In recent years, with the rise of the proportion of tourism in the national strategy, all provinces and cities are accelerating the planning and integration of the regional wine and tourism industry to promote the high-quality development of China's cultural tourism and accommodation industry, but the complexity of the market environment and the variability of consumer demand make this integration not easy. This year coincides with the 20th anniversary of the establishment of Scholar Hotel, in the 20 years of growth, Scholar Hotel has not only precipitated rich experience in hotel operation and management, but also sharpened its organizational resilience.
Caption: Wuxi Xuntang Scholar Mansion Hotel.
1. Growing up in exploration, the only way for regional wine management
Looking back at the development of China's modern hotel industry, we can see that the growth of regional hotel management companies is not accidental, on the one hand, with the rapid development of tourism, a large number of Sino-foreign joint venture hotels and international brands have emerged in China's hotel market, and enterprises have also begun to pay attention to the professionalism and group management of hotels, and encourage the establishment of local hotel management companies. On the other hand, the improvement of consumption level has driven the increase in demand for hotel accommodation, providing living space for different hotel categories.
Caption: In 2003, the first store of the scholarly brand: the first store of the scholarly door Suzhou Jingde Road store.
We were born to meet the needs of the times. Yang Zhonghua, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of the Scholar Hotel, recalled the development process of the Scholar Hotel, saying, "It is the joint effect of the market and the consumer side that gave birth to the birth of the first Scholar Hotel." ”
Caption: Yang Zhonghua, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of the Scholar Hotel.
At that time, China's hotel market was in a period of rapid growth, international groups opened up in China, local hotel groups accelerated their expansion, and hotel brands emerged one after another. Industry insiders believe that regional wine management to the whole country must face at least two practical problems:The first is the problem of site selection caused by the lack of understanding of the new market. Regional wine managers usually have in-depth knowledge and experience of the local market, but when entering a new market, they may face differences in geographical environment, economic development and cultural customs, which may affect the sensitivity and judgment of regional wine managers in site selection. The second is the management problems brought about by cross-region. Different regions have different market needs and cultural backgrounds, which requires regional wine management to have flexible management strategies and adaptability, which refers not only to the consistency and efficient operation of hotel brand management, but also to the lack of talent management.
Milestone noticed that these problems also appeared in the early market expansion of Scholar Hotel, but on the way of development, Scholar Hotel continued to reflect and adjust its development strategy in a timely manner, not only building differentiated hotel products, building a diversified brand matrix, and entering a new cycle of development at the moment of the 20th anniversary.
Caption: Shantang Scholar Mansion Hotel.
2. Inheritance and innovation, "new scholarly" ascends to the heights and looks far.
Judging by the official statements,The establishment of Suzhou Scholar Hotel Group is an important measure to comprehensively improve the efficiency of hotel resource allocation and asset operation in Suzhou, accelerate the decision-making and deployment of building a local high-quality hotel management brand in Suzhou, and also promote the optimization and structural adjustment of the city's state-owned economy in the new era. Standing tall, in order to see far, Suzhou Scholar Hotel Group has formed a fairly clear strategic plan, under the guidance of this plan, the new look of Suzhou Scholar Hotel Group how to land with high qualityMilestone believes that the key to this step is to inherit the existing advantages of the Scholar Hotel, and at the same time to make more innovations on the basis of it, which is mainly manifested in the following aspects:
First, a more diversified brand matrix. As early as the 20 years of growth of the Scholar Hotel, relying on the excellent traditional Chinese culture, it has formed a number of cultural theme hotels such as "Scholarly Mansion", "Scholarly Family", "Scholarly Heart" and "Scholarly Door", covering high-end, mid-to-high-end, mid-end and other categories, and has its own merits in product creation. The newly established Suzhou Scholar Hotel Group has integrated more hotels that have been deeply involved in the hotel industry for many years and have formed their own development advantages and brand characteristics, and built a richer product supply. Yang Zhonghua told Milestone: "Integration is the first step of Suzhou Scholar Hotel Group, and then based on the observation of the market environment and insight into consumer demand, Suzhou Scholar Hotel Group will continue to incubate new brands and lay a solid foundation for the group's brand development." ”
Caption: Diyuan, Zhouzhuang's scholarly mansion.
Second, richer cultural integration. Different from other regional wine management, Scholar Hotel, which was born in Suzhou and grew up in Suzhou, has always taken culture as the core element of brand building, and integrated Suzhou's unique humanistic temperament into the creation of hotel products, and built a theme characteristic hotel with the exquisite characteristics of Jiangnan culture with "five spices and four beauties" as the core, among which "five spices" refers to incense, flowers, tea, books and food, and "four beauties" refers to virtue, beauty, beauty and beauty. Warm-hearted service and other aspects to present consumers with the emotional life scenes of ancient literati.
Caption: Five spices and four beauties cultural experience.
At the same time, it will also integrate a richer regional culture into the process of brand expansion, combine localized humanistic customs and cultural characteristics to present elements of hard and soft decoration, and realize the landing of localized cuisine in catering. From the perspective of food, it is better understood that with the expansion of the brands of Suzhou Scholar Hotel Group across the country, consumers staying at the hotel can not only eat localized special food in the hotel, but also experience authentic Huaiyang cuisine, Subang cuisine and Suzhou-style noodle soup, truly achieving inheritance and innovation side by side.
Caption: Ao cooktop.
Third, a more balanced revenue model. As early as when other brands were still using catering as a hotel package, Scholar Hotel had created a product model of "room + meal + X" and operated the catering independently. Yang Zhonghua said: "As a personnel-intensive high-frequency consumer product, catering involves more services and experiences, and we have also found the transition and development from hotel catering to social catering in exploration. It is understood that Shuxiang Hotel has set up a master workshop, continued to focus on the research of banquet cuisine, continuously carried out meal research and development, and in accordance with the unique "no food from time to time" catering Xi in the Jiangnan area, it has successively produced spring, summer, autumn and winter four seasons flower banquet, cultural banquet, Jiangxian banquet, etc., bringing more catering income. In addition, based on the unique cultural attributes, Scholar Hotel will create an independent space in the guest room with the four treasures of the study, Chinese tea and other independent spaces, which will not only increase the user experience, but also be retailed as the hotel's cultural and creative products, further optimizing the hotel's revenue model.
Caption: Family photo of the autumn banquet.
Fourth, a more robust expansion strategy. Under the national strategy of high-quality development, the hotel industry has begun to focus on the improvement of quality rather than the growth of quantity, which also means that "going steady" is the key for regional wine management. In this regard, Suzhou Scholar Hotel Group has formed a fairly clear expansion strategy:The first is to let some of the existing main brands go out first. Taking Scholarly Mansion as an example, it already has a mature product model, and the brand positioning of one store and one product enables it to better integrate culture and tourism, and dig deep to refine the history, culture, commerce, environment, tourism resources and humanistic characteristics of the area where the project is located. The second is to build a benchmark store, and then go out after running through the business model. Suzhou Scholar Hotel Group is willing to spend a growth period to test the commercial value of the new brand, and continue to optimize the hotel products and investment model through its landing in the group's advantageous region, namely Jiangsu, and gradually expand to other regions after the brand matures.
Caption: Hotel rooms.
The third is to adhere to the step-by-step development path based in Suzhou, facing the Yangtze River Delta, and expanding to the whole country. For regional wine management, the process of going to the whole country is essentially a process of weakening location advantages, and it is also a process of increasing brand location adaptability, and how to control the rhythm of self-growth is also a part of regional wine management that must be considered. Suzhou Scholar Hotel Group is based on the thinking of long-termism, and has formulated a steady regional expansion rule for its brands, and then goes to the whole country on the basis of deep cultivation of advantageous locations, and steadily promotes the in-depth layout of the brand.
3. A big ship appears and sails into the open water
On November 1, 2023, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued the "Domestic Tourism Promotion Plan (2023-2025)", which clearly mentioned the main goal of maintaining reasonable growth in the scale of the domestic tourism market and further improving the quality. The favorable policy side has become a fertile soil for the growth of regional wine management, and it is also an accelerator for the high-quality regional wine management represented by Suzhou Scholar Hotel Group
First, in the context of cultural self-confidence, we can get a glimpse of Chinese temperament in Soviet-style life. The improvement of the material level has stimulated the growth of the Chinese people's demand for spiritual culture, and the products and services with traditional cultural characteristics are more likely to arouse the emotional resonance of the Chinese people. Taking Scholar Hotel as an example, it is rooted in traditional culture, integrates the way of "elegant life" into the hotel operation, and at the same time establishes the brand proposition of "five spices and four beauties", it digs deep into the connotation of traditional culture, combines its own brand characteristics, and builds a complete Soviet-style lifestyle from multiple links such as experience, scene and space creation.
Caption: Hotel courtyard.
For example, in the creation of the space, traditional crafts such as imaging are used to inherit Chinese aesthetics, supplemented by traditional accessories such as books, incense, tea, and flowers, to create an atmosphere of interlacing ancient and modern. In catering, we integrate classics, combine the characteristics of local ingredients, dig out product stories to create culturally themed catering, and build a scholarly food system.
Caption: Interior view of the hotel.
In addition, the Scholar Hotel will also combine the local cultural content to design and carry out activities such as Kunqu Opera, Pingtan, and intangible cultural heritage handicrafts to interpret the "elegance" of ancient life. It can be seen that in the process of promoting the Soviet-style lifestyle and Jiangnan culture, it is actually enriching the core of national culture and forming a more macro Chinese temperament.
Caption: Scholarly Mansion Pingjiang Mansion Muxiang Chinese Restaurant.
Second, in the context of complex consumer demand, high-quality brands achieve rich product supply. The trend of consumption upgrading is driving the sustainable development of the high-quality hotel market, and consumers' demand for accommodation experience will become more and more diversified and personalized. To this end,On the one hand, Suzhou Scholar Hotel Group continues to promote the innovation and upgrading of existing brands. It is understood that at present, the Scholar Hotel has entered the 4At the same time, "the changes in the aesthetics of the times and the changes in consumer demand make the brands of Suzhou Scholar Hotel Group must think about the possibility of continuous innovation in the future." Yang Zhonghua emphasized. On the other hand, it is also constantly integrating and incubating new accommodation products. The continuous expansion of the source of conference and business tourists and the growth of demand for leisure and vacation have given rise to a large number of accommodation demand, and if you want to achieve greater growth, you naturally need a more diversified brand matrix, and Suzhou Scholar Hotel Group has also taken the lead.
Caption: Hotel lobby.
Third, in the context of fierce market competition, professional operation builds a moat for enterprise growth. At present, the competition in the hotel industry has entered a white-hot stage, and how to make the brand stand out through professional operation capabilities has become a topic that regional wine management must consider. Within the operational framework of Suzhou Scholar Hotel Group, it has deepened the excellent operational capabilities of the original Scholar Hotel, including member operation - Scholar Hotel has more than 5 million highly sticky members, the member occupancy ratio exceeds 40%, and the member repurchase rate also exceeds 40%;Channel operation - in addition to the comprehensive layout of traditional OTA, Scholar Hotel is also in Xiaohongshu, Douyin and other new platforms, through **, short**, live broadcast and other forms to create a full-scale communication system, promote the flow of public and private domain traffic, form brand ** and marketing growth, and then achieve the rise of hotel performance, the current Scholar Hotel launched the local catering Douyin** project and wine travel ** The product has brought huge profits to the hotel, and relevant data shows that in the single week of New Year's Day in 2023 alone, the Douyin turnover of Scholar Mansion Pingjiang Mansion Hotel and Linquanli Scholar Mansion Hotel will each exceed one million.
Fourth, in the context of the integration of culture and tourism, explore the infinite possibilities of cultural tourism and hotels. With the maturity of the tourism market, the boundaries between cultural tourism and accommodation are becoming more and more blurred, and the two are showing a trend of integrating and promoting each other. By actively exploring the infinite possibilities of the cultural tourism hotel market, Suzhou Scholar Hotel Group combines accommodation services with cultural activities and local tourism resources to provide consumers with richer and more diverse travel choices. Cultural tourism scenes such as natural ecology and real mountains and rivers can become the inspiration for hotel space design, while urban vacations and the integration of agriculture and culture provide the direction for the brand to upgrade.
Caption: Scholarly Mansion Pingjiang Mansion.
In the future, with the continuous development of the cultural tourism market and the increasing demand of consumers for diversified tourism experiences, cultural tourism hotels will become a popular choice in the market.
4. Conclusion
Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., has repeatedly emphasized the spirit of the turtle and the principle of pressure within Huawei, which is to make Huawei adhere to one thing in its technology strategy. The practice of this "pressure principle" in the commercial market is reflected in the fact that if the enterprise wants to form a large enough advantage in the new opportunity area, it needs to concentrate all or most of the resources to do one thing, so as to form a strategic potential energy of accumulation. The establishment of Suzhou Scholar Hotel Group is based on the strategic planning of high-quality development of the country, to achieve a reasonable allocation of resources from a higher-dimensional perspective, and in the future, it will better promote the integrated development of culture and tourism in Suzhou, create the best business environment, and play a greater role in helping the high-quality economic and social development of Suzhou.