This generation of elderly people are in urgent need of "reasonably priced low-cost tour groups"

This generation of elderly people is the group that the tourism market owes the most.

01

Jinlv Jun encountered a deeply impressive incident before.

One day, my retired parents who live in the county seat of my hometown in northwest China called for help. They and more than a dozen retired old colleagues wanted to travel in a group, and hoped I could help find a reliable tour group.

Jinlv Jun took the matter very seriously and made all arrangements: planning routes, looking for reliable travel agencies, searching for cheap flights and hotels. After a lot of effort, I finally picked out a 6-day 5-night trip in southwest China that I thought was "excellent in quality and very cost-effective", with an overall price of about 4,000 yuan per person.

Unexpectedly, my parents were silent for a long time after reading the plan, and then said frankly: This travel itinerary must be very good, but none of our colleagues will want to go. A few days later, their group signed up for a 7-day 6-night tour to Hong Kong and Macau at 999 yuan per person.

Confused, Jinlv Jun asked three questions in a row: Don't you know this is a low-price shopping tour? Don't you know the itinerary is very poor? Don't you know you will be forced to shop?

Unexpectedly, my parents sighed and replied: Not only the two of us know, everyone knows it clearly. Jinlv Jun was even more confused: You know it's a trap, why do you still jump in? My parents said frankly: Because this trip allows old colleagues to spend a small amount of money to go out and have fun together lively. This answer made Jinlv Jun reflect for a long time, it turned out that I got their needs wrong from the very beginning.

Jinlv Jun thought that the travel needs of the elderly are high-quality and cost-effective products, so he put all his attention on the itinerary arrangement.

In fact, the real demand of these elderly people is "a happy gathering of old friends". Where to go and what to play are just social scenarios, and going out to play together is the essential demand.

I wonder if you have noticed that elderly people especially like to "gather together" when traveling, either with relatives and friends, or with colleagues and neighbors, or even with strange elderly people. When three or five elderly people get together, they can always form a tour group spontaneously.

They are very willing to pay for socializing, but they are not willing to invest too much in the social scenario. This explains why many elderly people are clearly not short of money, but refuse to pay an extra cent for the travel product itself, and even sign up for such groups even when they know clearly that they are "unreasonably low-price tour groups".

To put it bluntly, they "signed up for a tour group for the sake of socializing", not "signed up for a tour group for the sake of traveling".

02

Theoretically speaking, demand gives rise to supply.

Once travel agencies figure out the essential travel needs of the elderly, matching products should emerge immediately. Unfortunately, the supply for this essential need of the elderly is extremely scarce. Why? Because it is not profitable.

According to the needs of the elderly, the matching travel products should be "cheap enough, highly targeted customer groups and very thoughtful services", that is, a "reasonably low-price tour group" product.

The problem is that this kind of "reasonably low-price tour group" product is easy to design, but it cannot allow travel agencies to make profits through market logic. The reason is very simple. All aspects involved in this product require travel agencies to invest a lot of manpower, material resources, financial resources and energy, but the price must be low enough, which seriously violates the laws of the market.

To meet this travel need of the elderly, only two types of travel products can satisfy it.

One type is high-end travel products for the elderly. The advantage of this type of product is that it can maximize the satisfaction of the elderly's social needs and provide very complete travel service guarantees, but the disadvantage is that the price is expensive and it is only suitable for a very small part of the elderly group.

The other type is "unreasonably low-price tour group" products for the elderly. The advantage of this type of product is that the price is cheap enough and it can also provide a certain level of travel services, but the disadvantage is that not only the service quality is poor, but also problems such as "forced shopping" will occur.

In the past decades, the needs of the elderly have always existed and are growing stronger. Most elderly people, when they cannot find "reasonably low-price tour groups", naturally gradually turn to "unreasonably low-price tour groups".

What's more, these travel agencies that operate "unreasonably low-price tour groups" often fully understand the needs of the elderly. They not only provide complete accompanying services, but also maximize the emotional value.

Search for any cases of travel scams targeting the elderly on the Internet, and a common feature is: the sales of these scam institutions are sweet-talking and diligent, take care of the elderly 360 degrees without dead ends during the trip, and treat them like their own sons and daughters in daily life, waiting on them all the time.

The elderly like to gather, have parties and be lively. These scam organizations organize get-togethers, heart-to-heart meetings and community parties to let the lonely elderly find like-minded peers around them, and then travel together in groups.

This is the fundamental reason why the elderly are trapped in "unreasonably low-price tour groups".

It is not that the elderly are easy to be deceived, but they have their own accounts in their minds. The supply side has not given them decent enough choices, leading them to be forced to move towards "unreasonably low-price tour groups".

03

According to this logic, doesn't it mean that the "reasonably low-price tour group" products that the elderly urgently need are impossible to appear? Not necessarily. If the normal market logic does not work, why not change our thinking and mode?

Not long ago, a local place carried out an interesting supply-side attempt on "reasonably low-price tour group" products for the elderly, which was carried out in four steps:

The first step is to shift the subsidies for elderly tourism from subsidizing travel agencies to directly subsidizing the elderly.

Most elderly people are "price-sensitive groups". Directly giving money to the elderly in a targeted way can let them have a very intuitive experience of the price drop of travel products.

For example, some places directly issue subsidy coupons to local elderly people who reach a certain age, and their children can also collect the coupons on their behalf. When the elderly use the subsidy coupons to buy designated travel products, they can enjoy an immediate discount of hundreds of yuan at a time, which they can clearly calculate.

The second step is for the official to take the lead in establishing a compliant low-price travel product supply library for local elderly people, and directly reduce the hard costs such as transportation and accommodation.

A certain place has established a senior health tourism product center, and local state-owned tourism enterprises take the lead in integrating scattered tourism resources such as buses, townships' homestays and restaurants, and then purchase them in packages at very low prices.

On the one hand, these scattered local tourism resources are revitalized, and their operating benefits are greatly improved; on the other hand, the packaged travel products are priced very low. If coupled with targeted official subsidies, they can become veritable "reasonably low-price tour group" products for the elderly.

The third step is to place the purchase entrance of such "reasonably low-price tour group" products in places where the elderly gather, such as local elderly communities, universities for the elderly, and elderly associations.

This can not only realize the precise distribution of "reasonably low-price tour group" products, but also meet the "social demand" of the elderly who like to travel in groups.

There is a Japanese company that specializes in travel for the elderly, with 7 million members, annual revenue of over 10 billion yuan, and a repurchase rate of 65%. It does not rely on cheap routes, but on "the social qualification of having a lunch together".

The fourth step is for multiple departments to take the lead in setting up a "firewall" to prevent the "reasonably low-price tour group" model for the elderly from going astray.

As we all know, a major feature of doing business for the elderly is large traffic and abundant capital. Many previous travel scams targeting the elderly have accumulated tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of yuan through selling prepaid cards and developing members. Once a thunderstorm occurs, the negative impact will be huge.

In order to put an end to this phenomenon, many places, when trying to provide "reasonably low-price tour group" products for the elderly, will have multiple departments work together, especially to implement third-party custody of funds and prohibit misappropriation of funds, to ensure that the elderly's funds are within the legal red line.

At the same time, some places have also introduced supporting policies and regulations, explicitly prohibiting such "reasonably low-price tour group" products for the elderly from forced shopping, collecting large amounts of fees in advance and other behaviors.

After the above four steps are carried out one by one, the "reasonably low-price tour group" products for the elderly have begun small-scale trials, and have achieved initial results in some places.

Some people also question how long this kind of official-led "reasonably low-price tour group" product for the elderly can survive in market competition. Objectively speaking, this model is still in its infancy. Whether it can work in the end, how far it can go, and how long it can last, remains to be seen.

This article is from the WeChat Official Account "Jinlv.com", the author is Chen Jietigereat, and it is published with authorization from 36Kr.