The homestay industry was rebuilt after it was zeroed out. This year’s 100 survival records.
Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “Tech Planet” (ID: tech618), Author: Li Xiaolei Ke Huiyao.
No one can predict the onset of this crisis.
Zhong Lei, the owner of an apartment hotel in Wuhan, just expanded his fourth hotel in early 2020. It has been in business for less than half a year. The sudden outbreak of the epidemic has stalled all business for more than half a year. Nowadays, the cherry blossoms in Wuhan have reopened, and the passenger flow has not reached the level of previous years. In order to save labor costs, he has set up a reception desk by himself, and has evening shifts three days a month.
For Zhang Feng, a homestay owner in Hainan, 2020 is an absolute year of crisis. He reduced the number of houses in his hand from 50 to 18, but the loss could not be stopped, and he had to sell a house to make up for the shortfall. Chen Cheng, a homestay owner with the back of Chengdu Gexian Mountain Scenic Area, did not wait for the peak tourist season when the flowers and fruits were ripe and the guests flocked in 2020. Instead, the family lived in a guesthouse without guests, relying on their own orchard and vegetable plot to be self-sufficient. After a period of isolation.
The epidemic is like a time bomb hanging over the head. For the brand B&B, although there are no guests to check in, it “cannot be forgotten by the guests.” The Internet celebrity homestay brand “Da Le Zhi Ye” collects agricultural products from various homestay locations, sells them to customers, and even opened an offline grocery store.
In any industry, when the market is down, there are always people who are going against the trend. Maolan Wanghong B&B is preparing to invest more funds to close the house and expand the scale. Her friend’s first reaction is: Are you crazy? Cat sister is partly a gambling, and half is also very convinced that the opportunities hidden behind this crisis: those real estates that were difficult to enter in the past, and the housing estates that were difficult to discuss, now is the best time to “take down”.
These are just the survival fragments behind the crisis faced by the homestay industry in the past year. Tech Planet interviewed a number of homestay brands and homestay owners. Like most offline entities, they experienced a year of zeroing and slow rebuilding.
Although, the 2021 New Year’s Day holiday and Spring Festival beltThere has been a small explosion in the homestay industry, but the impact this industry has suffered has not recovered as much as before, one year later.
After selling a house to survive this crisis, I decided to switch industries
Owner of Hainan Sanya B&B, Zhang Feng
In January 2012, by chance, I obtained ten sets of sources from a friend and opened a homestay in Sanya Bay, Hainan. At first, business was a bit bleak, but fortunately, costs such as rent and employee salaries were very low. Slowly from 2015 to 2017, the homestay industry entered an explosive period. At its peak, I had more than 50 suites in my hands, and the annual revenue could reach more than 8 million yuan.
My feeling is that since 2018, the homestay industry has begun to decline. The sudden epidemic in 2020 will be a devastating blow to us.
Originally, before and after the Spring Festival every year, it is the biggest tourist season in Sanya. The price of each room can reach 800-2500 yuan. 70% of the annual turnover comes from this quarter, while the off-season is usually only 150-450 yuan. about. Sanya during the Spring Festival in 2020 is desperately deserted.
On February 1st, the homestay officially closed. At that time, we only felt that we were going to close down completely. At that time, the only thing that could be done was to take the initiative to negotiate with the landlord, hoping to reduce the rent.
When opening a homestay in Sanya, the rent is paid once a year. When the epidemic hit last year, I just paid the rent for one year. Fortunately, after negotiation, most landlords expressed their understanding and agreed to reduce or exempt the rent for 2-3 months or postpone the payment. There is no way to negotiate fruitlessly. After all, I have already paid the full rent for one year, and I can understand if I don’t want to vomit it again. In this case, we can only check out. Fortunately, they are willing to refund the deposit. After some twists and turns, half of the listings were finally returned. Now we only have 18 suites and one villa.
Sanya Seaview Room, Hainan. Photo courtesy of respondents
The other way we saved ourselves at the time was to change short-term rents into long-term rents. In the winter of previous years, many tourists came to Sanya for long-term rental homestays for the winter, and the monthly rent could reach 15,000 to 18,000 yuan. Most of those stranded in Sanya last year were tourists who left Hubei before the city was closed. In order to solve the vacant housing, I reduced the monthly rent to 5000-6000 yuan, this price can not even cover the cost.
During the time when there were no customers, I tried stocks trading, shopping at duty-free shops, and selling fruits online. After all, I had to live on. Such days will continue until the resumption of work in May 2020. At first, the occupancy rate was only 40%. After July, Hainan implemented the new policy of duty-free shopping on outlying islands, and the occupancy rate slowly recovered to 70%-80%, but the overall income was still insufficient. Various costs such as rent, decoration and maintenance, water, electricity and gas, linen washing and replacement will not be reduced due to the decrease in occupancy rate, so that it lost more than 1.2 million last year.
Last year, the child was just born, and I was under a lot of pressure. I only managed to survive this crisis by selling a house. Compared with last year, the business situation during the Spring Festival this year has improved, but I think it will take 2-3 years to return to normal.
I am a person who likes to go upstream. When many of my colleagues change shops, I still insist on doing some decoration, maintenance and updating for the hotel. But this year, after witnessing the chaotic status of the industry, I decided to switch to the interior design of homestays. The listings in my hand are considering subletting or letting them acquire the bill naturally, and no more investment.
The homestay industry has suffered a lot, but there are still many new practitioners. Sometimes, these people will be more “barbaric”. Many people use loopholes in the industry rules to deceive customers, and finally result in bad money driving out good money. , Chilling.
It feels like you were patiently cutting the cake. A dirty hand suddenly stretched out, took a piece of cake, and ran away, and then a group of people followed suit. Follow it, this cake chokes your throat. Don’t follow it, you won’t be able to eat it. This road is too difficult to walk.
I want to transfer the hotel, but the buyer encounters a low price hunting
The owner of Wuhan Apartment Hotel, Zhong Lei
My fourth new store opened less than half a year before the epidemic came.
In 2017, my friend and I partnered to open the first apartment hotel in Wuhan. In 2019, the fourth store will be opened. Each store has 35-45 guest rooms. The unit price of the room is usually around 120-150 yuan, and it can reach 170-200 yuan during holidays.It is when everything is going for the better, the difficulty arises.
On January 23, 2020, since the lockdown of Wuhan, we have not received any new orders. Actually, starting from mid-January, during that period, there were news of chargebacks every day, and my whole nerves collapsed. There was no business at that time. I was considered a new Wuhaner. Although I was a little panic, but the epidemic was so serious, I wanted to contribute my own strength, so I joined the hotel alliance organized by the private hotel owners in Wuhan and volunteered to receive medical staff.
At that time, the weather was very cold. Almost every room needed to be air-conditioned. After living for more than 20 days for the medical staff, the pre-stored water and electricity bills of 100,000 yuan a year ago Half of it has been used, and it can only last for another month at most.
Some medical staff asked to pay for accommodation, but I refused. I thought, they are charging ahead and we must at least do the logistics well. Fortunately, the medical staff are very relieved, and they are all spontaneously doing the disinfection and cleaning of the room.
The homestay where the medical staff lived at that time. Photo courtesy of respondents
At that time, everyone had no idea when the epidemic would end. What I was worried about was how to pay the next utility bill. In the middle, I tried to apply for donations to netizens through the media, but later, considering the corresponding legal risks, I had to give up. Fortunately, in late February, the government finally took over and arranged accommodation for the medical staff uniformly, which made me relieved.
The biggest loss is the newly opened store. We invested more than 1.6 million in the early stage. The hotel will pay back at least three years. The epidemic is like a bolt from the blue. The only thing I feel relieved is that the landlord agreed to postpone the rent paid from January to April during the lockdown period to the beginning of July.
But not all colleagues are as lucky as me. Because some landlords did not agree to postpone rent or reduce rent, some people had to transfer the hotel for 0 yuan, and related facilities were given away for free. During that time, my peer group was flooded with a lot of shop transfer information every day, and the atmosphere became tense day by day. What impressed me the most was that a colleague had just invested several million in the construction and renovation of a hotel, and the epidemic began less than a month after the completion of the project. He said at the time: “I hope to get infected with the new crown and leave this world, rather than face it all.”
Actually, I also hesitated whether to switch stores, but many acquirers were thinking about bargaining. The price offered was too low and I completely dispelled this idea. At the hardest time, I even considered transforming the hotel into an e-sports hotel that is very popular nowadays, but there is really not enough cash flow.
On April 8, Wuhan was unblocked, but nucleic acid testing and even isolation were still required to enter Wuhan, so few tourists came to Wuhan until May.
In July, after the extended rent expired, I started discussing rent reductions with the landlord, reducing the rent of over 1.3 million yuan per quarter to around 1 million yuan. Several landlords have a tough attitude, believing that the rent extension has been done with all their will, and they have no obligation to continue to help you bear the loss. Generally speaking, the occupancy rate generally has to reach 85% or more to make a profit, but the occupancy rate was only about 60% at that time, which is far less than the situation of full houses in previous years. How can I afford this rent? In the end, I had to pay the deposit to cancel the contract, and when I checked out, I gave it to the landlord with the decoration and related facilities.
Previously, the decoration cost for each guest room ranged from 30,000 to 70,000 yuan. I refunded more than ten rooms, which is equivalent to a loss of hundreds of thousands. Last year, regardless of other costs, I lost more than 700,000 yuan in rent alone. Coupled with these seven or eight losses, it is one million yuan.
Actually, from that time to the Spring Festival this year, the business conditions were not satisfactory. Before the epidemic, each of our stores hadOf the 7 employees, some voluntarily resigned for fear of safety issues, and now there are only about 4 left in each family. I can’t recruit new people, so I can only fill up the vacancy by myself. Originally, I was only in charge of business operations, but now I also start to receive guests and schedule night shifts three days a month.
Now, it’s not easy to maintain business. I don’t know when my store expansion plan will be put on the agenda again.
return 500 guest rooms, open a grocery store to sell local products
Da Le Zhi Ye Marketing Director, Fan Lu
At this time last year, everyone was unable to travel. At that time, there was an article called “Under the epidemic, the first industry to return to zero”, which was about our homestay and hotel industries.
At that time, even the health code, such as epidemic registration measures, had not yet appeared, and the confidence to travel was very weak. From the guest’s application for check-out to the voluntary clearance, and then to the closing of the store, there is no turnover, our industry is indeed zero. Chinese New Year is our peak season, but during the Spring Festival last year, we cleared about 500 rooms from all the stores, which directly caused nearly one million losses.
Da Le Zhi Ye focuses on small and beautiful country houses. There are few people in the mountains, good air and relatively safe, all of which are relatively more attractive to everyone. Take Huanghe Suji as an example, our store has maintained a 100% occupancy rate from the end of April to November.The unique desert project experience and unique exotic accommodation products make this project even more popular. On the whole, compared with last year’s Spring Festival, the New Year’s Eve and Spring Festival of this year did show a small peak in the whole of Dale’s other stores, but it is still quite tortuous.
Our branch in Anji, Zhejiang can take a bath. There is also a ski resort next to it, which caters to many of the Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai generation customers who cannot go abroad or go to the north. The characteristic Japanese-style bamboo forest landscape bathing products are very suitable for the scene, and the occupancy rate has also increased a lot. However, there was a special situation at that time. There were frequent cancellations of booked rooms. Later, according to our statistics, on average, each room was sold at least 4 times repeatedly. It was not until two days before check-in that the epidemic situation and the policy were stabilized before it became sold again.
In 2020, the northwest line travel is very popular. Zhongwei’s homestay will always receive calls from guests asking if there are any rooms available. In order to make up for the temporary cancellation of rooms caused by repeated epidemics and policy restrictions, we have established a missing group. Whenever there are vacancies, they will be published in the group. This saves a lot of communication costs and directly reduces the loss of temporary cancellation to 0.
Overall in 2020, starting from the official resumption of work at the end of March, our occupancy rate has increased compared with previous years, but the unit price per customer will be somewhat different. Nearly half of the houses have been sold more than twice, and the time and energy we put in are many times that of previous years.
As far as the company is concerned, the greatest pressure is during the period of shutdown. The material reserves and the company’s up and down of 200+ labor costs made a year ago were very difficult without cash flow. Fortunately, some things were done to make the funds flow, although not very large.
Last year, there was a panic buying of vegetables in the city.Since our stores are in the mountains, crops in some areas are also experiencing unsalable problems, so we specially dig out and collect the flavors and agricultural products of each store location, and then package them and sell them, such as the early garden bamboo shoots and dried bamboo shoots in Moganshan. , Dried bacon and so on. When the supply of disinfectants was in short supply, we also did some cross-border cooperation, selling disinfectants and so on. At that time, colleagues in the entire company were selling vegetables, which not only solved part of the cash flow problem, but also helped the farmers. It was an interesting time to think about it.
In 2020, we also tried to open an offline grocery store, and explored and developed a number of local customs and flavors, such as Ningbo Cicheng rice cake, Zhongwei wolfberry, red dates, Tan sheep and so on. I also found niche porcelain products made by many craftsmen in Jingdezhen, as well as the original peripheral series products that developed the brand for sale. Regardless of our small grocery store, in the peak season, the monthly revenue of hundreds of thousands is not a problem.
Affected by the epidemic, domestic travel around the country has gradually become popular, and the Dalezhiye brand is known to more young people, so it is born to be a high-quality At the same time, it is a new brand that can be accepted by young friends who love Dale. Under the overall situation, we have created a new homestay brand “Born to the Wild”, targeting a younger customer base and the main scenic spot in the past. Or the more scarce destinations, such as the Yellow River and the Mogan Mountains, what “born into the wild” will do is to create a vacation destination in the suburbs and create a young rural social vacation space.
Our Xiangyeersheng store in Anren, Chengdu, even if we encountered repeated epidemics in Chengdu on New Year’s Day, the occupancy rate was quite satisfactory. It can be full on weekends and Chinese New Year. There are 33 rooms in this store. The high occupancy rate is a real testament to the rise of surrounding tourism and the side confirms the right decision to make a new brand.
It seems that we have done a lot of unsatisfactory things. But we understand very well that at the most difficult time, even if the stores are closed, we can’t stop, we still have to use the “sense of existence” to prepare for the resumption of work and not be forgotten by customersRemember. When they want to travel, they will think of us.
If you don’t check out, it expands. My friend said I’m crazy
Hangzhou Maobao Net Red B&B, Maojie
Before the epidemic, our peak season occupancy rate could reach more than 97%, and there were many times when the room was full, and the average guest unit price basically remained above 400. For example, during the summer vacation, the “November” and “May 1st” holidays will be even higher. .
After the epidemic, we returned to the normal occupancy rate in April last year, but the unit price dropped significantly, only half or two-thirds of what it was before the epidemic. Although there is still a profit, there is still a gap. At the beginning of 2020, the epidemic broke out and traffic fell off a cliff. I closed nearly 70 stores in Hangzhou and Wuxi for more than two months and lost more than one million.
At that time, it was the biggest crisis I have encountered since I worked as a guest house. The company had no flow, so I had to go to the landlord to discuss rent reduction. Some landlords gave it half a month, and some landlords gave it a month.
In order to reduce the loss, we made a lot of adjustments to the housing, refunded a few suites with particularly high rents, and moved the soft furnishings of the high-priced housing to another housing with a lower rent.
OneAn obvious phenomenon is that the epidemic has caused many small landlords to withdraw. The small landlord has some characteristics. The selling price is in the low-end range, and there is no certain size. The maximum is less than 10 sets. They either don’t pay much attention to design, or work as a part-time job, or do not operate very much. There are also some homestay owners who will have to reduce the room volume due to financial pressure.
But not only did we not shrink, but we are still expanding the number of houses. Just a few days after the end of last year, as soon as Hangzhou was unblocked, we started to get houses and talk about new listings. At that time, a friend asked me: “Are you crazy, the epidemic is so serious, and you still get the house after losing so much money?”
I also feel that we are crazy, but we can’t reduce the mass in large quantities. The word-of-mouth accumulated on the platform is like a child raised by ourselves, and giving up is equivalent to so many years of accumulation in vain. In fact, there are a lot of rooms and business conditions are relatively good. The big landlords who really want to be homestays are basically getting houses.
There will always be a group of people who will seize market opportunities in an adversity, because they think they can buy bottoms. For example, we usually sign a house for three to five years. Now the prices of some houses will be relatively low due to the epidemic. There are also some good real estates. It is not easy to sign off at ordinary times. Some of them cannot enter at all. Only possible under special circumstances.
During the epidemic last year to the beginning of this year, when we went to sign a new house, we all met the homestay owner who robbed us. One time we met a colleague when we looked at the listing. I was still struggling, but because I saw that he wanted it and waited for the landlord to transfer, I dragged the landlord to the room and chatted for a while. , Immediately took the listing. I have done such a thing.
I started working as a homestay in 2017. After 2018, I can feel that it is going downhill. The more obvious feature is that the unit price cannot rise and the occupancy rate will also be affected, because many people are entering this market. Cross-border designers are also doing it, photographers are also doing it, it seems that if you have a suite, you can make money as a guesthouse.
We mainly focus on online celebrity boutique homestays. Therefore, from the perspective of the return cycle, in the past, if our hot listings were the best, they could be paid back in 3-6 months. For non-popular ordinary listings, the cycle would be in About a year to a year and a half. butNow the market has changed. Compared with the past, there is now at least a 6-month cycle gap.
For me, this is not a short-term job or something to make money, but a long-term career. Therefore, it may not be a bad thing for us to filter out a batch of bad ones and make the return cycle longer.
Invested 9 million to build a homestay, and finally waited for the peak season after a year
Chengdu Pengzhou Gexianshan Guolai Coffee Estate, Chen Cheng
Our homestay is backed by the Gexian Mountain Scenic Area. The characteristic of the scenic area is that there are large areas of characteristic rural fruit forests around. In spring, you can enjoy fruit trees and flowers, and you can pick fruits after the flowering season. Basically, once the new year is over, a continuous period of time belongs to the peak tourist season in this area.
On Gexian Mountain, plum blossoms just bloomed this year. Photo courtesy of the interviewer
Like most homestays, as soon as the epidemic came, we responded to the policy and began to close the store. There was no case of the epidemic in Pengzhou, where we are located, so by the end of February 2020, We became the first batch of formal comprehensive recoveryCompany. At the beginning, our occupancy rate was only one-third at most. In mid-March, Gexian Mountain was warm in spring, the scenery was beautiful, the weather and climate were good, and the flow of people gradually returned, but the occupancy rate only recovered to half, and then it slowed down. Slowly recover.
In 2020, we basically just caught up with the end of the peak season.
When the epidemic was at its worst, part of the family came directly to live in the hotel. At that time, there were no guests. We had an organic farm with a lot of vegetables and some of the materials we had previously stored. The homestay was far from the city, and Gexianshan was still a natural oxygen bar. They lived on their own for a while.
We are a few relatives who have started a business in partnership. We have been doing business for many years. In addition to homestays, we also opened restaurants and cafes in the city. But these are among the most severely affected by the epidemic. During that period, our income almost stagnated. There is no turnover. The Chinese New Year was originally a peak season, and all the materials prepared were lost. Fortunately, the time for closing the store was not very long.
During the epidemic, we also made some publicity and sales promotion through the Internet, and employees spontaneously posted some videos on Douyin to promote homestays. Last year, our local government departments and homestay associations took the lead to activate the atmosphere of our homestay industry through online multi-channel live broadcast, group buying, and theme promotion, and it also played a significant role in promoting the ordering of homestays.
Last spring, the local Bureau of Culture and Tourism and the Homestay Association also launched a relatively large activity to promote tourism consumption, which drove almost all the homestays we were in business at that time, and promoted them as a whole to attract tourists to play. .
In group purchases and live broadcast events, we mainly make some concessions. For example, the price of 398 rooms is lower. The price of direct sales through this event will be lower. In such a special period, we have also gained some customers through these methods. source. But for us, long-term participation in group purchases or live broadcast events is unrealistic. We only have 7 rooms, which cannot hold the large demand.
Our homestay is actually very special, justIt took two full years to build. In 2015, there was a local policy that idled homesteads could be retired to the collective for a fee and converted into construction land for auction. This can really legalize the acquisition of rural land for homestays. We photographed this piece of land, then demolished the original old house, and built the Guolai Manor from 0 to the original location.
Guolai Manor built from 0. Photo courtesy of respondents
It was not officially put into use until 2017. From the purchase of the land to the completion of the decoration, it cost more than 9 million. According to normal business logic, for example, the cost can be recovered in two or three years, but we are making investments almost regardless of the cost. Looking at it now, this cycle is likely to exceed 10 years.
In March and April every year, as soon as the fruit trees of Gexianshan bloom, we will have the most prosperous time. This year’s room should have been able to maintain a relatively high occupancy rate. After a year, we finally ushered in the true peak season.
(At the request of this interviewee, Zhang Feng and Zhong Lei are pseudonyms)