Camping economy, fire!
At the end of this spring, after the epidemic affected overseas travel, long-distance tourism, food and indoor activities, photos of young people camping along the Liangma River in Beijing were brushed in the circle of friends. The Liangma river was jokingly called “Seine River, Liangma River”.
In Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Chengdu and other places, camping tents are more like stars.
The capital market is honest and keen. Camping economic concept stocks have sprung up: the short-term leader Tianjin Lvyin Landscape And Ecology Construction Co.Ltd(002887) ( Tianjin Lvyin Landscape And Ecology Construction Co.Ltd(002887) . SZ) opened the second board. At present, it has recorded three consecutive boards, and the daily report on May 19 closed at 11.17 yuan / share; Trend stock mu Gaodi ( Comefly Outdoor Co.Ltd(603908) . SH) has increased nearly three times in just two months. Its share price has increased by more than 130% this year, reaching a record high, and the trend is far stronger than the market.
In the first quarter of 2022, Comefly Outdoor Co.Ltd(603908) achieved a high growth in revenue and profit. The company cooperated closely with the camping camp to achieve a revenue of 74.42 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 184%.
Recently, investment circles have flocked to the camping industry for research. A camping equipment manufacturer told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter: “received the research of hundreds of investment institutions.”
From an investment perspective, is camping a good business? The 21st Century Business Herald interviewed a number of people engaged in the camping industry, and the answer was: “the camping business seems to open a blind box”, and others summarized it as “eating in the sky”.
The investment cost is mainly in infrastructure
Perhaps your impression of camping is that Backpackers carry their bags, hike in the mountains and forests, eat and sleep in the open, then you’re out.
After two rounds of evolution, the mode of camping has gradually changed from “traditional camping” to “convenient camping” (consumers do not need to carry camping equipment, which is provided by the camp) and “exquisite camping” (also known as glamping, which originates from the two words of glamorous and camping, which is different from traditional camping equipment. This kind of camping carries RV, card stove, omelet table, star lamp, coffee machine, barbecue equipment, etc.). Traditional camping is mostly hard work, mainly sleeping in the wilderness, while exquisite camping pays more attention to clock in and leisure experience, and even many don’t spend the night in the wilderness. In this sense, many of today’s “camping” are “Pan camping”.
According to the big data of the same journey, the search heat of tourism related to May Day “camping” increased by 117% month on month; According to the data of flying pig platform, camping orders increased by more than 350% month on month; Qunar big data shows that the booking volume of camping related products (accommodation and travel) is three times that of last year.
Third party data show that there are about 93000 camping / Camping related enterprises in China. Over the past decade, the registration of camping / Camping related enterprises in China has increased year by year. In 2019, the growth of relevant enterprises reached the highest, 28000; In 2020, the number of registrations decreased to 14000; In 2021, the number of registrations increased again to 22000, a year-on-year increase of 55.2%.
Pants has been engaged in the outdoor industry for many years. In 2019, he keenly discovered the rise of light luxury camping. At that time, there was no decent climate forming camping site in Ningbo. After only two or three years, Ningbo has more than 30 professional camping sites, and pants is also operating one of them.
The cost of operating a camp is mainly capital construction, including land leveling, water and electricity connection, lawn laying, toilet and bathroom construction. A camp of 20 or 30 mu can easily cost hundreds of thousands. A higher-end camp will also be equipped with swimming pools and entertainment facilities, and the cost can easily exceed one million.
Of course, the construction cost of some camps is higher, mainly because they are built in deep mountains with beautiful scenery and need to build roads and plank roads. The procurement of camping equipment is not high in the overall cost. A medium-sized camp can purchase a batch of equipment such as tents, sky curtains, paragliders and trampolines at a cost of more than 100000 or 200000.
According to him, the high-end version of camping has been similar to high-end B & B, the supporting facilities and three meals a day are similar to hotels, and the mattresses provided are not specially used outdoors. Some local villas have begun to operate this mode. In his opinion, that kind of high-end camping may have a limited life, because the price is too high, but the service quality provided is not as good as that of hotels at the same price. Most customers come to “taste the fresh” and the repurchase rate is low.
In contrast, the camp operated by pants is more pure and natural. It has the most basic service center, toilet, bathroom and electricity. It tries to provide an open lawn for consumers to build, and the price is more close to the people.
Camping now does take up a lot of space. A tent is about ten meters by five meters in size, 60 or 70 square meters to build a tent, and then match it with a sky curtain. Kuyt said that sometimes the site built by 10 people takes up hundreds of square meters.
Kuyt admitted that the income of this industry is relatively “flat”. Although the investment is small, the return is not high. In the camps around Ningbo, the annual revenue of two or three million is better. Pants has been reinvesting its revenue into the upgrading of the camp. At present, it has not made a profit. His goal is to build a camping Town, enrich business formats, retain customers, and develop some natural education projects for primary school students and kindergarten students.
Some people in the industry told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that they are optimistic about the camping economy, because although the current market development is a little overheated and the cost performance and customer experience have not fully kept up, more and more people have joined the industry, such as tourism and catering industry. Soon, the experience will be better and the camping projects will be more diversified. For example, someone has written a script of “script killing” according to the conditions of the camp, which has a better experience than the script killing in the mall or office building. In addition, compared with Europe and the United States, Japan and South Korea, the penetration rate of Chinese family camping is still relatively low, and the growth space is still large. He believes that the market scale is far from reaching the top.
Triple investment barriers in camps
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter learned from many sources that camping is moving from recklessness to standardization, and the main obstacles to investment are threefold:
first, the epidemic situation speaking, this is “success and failure”. Due to the impact of the epidemic, people began to pay attention to outdoor activities. People who had previously participated in indoor group construction, script killing and secret room escape poured into camping. However, after the multi-point outbreak, people’s travel will be sharply reduced, and the camp business will be temporarily cold.
An employee told reporters that the camp business was affected by the epidemic, “like opening a blind box”. Some camps originally planned to do a big job on May Day this year, but they didn’t do so in the end. The effective time of a camp in a year is 80-100 days, mainly in spring, early summer, autumn holidays and weekends, but also sunny days.
second, policies as the business form of camping is gradually brought into standardization, some camps built first may face problems such as “rehabilitation” and “returning to forest” after completion, and need to be demolished; There are also some camps in the mountains, which need to deal with not only the land planning bureau, but also the forestry bureau, reservoir management department, environmental protection department, etc. they are managed by multiple departments, but the competent department is not clear in practice. Some regions have issued relevant policies for camping. Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, is the leader, taking the lead in issuing the construction and service standards for scenic spots of camping camps, the safety prevention guide for scenic spots of camping camps and the management measures for scenic spots of camping camps.
third, the risk of customer base reduction Kuyt believes that the main group catching up with the upsurge recently is leisure people. The purpose is to “punch in” and their loyalty to camping is not high. When there are new alternative leisure ways in the future, or they can return to leisure projects such as tourist attractions, shopping malls, cinemas, screenplays and secret rooms, the camping economy may cool down. He believes that the industry is now in a period of survival of the fittest, and some simple campsites with online popularity may be quickly eliminated, which is also difficult to appreciate by capital.
Camping equipment supply chain problems
According to the May day consumption trend report of tmall 2022, from April 20 to May 4, the sales of tents / curtains in tmall increased by more than 2100% year-on-year, and the sales of outdoor coffee pots, outdoor tables and chairs and other camping equipment in tmall increased by more than three times year-on-year.
Fan Qin, the person in charge of the offline business of naturehike, an outdoor equipment brand, was hoarse when he received a telephone interview from a reporter. She admitted that she had received too many calls from customers, media and investors recently and was simply too busy.
Nuke started to make camping equipment in 2010 and grew together with China’s e-commerce business. The product system includes tents, air cushions, sleeping bags, tables and chairs, lamps, outdoor tableware, mountaineering sticks, backpacks, outdoor clothes, etc. What is rare is that overseas business and Chinese business account for almost 50% respectively. They also have a certain brand influence overseas and many social media fans.
In April, Nuoke completed nearly 100 million yuan of financing and was exclusively invested by Zhongding capital.
Fan Qin said that the current revenue growth ratio is maintained at the same level as in previous years, with an annual growth of 60% – 70%. The difference is that the base is getting larger and larger. Last year, their company’s revenue reached 700 million to 800 million yuan.
Fan Qin believes that the current popularity of camping economy is actually the impact of “her economy” and consumption upgrading. In product design, the camping equipment of Nuoke has changed from focusing on parameters and durability to focusing on appearance. As a member of the “water delivery worker” of the camping economy, she is optimistic about the sustainability of the industry: first, migrant workers pay more and more attention to quality life; Second, due to the improvement of living conditions, tents and other camping equipment have entered thousands of households and become a household product.
For camping equipment companies, the demand side is hot, and the current problem lies in supply chain and transportation. Fan Qin said frankly: “there are more than ten or twenty suppliers upstream of one of our products, such as fabrics, ropes, poles, etc. if any factory is shut down due to the epidemic, our products will not be produced.”
In addition, international transportation costs and storage costs are also rising. At present, international shipping is unstable. “If you agree to go today, but you don’t make it, and stop for a few days, the storage costs will come up.”
AI media consulting’s Research Report on the current situation of China’s camping economy industry and consumption behavior data from 2021 to 2022 shows that the scale of China’s camping core market reached 74.75 billion yuan in 2021, driving the market scale to 381.23 billion yuan. It is expected that the market scale driven by China’s camping will exceed trillion yuan in 2024.
