People say do one line and love one line, but there is a company that does one line and thinks about another.
is obviously engaged in the business of hotels, but in the field of home e-commerce, the hotel has become a "side business".
This hotel is Atour.
What's even more amazing is that Atour has opened thousands of stores, but the boss doesn't have to pay a penny;
During the mask period, the hotel industry struggled, but Atour did not seem to be affected in the slightest, and became the only hotel in China to maintain profitability for three consecutive years.
Others are still crawling in their own one-third of an acre, but Atour has handed over a number of dazzling report cards in a row.
Atour, this enigmatic brand, what is so special?
Network diagram
At the beginning of 2012, Wang Haijun, who was in his 30s, sold 2The diesel version of the 7T modified sports car, he no longer needs the excitement and pleasure of the sports car when accelerating, but chooses to listen to his inner voice - to start a business.
However, he lost not only a sports car, but also the status of vice president of Huazhu Group (Hanting).
Wang Haijun, who majored in tourism management, worked hard in the hotel industry after graduation, and got involved in many traditional economy hotels such as Homeinns and Jinjiang Inn.
In 2004, Wang Haijun resigned from Homeinns and became the core founder of Huazhu Group.
As we all know, express hotels are mostly standardized room layouts, serious homogenization, in order to ensure profits, hotels can only continue to reduce costs, fight the best war.
Wang Haijun has long been tired of this kind of standardized layout and service, he believes that the hotel is not only to satisfy the residence, but also to become a way of life, he wants to be a warm and happy, but also distinctive humanistic hotel.
Subsequently, during a trip to Yunnan, Wang Haiyang was deeply impressed by a village with simple folk customs and full of happiness, which is Atour Village and the origin of the name Atour Hotel.
In August 2012, Wang Haijun registered a company in Chengdu with the name "Atour".
At the beginning of the business, the industry's requirements for hotels are still the standard of "sleep well and go to the Internet", and Wang Haiyang has begun to ask Atour to be fast, guide product development with customer needs, and create an experiential hotel that satisfies customers.
In Atour, the hotel lobby is not a cold marble floor and gorgeous crystal lamps, but a 24-hour library called "Bamboo House";
When the customer checks in, the front desk will not let the customer provide the reservation information first, but will hand over a cup of hot tea as soon as possible.
In order to provide customers with the ultimate service experience, Atour refines different services based on the customer's 17 contact points, constantly creates surprises for customers, and completes customers' unexpected services.
Atour will design a special breakfast according to different regions, breakfast at 5 o'clock **, supper ** to 2 o'clock in the morning. Whether it is to catch a flight in the morning or to check in in the middle of the night, you can enjoy a warm atmosphere exclusive to Atour here.
This is also the reason why Atour can become the highest rated hotel in China, even more than some five-star hotels.
In order to achieve higher ** and reputation, Atour began to build IP hotels according to its own target customer groups, starting from the "Atour Wu" hotel jointly created with writer Wu Xiaobo, and successively cooperated with many brands such as NetEase Cloud and Guoke.com.
With the combined effect of experiential services and IP creation, Atour's reputation and popularity have been greatly improved.
However, IP hotels are personalized products, and the cost is higher, and the average daily room rate is 15% higher than that of hotels in the same area4%, and it is impossible to achieve large-scale replication in terms of volume, it is difficult to generate high profits, and Atour's listing plan has been repeatedly delayed.
For a while, some negative voices began to emerge on the Internet, such as "Wenqing can't support Atour", "Humanities and IP are decorated, it is difficult to hide Atour's emptiness", "Atour Hotel: Wandering on the road to market, trapped in IP" ......
Even though the network is not very friendly to Atour at times, Atour has always gone its own way.
As early as 2014, when Atour stores opened more than 30 stores, there was a contradiction between expansion and cash flow, and the rapid expansion burned Atour's cash flow, and Atour began to think about how to expand the scale of the hotel.
Relying on the accumulation of the past, Wang Haijun raised 20 million funds for Atour.
Originally, 20 million was only enough for Atour to open a store, however, Atour opened hundreds of stores in just a few years, which can almost be said to be a zero-cost store.
On August 12, 2015, Atour cooperated with **.com for the first time to crowdfund hotels, with a fundraising target of 2 million yuan for the construction of new franchised stores.
The minimum investment amount of a single investment is 2 yuan and the maximum is 4999 yuan, and the return on investment includes hotel mattresses, stored value cards, afternoon tea and other related products, as well as hotel discounts and other membership rights.
Once launched, Netmap crowdfunding was sought after by hotel consumers, and finally raised 6.6 million yuan, which was much higher than the established goal of crowdfunding.
Since then, Atour's crowdfunding has blossomed everywhere, and the amount of crowdfunding participation has been expanded from the maximum limit of 4,999 yuan to 30,000 yuan, and the returns provided have become more and more generous.
When Atour wants to open a new store, it will generally announce 4 crowdfunding plans for investors to choose from, each corresponding to a different target group.
For example, in the first plan, investors only need to pay 2 yuan to participate in crowdfunding and get the opportunity to win a grand prize of 7,888 yuan.
The purpose of the plan is obvious, which is to let more people know about Atour and plant a seed for future occupancy.
The second option has an investment amount of 299 yuan, which allows you to stay in a room worth 699 yuan, and also comes with breakfast and afternoon tea, which aims to attract more guests to the market and increase the occupancy rate of the hotel.
The investment amount of plan 3 is upgraded to 4,999 yuan, and you can get a membership card of the same amount and a mattress of 8,000 yuan.
The corresponding investors are Atour members and associate members who often stay in Atour, membership renewal, and associate member upgrades.
The last plan of the network map, with an investment amount of 30,000 yuan, can participate in the hotel dividend.
At the same time, in order to reduce the investment risk, Atour promises to return the principal after three years, and investors can get an additional mattress worth 8,000 yuan.
The first two programs are advertised to attract new customers, and the latter two programs are invested in crowdfunding, so well-designed, it is no wonder that Atour has achieved amazing results.
It is reported that Atour has only six crowdfunding, with more than 5,000 members participating, and the average number of stays of members is more than 10 times, and in the crowdfunding of the Atour Hotel project in Tianjin Xiaobailou, it has created a crowdfunding myth of 50 million in 5 hours.
Such achievements, as Atour founder Wang Haijun once said, "The purpose of Atour crowdfunding is not to raise funds, but to allow users to participate in the construction and investment of hotels." ”
From individual visitors in the market to hotel users, from hotel members to hotel investors, Atour has a deeper connection with users, opening 583 stores in 7 years, and as of September 30, 2023, Atour has joined 1,080 hotels, realizing Atour's 1,000 store plan in China.
At the same time, on November 11, 2022, Atour was successfully listed on the NASDAQ, handing over a satisfactory answer to the market.
Wang Haijun often said, "A hotel is not only a place to sleep, but also an entrance to a better lifestyle." ”
With the development of Atour Hotel, this sentence has become a reality step by step.
According to Atour's financial report for the third quarter of 2023, Atour's overall revenue is 129.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of 93%. Behind this set of data is the rapid development of Atour scene's retail business.
Network diagramIn the third quarter, Atour retail sales were 30.2 billion, almost 3 times that of the previous year.
Atour has more than 2,000 scene retail products, covering almost all aspects of life, among which the best-selling categories are concentrated in sleep products, and the best-selling is Atour's deep sleep pillow.
Whether it is self-operated by Atour Jingdong*** or Atour Planet Tmall***, the sales of the three pillows focusing on deep sleep have exceeded 100,000 orders;
Among them, the highest-selling Atour Planet Deep Sleep Memory Pillow Pro, as of November 11, 2023, the official cumulative sales data exceeded 800,000.
The price of this pillow is 309 yuan, and 800,000 is 2400 million sales, don't underestimate the data of Atour, pillows of head home furnishing companies such as Fuanna and Mercury Home Textiles have annual sales of only 2-300 million yuan.
It is no exaggeration to say that Atour, which is mainly engaged in hotels, has unconsciously achieved the head in the pillow industry.
Why did Atour, which has been deeply involved in the hotel field, turn around and rise in the home furnishing industry?
This is also due to Atour's fast-growing stores after crowdfunding, each store has a display window for Atour's retail products, and each room is a model room for product trials.
Before entering the room, all gold card members of Atour can choose two Atour tips services on the app and try two products for free;
Gold card members belong to Atour's experience members, the threshold is very low, and they can usually be collected for free, which means that all guests of Atour will become trial users of Atour home products.
When the traditional home furnishing industry introduces it to customers, no matter which one of them is, it will not let customers take the product home for a free night.
For Atour, the hotel trial is not just one night, but several nights, and the conversion rate of brands with excellent product quality is usually not too low after the experience.
The combination of scene and retail, the value of the hotel has been amplified again, and I have to say that Atour's business is really clear.
Compared with hotels, the gross profit margin of the home furnishing industry can almost double.
For the hotel, after 12 o'clock in the evening, no one checked in, and the night was vacant without any profit; In the tourist season, when all the rooms are full, the hotel cannot generate more profits.
But the home furnishing industry is different, the product will never expire, it will not be sold out this year, and it will continue to be sold next year;
Especially a sales model like Atour has no additional store sales costs, and no matter how you look at it, it is profitable.
In 2021, Atour released its first sleep brand, Atour Planet, to expand the sales of home furnishing products.
Judging from the results, at the time of the recession of the hotel industry, Atour has maintained profitability for three consecutive years, and the net profit attributable to the parent company in 2021 is 14.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 245%.
It starts at the hotel, but it doesn't stop at the hotel. Today's Atour has opened up a new battlefield for itself, and has also brought industry competition to a higher dimension.
Looking back on the past 20 years, Atour has first used experiential services and IP hotels to shape eye-catching products, then achieved rapid expansion through crowdfunding, and earned profits through derivatives such as pillows.
Whether it is selling hotel services or selling pillows, Atour Hotel is facing the same group of people, that is, users who need high-quality sleep.
As the founder Wang Haijun said, "Our competitors are not competitors, but changing user needs." ”
From operating rooms to operating spaces, to operating people, Atour has always anchored its goals to the ever-changing needs of users.
While other hotels are still thinking about how to reduce costs and how to make customers feel better than others, Atour is already thinking about how to make customers feel that they are more than just a hotel.
Now, we can no longer simply define Atour as a hotel, it has gradually grown into a humanistic, warm and interesting way of life.
What kind of volume can Atour develop into in the future, or what kind of surprises it will bring us, let us wait and see.
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Reference: Mantou Business School: "The Birth of Internet Celebrity Hotel: Why did NetEase choose Atour again?" 》
Vista Hydrogen Business: ""Turn the hotel into a wool paradise", how can Atour, which is becoming more and more expensive, become a gentle township for social animals on business trips
Maidian.com: "How to play crowdfunding with Atour, YOU+, and Slow in the Past? 》
Hotel hotspots: "Atour, which is a hotel, it is simply 'Oriental Selection'!" 》
Operation Research Club "Selling pillows in 90 days to earn 300 million, this "not doing business" hotel is too good at playing".
Author: Xiaogua.
Editor: Ichiyigi.