "Fliggy".
Image source: The official Weibo of the Olympic Games
Recalling the Zibo barbecue that will be popular on the whole network in 2023, or Harbin, which will win the wealth of the sky at the beginning of 2024, it is not difficult to find that the travel platform is ushering in an unexpected rival - the first hot search in Zibo in 2023 is the Douyin platform's #College Students Group to Go to Zibo to Eat Barbecue on March 5, with more than 180 million views.
According to BOCOM International's forecast, the scale of Douyin's local life services will reach 250 billion yuan in 2023, of which the GMV of wine and tourism will reach 60 billion yuan, and the GMV of Douyin wine and tourism will reach 90 billion yuan in 2024.
Image source: BOCOM International
This is not unrelated to Douyin's frequent efforts last year: in May 2023, Douyin Life Service officially announced the launch of the calendar room function, which supports hotel booking on Douyin, not limited to live broadcast rooms and short videos. The move is seen as a key move by Douyin in its aggressive assault on Online Travel Agency (OTAs). In July of the same year, Douyin Life Service adjusted its departmental structure and upgraded the hospitality business to a subordinate first-level department, which is parallel to the in-store business (including in-store catering and in-store integration).
Looking at Xiaohongshu again, according to public data, in 2023 alone, the number of Xiaohongshu travel experts will increase by 672% year-on-year, and the number of tourism professional accounts will increase by 1221% year-on-year.
What's more, Douyin has been emphasizing that its commissions are lower than those of OTA platforms. Recently, it was reported that since July 1 this year, Douyin has adjusted the commission rate of the accommodation industry, from the original 4.5% to 8.0%. Even so, it's still less than 15%-20% of the top OTAs.
This means a lot of pressure for travel platforms such as Qunar and Fliggy.
Intuitive data shows that from the perspective of market share, BOCOM International predicts that the market share of Douyin Wine Tourism will increase from 2% to 3% in 2023; Ctrip improved by 5 percentage points, while Fliggy slipped by 1 point.
Pouring wealth and wealth is difficult to solve anxiety
According to a number of industry insiders, the main moat of OTA platforms lies in the accumulation of supply chains and the binding with large hotel chains. The biggest cake of wine and tourism, high-star hotels, is still in the hands of OTA platforms, Douyin and Xiaohongshu are currently gnawing more on the transportation and scenic spots, and the hotel sector is also more about homestays, independent hotels or hotels in lower-tier cities.
Fliggy's public relations also said to Zinc Scale, "The supply chain of wine and air tickets is a very traditional supply chain system, not that the later ones have advantages, and the supply chain in this industry has more say than the platform, because the goods are in the hands of the supply chain." Therefore, in Fliggy's view, what platforms such as Douyin have done is only an attempt at a new model, and the impact on traditional Internet travel platforms is limited.
However, the competition of travel platforms has always been fierce: in 2022, a total of 44 online travel companies, including Anxin Booking, Sanniula Travel Network, Eight Star Travel, Uto, Wan Travel, etc., withdrew from the battlefield. And once well-known companies such as Donkey Mama, Tuniu, Mafengwo, and Airbnb have also struggled and even been on the verge of death.
Open Fliggy and Qunar, you can also see their anxiety and change.
In order to cope with the impact from social platforms such as Douyin, Fliggy has also opened up social sections, which are divided into sub-sections such as "Travel Bar", "Strategy Bar" and "Fly Bar", but its current social section, the publisher is mainly based on personal accounts, updating the feelings and simple strategies of a certain trip, which is more like a personal version of the circle of friends, and the number of interactions is mostly concentrated in dozens or even single digits.
Community board on Fliggy
Qunar has also formed a team internally and launched content in the form of information flow. Last year, Qunar signed a comprehensive cooperation agreement with Huawei's device cloud services, claiming that it will use Huawei's smart search to provide a rich travel experience for 280 million users around the world.
In fact, as early as March 31, 2022, the then president of Fliggy, Zhuang Zhuoran, announced that Fliggy would carry out organizational reforms, promoting a series of institutional changes adapted to the characteristics of the tourism industry, including management system reform, job restructuring and the establishment of a separate shareholding plan, etc., "to be fully prepared to face the market independently in the future". In July last year, Zhuang Zhuoran said that Fliggy had completed the reorganization and reorganization of the team in about 100 days.
Therefore, after the boom of "Olympic tours", there is still a question mark over whether Fliggy can take off again.