On February 2nd, the release and seminar of "2023 Annual Consumption Hotspot Observation Report" (hereinafter referred to as "Report") hosted by People’s Network Research Institute was held in Studio 1 of People’s Network. Combined with the top ten consumption trends and related hot spots summarized in the Report, representatives from China Academy of Social Sciences, China Macroeconomic Research Institute, Heilongjiang Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism and Internet consumption platform enterprises launched a round-table discussion around the two themes of "reading consumption mentality, grasping consumption trends" and "improving consumption environment and stimulating consumption potential". The two round-table discussions were hosted by Liao Canliang and Dong Jinzhi, researchers of People’s Network Research Institute respectively.
Roundtable discussion on "Interpreting consumption mentality and grasping consumption trend" (photo by People’s Daily Online Yu Kai)
"Improving the consumption environment and stimulating consumption potential" roundtable discussion site (photo by People’s Daily Online Yu Kai)
Cultural tourism consumption is the bright color in the consumption trend in 2023.
Guests generally believe that the consumption of cultural tourism is the bright color in the consumption trend in 2023. Li Zhengjie, director of the public affairs department of Ctrip Group, said that in 2023, important tourist nodes such as May 1 ST, Summer and Eleventh, Ctrip platform travel orders all exceeded 2019. Old-established tourist cities and online celebrity punch-in attractions prosper together. Well-known scenic spots and cities with concentrated tourism resources are still the "hot cakes" of the entire tourism market, and super IPS such as the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, the West Lake and Huangshan are hard to find on holidays. At the same time, online celebrity has become a beautiful landscape, and hot spots such as Harbin Ice and Snow, Zibo Barbecue, Luoyang Hanfu, Xuchang Pangdonglai, Guizhou Cunchao, and Tianjin Grandpa frequently brush their screens.
Li Zhengjie spoke at the event (photo by People’s Daily Online Yu Kai)
Tang Chengcai, a professor at beijing international studies university Academy of Tourism Sciences, summarized six trends of cultural tourism consumption in 2023: First, the scale recovered rapidly; Second, the diversified development of destinations, the competition pattern between emerging online celebrity and traditional classic destinations will coexist for a long time; Third, the deep integration of cultural tourism consumer products, the integration of sports, art, intangible cultural heritage, agriculture, forestry, ecology and other elements constitutes a huge cultural tourism industry system; Fourth, the emergence of new cultural tourism consumption scenes attracts people of different ages to their destinations; Fifth, the consumption environment has been continuously optimized, and the relevant government departments have solved complaints such as smuggling and bullying in the first time, and the word-of-mouth effect of tourists has been improved; Sixth, the normalization of north passengers going south and south passengers going north. Harbin took the lead in interacting with Guangxi "Little Sugar Orange", which is a win-win situation for different types of tourist destinations. Regardless of south, north, east and west passengers, the interaction between regions has made the cultural tourism market bigger and more active.
Tang Chengcai spoke at the event (photo by People’s Daily Online Yu Kai)
The emergence of online celebrity city conforms to the three major trends of industrial structure upgrading.
In view of the rise of online celebrity cities such as Harbin and Zibo in 2023, Hong Qunlian, director of the Institute of Industrial Economics and Technical Economics of China Macroeconomic Research Institute, said that the emergence of online celebrity cities is accidental, but more inevitable. Because it conforms to three major trends: the first is the trend of industrial structure upgrading. Under the guidance of the concept of high-quality development, China’s product and service innovation has been continuously upgraded, and domestic brands have been constantly emerging. Many products and services have changed from popularization and generality to personalization, specialization and quality. The high-quality products of Harbin ice and snow economy have been carefully built for many years, and the "Village Supermarket" in Rongjiang, Guizhou Province retains the original flavor of country football and blends into local special cuisine and national culture. The second is the trend of upgrading the consumption structure. China has entered the pattern of two-wheel drive of commodity consumption and service consumption, and the growth rate of service consumption is faster. "Generation Z" has gradually become the main consumer, pursuing high quality, good price and personalized experience. Different from commodity consumption, service consumption depends more on interpersonal communication and needs to make consumers feel sincere and thoughtful service. The third is that the marketing channel has undergone revolutionary changes. In the new media era, Internet communication has become the mainstream media. On the network platform, many parties participate, and the subject and object cooperate, and the communication effect is obvious. The supplier actively plans to display products through platforms such as Tik Tok, but more driving force comes from the positive feedback after the consumer experience. This kind of driving effect, including the leading role of community leaders in online celebrity, is not available in traditional marketing channels and communication channels.
Hong Qunlian spoke at the event (photo by People’s Daily Online Yu Kai)
Zhang Chunyan, the second inspector of Heilongjiang Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, introduced four main measures behind the prosperity and development of the cultural tourism industry in Heilongjiang, combining with the typical case of "fancy pet" in Harbin, which set off an upsurge of ice and snow consumption. The first is the top-level design. "Ice and snow are also Jinshan Yinshan", and the ice and snow economy is one of the four new economies in Heilongjiang Province. Since 2022, guiding documents such as the Development Plan of Ice and Snow Economy in Heilongjiang Province (2022-2030), Several Policies and Measures to Support the Development of Ice and Snow Economy in Heilongjiang Province, and 50 Measures to Release the Potential of Tourism Consumption and Promote the High-quality Development of Tourism in Heilongjiang Province have been intensively issued. The second is to optimize product supply. In 2023, two hundred-day actions of summer vacation and ice and snow tourism were carried out, and "100 million" product supply, ten boutique routes, 100 food feasts, thousands of cultural tourism events and ten thousand kinds of good things in Longjiang were put forward, which condensed the high-quality cultural tourism products in Heilongjiang. The third is to build a friendly tourist destination. Conduct full-coverage experience supervision on tourism-related links and give full play to the joint meeting mechanism of tourism work. "Supervision guards a wall, and the problem is not handled overnight". When problems are found, deal with them immediately, leaving no future trouble. The fourth is to increase the promotion. In 2023, 45 promotion conferences outside the province were organized. In recent years, the snow and ice crown tourism alliance established by the head snow and ice tourism enterprises has been continuously promoted to key tourist sources and deepened the market. At the same time, using Internet thinking, interacting with tourist bloggers and big V, driving tourists to participate, has formed a situation of spontaneous promotion of the whole society.
Zhang Chunyan spoke at the event (photo by People’s Daily Online Yu Kai)
Consumers’ mentality has become more mature, and ordinary people have become lifestyle leaders.
Liu Qi, head of JD.COM Institute of Consumer and Industrial Development, said that the data of the National Bureau of Statistics and JD.COM Platform confirmed the growth of online purchasing power in 2023. Through the data, we can read the psychological changes of young consumers: pursuing high quality and good price, we can buy expensive ones, but we can’t buy expensive ones; Pursuing a sense of accomplishment, satisfaction and security, "saving golden peas" is the representative of this mentality and behavior; The pursuit of finding a balance between emotional pleasure and core stability is reflected in consumer behavior, including impromptu travel, buying small things that can bring a sense of relaxation, self-disciplined health management and body management, rushing from desk to night school, and paying for improving ability.
Liu Qi spoke at the event (photo by People’s Daily Online Yu Kai)
According to the analysis of tourism consumption characteristics, Li Zhengjie said that the traditional tourism mode of "getting on the bus to sleep and getting off the bus to take pictures" is being abandoned by most tourists, and tourists pay more attention to the sense of relaxation during travel. There are many cases of staying in hotels, visiting the morning market, and even joining the elderly tour group after 00. Deep travel and slow experience have become the new trend. Travelers enjoy the fun of impromptu departure. In 2023, the average advance time of users who booked air tickets in Ctrip was shortened by 25% compared with that in 2019, and the number of hotel orders booked the next day increased by 71% compared with that in 2019.
Deng Sidi, an industry research expert of Alibaba Group, said that consumers’ emphasis on the actual value of products has brought opportunities to many China brands. During the "Double Eleven" event in 2023, the market share of Guochao brand in the high-end consumer brands of Tmall platform increased steadily. The innovation ability of domestic brands, the insight into consumption habits and the improvement of supply chain are the main driving forces to support the national tide and the rise of domestic products.
Deng Sidi spoke at the event (photo by People’s Daily Online Yu Kai)
Zhu Di, deputy director and researcher of the Research Office of Consumer and Cultural Sociology, Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, described the current consumer and social consumption mentality with "maturity". On the one hand, consumers are more and more knowledgeable and know what they want; On the other hand, the development of digital platforms has helped consumers become more and more mature. Consumers not only pay attention to their own needs, but also pay attention to the influence of consumption behavior on others, society and the whole environment. Many new consumption phenomena exceed the expectations of the government and the market.
Judy said that ordinary people have become the leaders of lifestyle, and consumption is showing a trend of community. In the pre-digital era, media, government and other institutions are the main bodies to educate and guide consumption trends and lifestyles; At the beginning of the digital economy, idols, stars and online opinion leaders led the way of life. At present, e-commerce and platform economy have entered a mature stage, and more and more ordinary users have the right to speak. Many of their comments resonate in the consumer community. The activity of the community of interest makes some consumer cultures and lifestyles constantly brew, sublimate and expand from a little spark. This is a logic that ordinary people lead their way of life.
Judy spoke at the event (photo by People’s Daily Online Yu Kai)
Professor Weihua zhao from the Department of Sociology, Beijing University of Technology believes that the current consumption hotspots reflect that consumers are paying more and more attention to experience, and their consumption orientation has changed from gaining others’ approval to focusing on their own inner experience, paying more attention to the happiness and satisfaction brought by consumption.
Weihua zhao spoke at the event (photo by People’s Daily Online Yu Kai)
The whole chain makes efforts to optimize the consumption environment and release the consumption potential.
Judy believes that some consumption trends in 2023 reflect that government departments have made great efforts to create a good consumption environment, from respecting and protecting residents’ consumption enthusiasm to market supervision and protection of consumers’ rights and interests.
Jiang Zhao, Ph.D., from the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, cited the consumption of the national tide and the consumption of green smart home appliances mentioned in the Report as examples, saying that the Ministry of Commerce has promoted the cultivation and identification of Chinese time-honored brands in recent years, encouraged local enterprises to actively declare time-honored brands, and incorporated China’s traditional culture, art and local characteristics into products to help the consumption boom of the national tide. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Commerce and other ministries and commissions have long promoted home appliances and new energy vehicles to the countryside, and many areas have promoted the consumption of green smart home appliances in the form of issuing consumer vouchers. As a visible hand, the government guides the upgrading of the supply side and helps release the consumption potential.
Jiang Zhao spoke at the event (photo by People’s Daily Online Yu Kai)
Liu Pengfei, a senior researcher at People’s Online Mass Work Department, said that the People’s Online Leadership Message Board and People’s Suggestions column are important channels for the masses to pay attention to and reflect consumption-related topics. In recent years, various opinions and suggestions from netizens have been collected through relevant topics. Some difficult problems in the field of consumption, especially the protection of consumers’ rights and interests, have been answered in time by relevant departments. The leadership message board will continue to reflect the voices of the masses and help create a good consumption environment.
Liu Pengfei spoke at the event (photo by People’s Daily Online Yu Kai)
Gao Lei, deputy director of the Economic and People’s Livelihood Editorial Department of People’s Daily Online, said that in recent years, People’s Daily Online has focused on building a platform for consumers to complain about their rights online-People’s Complaints, and is committed to building a bridge of communication between consumers and businesses, enterprises and regulatory authorities. Since its launch in October 2021, the platform has received more than 480,000 effective complaints, and more than 100 enterprises and institutions have settled in. The platform distributes effective complaints to settled enterprises through manual and intelligent collaborative sorting.
Gao Lei spoke at the event (photo by People’s Daily Online Yu Kai)
Which consumer sectors will maintain a good growth trend in 2024?
The head of the Ministry of Commerce recently said that 2024 will be designated as the "Year of Consumption Promotion", and the Ministry of Commerce will work with relevant departments and parties to create a strong consumption atmosphere and provide residents with more yuan and richer consumption experiences.
In view of the consumption trend in 2024, Hong Qunlian believes that the first is that the consumption boom of cultural tourism will not decrease, and more cities in online celebrity will take over and blossom more. Second, health consumption will continue to grow, including health food, fitness equipment and medical devices. The third is intelligent consumption. In the era of big data, all consumers are in a digital and informational pattern. With the improvement of internet infrastructure, the country’s efforts to narrow the digital divide have achieved results, the number of middle-aged and elderly netizens and rural netizens has continued to increase, the consumption of intelligent products has sunk, and the agricultural products have become more and more smooth. The fourth is green consumption. Consumers pay more attention to the environmental protection properties of products, and the consumption growth of new energy vehicles and green products will have a good momentum.
Weihua zhao believes that at this stage, this kind of consumption that meets the needs of development, enjoyment and emotion is developing rapidly. From this perspective, service consumption will develop greatly. Cultural tourism, health, sports, green and intelligent consumption may all usher in rapid development. In addition, with the increase of people’s social activities, the consumption of clothing accessories, gold and jewelry is also an important growth point. In short, those who can satisfy the people’s yearning for a better life will have greater room for development. (Dong Jinzhi)