Jokes are like Cheng, and it is better to be like Cheng, than to be Cheng.
Column |Cultural Tourism Business Observation.
Fields |Tourism, homestay industry.
Gai Shuhua, the founder of Future Planet (formerly known as Future Good Home), is definitely the most interesting person I have seen in the travel entrepreneurship circle.
As the last "dinosaur" in the era of B&B cards, it can also be said to be a typical representative of "49 years into **", Gai Shuhua's entrepreneurial process has been on the road of "criticizing B&B cards and becoming B&B cards".
The earliest impression of Gai Shuhua is that he often appears in the comment area of the travel industry.
For example, when the travel industry reported "How difficult it is for the B&B card not to run away", it told the story of the surging B&B card platforms such as Rucheng, Banbian Mountain, and Hermit Crab that had run away and collapsed
Later, Gai Shuhua added WeChat with me from the backstage of the travel industry, and sometimes sent some interviews with himself, introducing the homestay card model of "different gameplay" in the future.
I actually didn't understand how his profit was calculated, so I asked curiously, but I didn't get any definite answers.
Fate seems to be a kind of reincarnation, and those of us who are often beaten by society know that we really don't look at what he says, but how he does it.
Since last year, many netizens have reported on social ** that the refund application for the purchase of Future Planet (formerly known as Future Good Home) is slow, the refund cannot be withdrawn to the balance, and the withdrawal function is temporarily closed.
Recently, the "update and maintenance" of the future planet applet has been measured by the travel industry, and it has been impossible to log in, in the face of the familiar scene, will this be the reenactment and opening remarks of the B&B card "chicken feathers"?
In response to questions from the travel community, as of press time, Gai Shuhua still failed to give any explanation this time.
But the clues can already be seen from the anger of netizens:
I got a refund for the money I bought, and I was converted into a commission, and I had to apply for a withdrawal, and then I followed the operation for a month + and there was no feedback. ”
After looking at the tickets purchased above, I can only use one or two balances each time, and this merchant abacus can get 2 yuan back, and you spend another 100, which is not a fool for customers. ”
Why did I return to the account balance, sign the agreement in advance, and take a picture of the ID card? ”
Judging from the screenshots of netizens last year, Gai Shuhua and Future Planet customer service both admitted that "the platform is under staged cash flow pressure, and the operation has encountered difficulties, and it is expected to be open for withdrawal in the first quarter." ”
Now, the first quarter has arrived, and the Future Planet Mini Program has not yet been re-launched, and this scene of operation seems familiar.
Gai Shuhua is an old tourist, born in the imperial charter car (the outbound travel Chinese charter car company), many friends around him know him, and the impression is that he is a white scholar who can talk eloquently.
I vaguely remember Gai Shuhua's high-minded talk on ** back then, why are these B&B cards such as Cheng and Hermit Crab yellow? One of the core theories is that they sell too cheaply, and we sell expensive.
On September 7, 2020, the future homestay platform launched the homestay card, playing the slogan of "2888 yuan a year membership fee, free of charge for boutique homestays around the city all year round", and the first batch of cooperative homestays are mainly in the suburbs of Beijing, with boutique homestay brands such as Seclusion Township, Baili Township, Manlu, Shanli China, Fengshiguangju, Yueli, and Wanshe.
At that time, Gai Shuhua swore that "we have calculated an account, and the income of the homestay hosts we cooperate with has increased by nearly 100%, from the user's point of view, from one or two thousand yuan to an average of two or three hundred yuan per trip, so that the pool will slowly become big enough." ”
Looking back now, it is obvious that he did not understand this account very clearly.
I remembered that a few years ago, I had dinner with Lao Zuo, one of the founders of Rucheng, talked about the fall of Rucheng back then, and talked about the "no deposit, relatively first-class card sales" model of good accommodation in the future.
Looking back on some stubborn diseases in the industry, Lao Zuo's words are concise and to the point, "The B&B card model is sold cheaply, attracting a group of wool parties, which are expensive and worthless to users." ”
Personally, I think that as a person who has been crawling around in the pile of bones, Lao Zuo's comment is in one sentence.
Why do these dazzling B&B card names come up one by one, and the promises made to users are all over the place, and most of them end up with the same fate?
To put it simply, the business model of the B&B card itself is an endless loop, overestimating human nature and your own cash flow level, because it is difficult for you to ask the wool picker to place an order according to your "objective rationality".
To put it bluntly, since your gimmick is to let guests take advantage, what kind of customer group should naturally have a b number in mind, which is why Rucheng asked guests to have a high deposit every time they booked a room, on the one hand, it was to enrich cash flow, and on the other hand, it was indeed to prevent those members who "occupied the room and did not go" from disrupting the order of the platform.
Even so, these B&B card platforms still collapsed, with deposits and membership fees, and at the peak of their closure, a member could even be "cut vegetables" by several B&B card companies in a short period of time.
Objectively speaking, Gai Shuhua saw the "drawbacks" of some B&B cards, but he still thought about this business too simply.
At the beginning of last year, Gai Shuhua didn't realize that the logic of the initial idea of the B&B card couldn't be played, and upgraded the future of the good house to the future planet, which could see his "urgency to survive", trying to enrich the platform flow and relieve the cash pressure through some low customer unit price and volume products.
However, it was too late, far water could not quench the thirst of the near, and a drop of water could not make up for the huge hole.
After the thunderstorm, criminal liability has become the most worrying thing for some prepaid or homestay card owners.
As early as 2018, Bula Travel engaged in pre-sale illegal investment 1500 million yuan, his legal person Xu Lei was sentenced to 3 years in prison and fined 100,000 yuan for illegally absorbing public deposits, and his CEO Chong Pinhong was sentenced to 4 years and 6 months in prison and fined 200,000 yuan.
In 2021, Chengdu High-tech Zone** also filed a case for investigation on suspected fraud of hermit crab travel, according to incomplete statistics from members, more than 1,000 members lost a total of more than 17 million yuan at that time.
It can be seen that due to the advance payment of a large number of users in advance, if the prepaid card travel company has no ability to repay after the explosion, it is not simply a matter of bankruptcy and dispersion, and faces post-event accountability.
A legal person who is deeply involved in the tourism industry pointed out to the travel industry, "If the company knows that it has no ability to perform the contract, but continues to collect money, and even faces qualitative contract fraud, this is more serious." ”
It is worth mentioning that although the mini program of Future Planet has been "updated and maintained", its Xiaohongshu account has changed its vest from "Future Planet" to "Planet Village-Murakami Tsubaki" to continue to exist, and its last update was on January 23 this year, introducing a boutique homestay in Yanqing, Beijing, claiming to be looking for a "sleep test officer".
Another Xiaohongshu netizen posted, saying "Avoid pits! Future Planet has been renamed Planet Village" to remind netizens who have not yet been "recruited" to take a detour.
The development of the homestay industry in 2024 has experienced many twists and turns, such as Airbnb's withdrawal from the Chinese local market, the explosion of homestay cards, and the repeated tightening of urban homestays.
Some time ago, Airbnb began verifying all of the five countries of the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and France, and the verified ones will be backed by content such as matching external and internal or on-site hosts, with icons.
Almost at the same time, the domestic homestay platform Tujia also launched the Internet celebrity homestay "Filter Collector", which ensured that the user's homestay experience was "what you see is what you get" through real-person on-site shooting and inspection, which quickly became a hot search topic.
* It is indeed a point of concern for B&B users, but safety, health and truth are also stubborn diseases in the B&B industry, and it is an opportunity for enterprises.
There is a law to everything, and the deep quagmire of the "last B&B card company" in the future is tantamount to a wake-up call for B&B people, and it is worth paying attention to whether there will be a new such company "emerging" in the future.
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