WeChat***Space Secret Detective" (ID: mespace007), author: Wu Yuwen.
Nowadays, consumption is not only a simple purchase of goods, but also a purchase experience.
For accommodation products, consumers expect hotels to provide them with a diversified life experience in addition to their accommodation needs. Keeping up with consumer demand, hotel brands are also paying more and more attention to user experience, hoping to match and even lead their life service needs by providing various lifestyle scenarios and providing users with diversified lifestyle experiences.
Hotels are injecting more "lifestyle" living water
Now the competition of business models is changing, and it is gradually transforming from pure business products to business users, and members are our most loyal users. Sun Jian, general manager of BTG Homeinn Hotel Group, told Space Detective, "In the past, (the industry) regarded product management as its core competitiveness. For example, the guest room is the core business of the hotel, and the operation and service of the hotel are carried out around it. Now we are focusing more on managing users (members) and increasing the frequency of interaction between hotels and users through lifestyle experience content, such as talk shows, book clubs, e-sports competitions and other lifestyle activities. Let the hotel give full play to the power of community connection, and create the possibility of more business opportunities in the future. ”
Focusing on user experience, building a new "hotel +" business format, and opening up a variety of lifestyle scenarios have become definitive business opportunities for the hotel industry.
Taking BTG Homeinns Hotel Group as an example, as a leading hotel group in China, it has taken the lead in making innovative attempts while perceiving new changes in the consumer market. From the birth of "Ru Coffee", to the increase of e-sports hotels, to the new launch of "Home Inn Bowl of Noodles", and the thousands of free member activities with the concept of "local life" in hotels across the country around the characteristics of "local life", BTG Homeinns is consciously injecting "lifestyle" into the hotel and continuously improving the frequency of the link between the hotel and the customer group.
Wang Minghui, head of the local life project of BTG Homeinns Hotel Group, told Space Secret Detective that as of the end of November this year, BTG Homeinns has successfully held more than 1,200 free member activities around the concept of "local life" in 16 cities across the country, attracting more than 250,000 members of the Life Club participated in the event. According to statistics, the hotels that have successfully landed the event include mid-to-high-end brands UrCove Hotel, Jianguo Platinum Hotel, Puyin Hotel, Heyi Zhishang Hotel and Human Hotel, as well as mid-range brands Homeinn Select Hotel and Homeinn Hotel, as well as homeinn town, a resort complex around the city.
In the context of stock competition, user value is becoming the new focus of hotel groups. Sun Jian judged that when leisure tourism is driven by the so-called localization and localization characteristics, the market will slowly change, and the products and services provided by hotels will also be upgraded accordingly. The change in demand and business environment has made hotels no longer just meet the function of a single accommodation, but also transformed into a life service scene.
On the basis of continuing to meet the accommodation needs of users with high quality, BTG Homeinns has also begun to explore the value innovation direction of lifestyle scene creation and user experience. In April this year, BTG Homeinns completed the renovation and upgrade of its membership system, such as Life Club, with the help of "Ruwish Bean", which comprehensively opened up the hotel accommodation, ecological consumption and interactive social scenes of member members, increasing the frequency of member interaction, increasing member stickiness and loyalty, and comprehensively enhancing the perception of members' value and rights.
Start the "local life" within 3 kilometers of the hotel
With the change of the trend of the times and the precipitation of lifestyle, we are ushering in a new era of travel diversification. People talk about travel as a concert or an exhibition and a culinary experience. People not only hope to gain a broader life experience through travel, but also hope to gain a rich perception of diverse lives during the journey, and find the resonance of the same frequency lifestyle or the sharing of different lifestyles. As the core node of the journey, the hotel has enough time and space to facilitate the realization of these life experiences and social needs, so as to provide users with lifestyle value beyond the accommodation function.
Finding the unique culture of the place, exploring the unusual beauty of the off-the-beaten, and finding new tricks in non-traditional tourist cities have become the new way of life at the moment – discovering the joy of "local living" on the road or in the place where you live.
Under the upgrading of consumption concepts and fast-paced lifestyles, "local life" services have gradually become a sales market with rigid demand. According to iResearch, the size of China's local living market in 2020 was 19500 million yuan, which is expected to grow to 35 by 20253 trillion yuan. Nowadays, the emotional value of people's shopping and consumption is amplifying, and the idea of "local life", which provides various service activities for people's daily life, has returned to the online experience and opened up the circle of life, which is in the hands of consumers. They hope to discover more interesting, high-quality and thoughtful products through the "Local Life" service platform, and be able to share and communicate with other users to generate social interaction. New markets will be created when there is new demand, and the "local living" market is coming to life.
Meituan, Douyin, Kuaishou, ......Major OTA platforms have made efforts to use this trillion-dollar market to meet user needs and obtain the real economy with online and offline integration. Douyin focuses on the method of "short ** + live broadcast", superimposing the centralized traffic of the platform to attract users to the store for merchantsJD.com, on the other hand, lays out local life with real-time retail and home delivery services such as "JD Daojia" and "Hourly Shopping".After splitting the internal organizational structure, Alibaba chose to operate the local life business independently, merged word-of-mouth into AutoNavi Map, and formed a closed consumption loop with the local life business as the core through the map search function. Although various platforms are constantly competing in the local life track, since Meituan and Kuaishou Unicom, Douyin and Ele.me joined hands, it is not difficult to find that each platform is making up for their own shortcomings through cooperation and improving the local life business under the stock competition.
In the track of local life, not only the major OTA platforms are competing, but also the hotel groups are looking for opportunities. Because the consumption trend determines the business trend of the hotel, BTG Homeinns takes the hotel as the center to build an innovative format of "hotel + local life", excavates the local highlights within 3 kilometers of the hotel for users, builds an interactive communication platform through its member clubs, such as the Life Club, and launches various free activities for members under the head concept of "local life", so as to improve the space utilization rate of the hotel public area and the frequency of interaction between members and the hotel.
Sun Jian, General Manager of BTG Homeinn Hotel Group, said, "Localization is the key, and community awareness is also very important. What is happening within the 3-kilometer radius of the hotel is something that people want to know. Let them discover something present and energetic and feel like they are participating in it, creating a sense of meaningful dependence. Therefore, BTG Homeinns has launched more than 40 diversified and innovative activities covering leisure and entertainment, culture and art, and life appreciation around the interests and hobbies of the new generation of consumer groups. As long as you become a member of the Life Club, you can participate for free.
Leisure and entertainment
Through the cooperation with Honor of Kings, Fanshu (formerly Fan Deng Reading), Impromptu Club, and Shanghai International Comedy Festival, BTG Homeinns "Local Life" provides members with rich and personalized activities such as talk shows, improvisational comedy shows, board games, e-sports games, handicraft salons, and movie watching.
In Shanghai, BTG Homeinns and Shanghai International Comedy Festival held an improvisational drama show in the small theater of Homeinns Hotel (Jinling East Road Branch), using humorous and witty comedy elements to create a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere, which not only attracted local members and guests who were interested in talk shows and comedy, but also attracted surrounding residents. In addition, members can also watch the talk show open mic at Homeinn Hotel (North Bund Branch), and listen to the actors of Happy Twist Improvisers Alliance discuss the social phenomenon of "rotten roll" at Heyi Supreme Hotel (Xuhui District Branch).
Culture & Arts
As an important part of the development of human society, culture and art can not only cultivate sentiment, but also perceive the profound heritage of historical civilization in the process of activities. BTG Homeinns has joined hands with Guozi Culture, Touma Toastmaster Speech, Himalaya and other cultural and artistic activities such as Sinology Salon, Reading Club, English Corner, Impromptu Speech, Drama Healing, Soul Salon, etc., and 480+ activities have attracted more than 8,000 members to participate offline.
Life Tasting Category
Since the beginning of this year, BTG Homeinns has also held a number of activities such as food tasting, wine tasting, and healthy light food salon in its hotels. When the quiet and elegant "Bendian" artistic style of Jianguo Hotel Shanghai is combined with elegant and mellow wines, member users can enjoy the romance of Spanish wineries and enjoy an elegant and leisure life experience.
Local life, a new engine for the growth of leading hotel groups
China's hotel consumer market has changed, and the new consumer group dominated by "Generation Z" is becoming the main consumer body of the market, and in the face of their higher quality and diversified needs, the infinite possibilities of "local life" are providing new growth momentum for leading hotel groups.
Grow the space for square footage.
"Ping efficiency" is usually an important indicator for hotel investors, but under the traditional concept, the biggest use of the hotel is the "guest room" space, and most of the other supporting spaces have become low-frequency areas. The "Local Life" service launched by BTG Homeinns reduces the idle rate of the hotel space, stimulates the vitality of the hotel's public space, and increases the space efficiency through scenario-based creation and long-term fixed activity frequency.
Increase the frequency of member engagement.
Membership is important for the long-term development of the hotel business**. Hotel groups have been establishing their own membership systems to cultivate loyalty among members, hoping to increase repeat purchase behavior and bring stable revenue to the hotel. The emotional belonging of members has always been the focus in the development of BTG Homeinns Group's membership system.
The free membership activities carried out by "Local Life" bring various life formats such as coffee classes, cheongsam salons, tastings, and trendy toys and e-sports into the hotel space, and provide members with more life content beyond accommodation by building a "hotel +" life scene. The rich local lifestyle content has increased the participation of members, so that the interaction between members and the hotel has changed from low frequency to high frequency.
As of November 30, 2023, the total number of Life Club members exceeded 1500 million, and the number of members will increase by more than 12 million in 2023, a year-on-year increase of **260%.
Provide a differentiated "ecosystem".
Adhering to the three-principle principle of "the city, the local, and the store", BTG Homeinns Local Life Service strives to create a unique and rich and diverse "ecosystem" for its members by exploring local cultural characteristics, customs, and historical stories, hoping that members can feel the local cultural heritage and regional characteristics through special activities, and establish a circle culture with a sense of belonging in rich and interesting interactive activities, and finally form a connection between communities.
The hotel industry has entered the era of stock competition, and at the same time, the new consumption era is coming, and in the face of the diverse consumption needs of consumers, how to break the homogenization and further innovate has become a common topic for the hotel industry. BTG Homeinn Hotel Group has upgraded its user value and launched the "Local Life" service to explore the local highlights within 3 kilometers of the hotel for members to reach consumers and build a deeper ecosystem for a better life, so as to improve members' loyalty and achieve the sustainable development of the hotel. In a market where opportunities and challenges coexist, BTG Homeinns' innovative initiatives are expected to become a development path to maximize the value of "Hotel +".