Standing at the end of 2023, looking back on this year, the hospitality industry has experienced far more than imagined. Since 2023, the accommodation industry has also ushered in a recovery under the background of the recovery of domestic consumption scenarios and the surge in demand for travel markets.
As an important part of the tourism industry, hotels have also performed very eye-catching in the recovery of the entire tourism industry, and data recovery has even caught up.
However, although China's hotel market showed a recovery trend in the first three quarters of 2023, the market began to cool down in the fourth quarter, making the industry's expectations for 2024 quite cautious.
In this context, the hotel industry may usher in new changes.
Whether it is the change of consumer consumption behavior or the change of industrial structure, it is affecting the recovery of the hotel industry.
This year, while the hotel industry is ushering in a recovery, structural changes are also taking place, and the trend of grouping, heading, scale and branding is becoming increasingly significant.
The market recovery brings opportunities for the accommodation industry, but complex changes in consumer trends also bring new challenges.
In the face of the current situation, where should the hotel industry go in 2024?
There is a "false fire" in the recovery, and it will open high and go low
With the great recovery of the tourism industry, the performance of the hotel industry, which is an important part of the tourism industry chain, has also generally increased.
Hotels that have been losing money for three years have returned to the track of making money this year, and the five listed hotel groups in China have achieved impressive results in the first three quarters of 2023, and have recovered or even exceeded the revenue level of the same period in 2019.
Among them, Huazhu and Atour significantly exceeded the pre-epidemic period, while Jinjiang and BTG were basically flat.
In the first three quarters of 2023, compared with the same period in 2019, the leading hotel revenue was Atour (+181%), Huazhu (+57%), Jin Jiang (-6%), and BTG (-6%).
In terms of the profitability of the leading main business of the hotel, Huazhu and Atour performed well, followed by Jin Jiang and BTG, and most of them were better than the same period in 2019 in the third quarter of this year.
In addition, benefiting from the full release of leisure demand in the summer peak season, the RevPAR of Huazhu Atour and BTG recovered to about 129%, 118% and 119% of the same period in 2019 respectively in the third quarter.
This series of positive results reflects the strong recovery of the hotel and tourism industry and the efforts of domestic hotel groups.
Specifically, the law of domestic hotel recovery this year is:
**The recovery is relatively leading, the occupancy rate recovery is relatively lagging behind, the overall revpar recovery is mostly beyond the pre-epidemic level, the peak season of tourism holidays is more prosperous, and the post-holiday season is weaker;
In addition, this year, the overall demand for hotels is "strong for leisure and weak for business travel", which is more driven by leisure demand, so the fluctuations in the off-peak season are greater
In terms of different types of hotels, mid-range hotels recovered relatively ahead in the first half of the year, and economy hotels began to recover gradually in the second half of the year, and fell back in the post-11 stage.
In terms of sub-regions, since the beginning of this year, the overall "north is strong and the south is weak". The revpar recovery of hotels in North China was stronger, followed by East China, and the performance of hotels in South China was relatively weak.
Although China's hotel market showed a recovery trend in the first three quarters of 2023, the market began to cool down in the fourth quarter, making the industry quite cautious about its expectations for 2024.
Entering the fourth quarter, the overall hotel RevPAR in China decreased significantly, and the market performance was generally cold.
The "China Hotel Market Prosperity Report for the Fourth Quarter of 2023" released by Horwath also said that due to multiple factors such as the uncertain international political environment and the downward pressure on the local and global economy, industry insiders have become more rational and cautious in their expectations for the hotel market in the fourth quarter, and finally the prosperity index in the fourth quarter fell to 64.
How will the hotel industry recover in 2023?
Zhang Rungang, vice president and secretary general of the China Tourism Association, has repeatedly publicly mentioned that there is a false fire in the recovery of the hotel industry this year, and it is necessary to look at the recovery rationally, objectively and calmly, and to analyze from a deep level to find and determine which direction the hotel industry will develop in the future.
Zhu Xinjiang, vice president of Shenzhen Hotel Association and senior hotel investor, also believes that compared with last year, it is meaningless, and compared with the recovery of the hotel industry in 2019, it is like a dappled sunshine.
An observer of the wine and tourism industry also told "Wine Management Finance":
The prosperity of the hospitality industry in 2023 is the result of the urgent need to release the pent-up travel demand, and after the demand has been released to a certain extent, the hotel demand may tend to be more stable in 2024, the leisure demand may gradually decline, and the business demand is expected to rebound slightly.
There are disappointed people, and there are also enterers
This year, there were entrants and disappointed people in the domestic hotel market.
In October, it landed on the Shanshui Hotel, which has been in the market for 7 years, and plans to choose to wave goodbye to the capital market in 2023
In order to avoid being ST, Huatian Hotel has repeatedly "sold its children to survive". In November, Huatian Hotel planned to transfer 11% of the equity of its holding subsidiary, Loudi Huatian
In December, Aranya Club Med was delisted and renamed, and its all-inclusive model suffered a setback.
There are also high-star hotels that are frequently listed for sale, and real estate developers are gradually divesting their hotel business.
In October, China Jinmao sold the Westin Bund Center in Beijing for 2.8 billion yuan
In November, OCT ended with 24300 million yuan listed to sell the Bulgari Hotel in Shanghai;
In December, The Ritz-Carlton, Tianjin, Sanya Tianfang InterContinental and Guanghegu Hot Spring Hotel were finally sold for 2 billion after three unsuccessful auctions.
In the same month, Vanke 4800 million to sell Banyan Tree and other hotel management rights.
It is not difficult to find that under the pressure of industry liquidity, the situation of real estate developers is not what it used to be, and they are disposing of assets to recover funds.
With the fading of real estate dividends, the composition of hotel revenue has also changed.
Recently, Guoxin ** proposed in the review of the domestic hotel market in 2023"Owner's property appreciation" and "franchisee rental dividend" are expected to gradually fade in the future, brand operation income has become the core of hotel investment, and the importance of hotel brand premium management has become increasingly prominent.
However, the pace of new brand releases of major hotel groups has not stopped.
In April, BTG Homeinn Hotel Group launched a new mid-to-high-end business and leisure hotel brand, Human, and in May, it launched a new brand of "Jianguo Xishang" to lay out the high-end resort market
In August, SSAW Boutique Hotel Group launched a new hotel brand, SSAW Boutique Styles
In November, Atour launched the mid-to-high-end hotel brand 40 Mino;
In December, Shandong Cultural Tourism Hotel Group officially announced the launch of the Yihao brand.
In addition, there are several major events in the hospitality industry that cannot be overlooked in 2023.
Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Oriental Selection and other short-** platforms began to enter the wine and tourism track in a high-profile manner
At the Global Partner Summit, Ctrip was the first to launch a quantifiable, measurable and scalable low-carbon hotel standard
The new version of the "Classification and Evaluation of Tourist Star Hotels" (GB T14308-2023) has been approved by the Standardization Administration of the People's Republic of China at the end of 2023 and will be officially implemented on March 1, 2024.
It is not difficult to find that the future competition in the hotel industry is still fierce and cruel, with poor ability to resist pressure, poor capital turnover, lack of innovation and competitiveness.
Wine Management Finance believes that this is a good market reversal effect, forcing the hotel industry to come up with better ways to solve the problem, and at the same time examine its own flaws to change.
From "surviving" to "living well" in the post-pandemic era, the hospitality industry still has a long way to go.
Through the cycle, how to practice the internal skills of the hotel?
This year, although the trend of incremental expansion and stock competition in the entire hotel industry remains unchanged, with the continuous change of consumer preferences, the hotel industry is entering a new era.
On the one hand, the hotel track is more diversified and segmented, which intensifies the competition and iteration of wine productsOn the other hand, consumers' demand for hotels has gradually shifted from simple accommodations to a better and more personalized experience.
This year, the hotel industry is talking about "recovery" the most, but what needs to be done and how to do it for recovery, most hoteliers are still very confused.
In such a big background, the hotel needs to find the growth point and break the point, and still needs to cultivate the "internal strength" and do a good job in products and services.
Wine Management Finance noted that the development strategies of domestic leading hotel groups this year are focused on "multi-brand, asset-light, and digital".
1. Return to the essence of the product and pay attention to personalization.
For hotels, the product is the trump card.
Therefore, it is necessary to sort out the target customer groups, accurately position, build a diversified field, create a scenario-based business space that pays equal attention to personality and experience, and intensively cultivate to improve quality and efficiency.
Unique experiences are what attract consumers, and creating a personalized guest experience with differentiated products is a direction worth exploring.
Therefore, the creation of hotel products should return to the origin and deepen the differentiated advantages.
This year, Huazhu has been adjusting its stock structure and product structure, including the product upgrade of Hanting stores, which has further increased the concentration of high-quality brands and products.
BTG Hotels has also put a lot of effort into the brand matrix, on the one hand, exploring mid-to-high-end and even high-end luxury brands, and on the other hand, digging down into the sinking market, and promoting the iteration of youth and fashion.
2. The service focuses on experience and digitalization.
Industry insiders believe that the future market has been dominated by consumers, hotel management wants to gain a firm foothold, but also rely on service quality to earn reputation, and cater to consumer needs of value-added services can retain people's hearts.
In the hotel service work, the mechanical and heavy service work is handed over to the intelligent robot, and the humanized and customized service is handed over to the person to do, which will be the development trend of the future hotel service.
The transformation from hotel informatization to digitalization will greatly improve the efficiency of hotel management and profoundly affect the brand development model of hotel management companies.
This year, Jin Jiang Hotels is stepping up its digital transformation and plans to establish a business model that relies on digital platforms. According to its semi-annual report, during the reporting period, Jin Jiang Hotels started the digital transformation of direct sales, and the direct sales booking rate of members continued to increase. In the first half of the year, the total number of active members reached 189.72 million.
3. Explore the new path of "Hotel +".
In recent years, traditional hotel management strategies have become increasingly difficult.
The development of new sources of customers, the expansion of new tracks, and the continuous extension of the original functional attributes of the hotel are the inevitable ways for the hotel in the new situation.
We must be good at exploring the new road of "hotel +", broaden the territory of the hotel business model, free the hotel from the single consumption scenario of providing food and accommodation, and endow the hotel with more functional attributes.
Let the hotel no longer just be a medium for consumers to reach their destination, but also the destination itself.
This year, Atour Group has been deepening the moat of the scene retail business, and this business has gradually become its second growth curve.
This year's hotel market is really different from previous years.
The appearance is retaliatory growth, but the actual undercurrent is surging, the market is not stable, and the market law is difficult to grasp.
After three years of trough in the hotel market, there was a retaliatory ** in the first half of this year, and the second half of the year has returned to rationality.
Opportunities and challenges will always go hand in hand, and we look forward to the next domestic hotel industry not forgetting its original intention, maintaining concentration, looking for trends in the development of the industry, and grasping opportunities in cyclical laws.
Co-ordinator丨Lao Dian Editor丨A Xin.
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