Why can't low-cost tours survive on Douyin?

01

Recently, when browsing Douyin, I noticed that a certain type of familiar faces has basically disappeared.

As I remember, before the peak tourist season last summer, I could still occasionally come across a group of high - profile live - streamers in the live - streaming rooms shouting, "Dear friends, today for 199 yuan, I'll take you on a wonderful tour of Beijing." Along with the full - screen bullet comments of people expressing their desire to go, the sales figures kept rising non - stop.

These live - streamers are usually masters of persuasive speech. They can talk about the anecdotes of the Forbidden City and the Great Wall more fluently than top - notch tour guides. The confident line "Follow me and you'll never get ripped off" at the end precisely hits the tourists' defense psychology, making people feel extremely at ease. However, when it comes to the actual offline tour, tourists often encounter a completely different scenario.

Some readers who have had bad experiences complained to me. They originally expected a pure sightseeing tour, but the itinerary was secretly filled with jade shops and latex showrooms. Once tourists tightened their wallets and refused to spend money, the tour guide's enthusiastic face would immediately turn cold.

On a whim, yesterday I tried hard to search for a few live - streamers with low - cost tour promotions whose IDs I vaguely remembered. When I opened their profiles, there was only a red line of text saying that the accounts had been banned due to violations.

Obviously, this is not an isolated incident of a few low - cost tour live - streamers getting into trouble. Behind the disappearance of a large number of similar live - streamers is a regulatory net that is quietly tightening.

According to the "2025 Douyin Life Services Consumer Experience Annual Report", in the past year, the platform has dealt with 14,000 live - streaming rooms promoting low - cost tours for violations.

These high - profile internet celebrities who disappeared collectively have hit the target of this round of tough governance.

Taking the crackdown on the so - called "handsome men and beautiful women leading tours in Beijing" mentioned in the report as an example, these accounts using questionable tactics in the gray area have been targeted for removal. In the first wave last year, 387 accounts were banned, and nearly 15,000 related promotional videos were taken down in batches.

From the continuous governance actions extended from the annual report, in the first quarter of this year, the platform dealt with 1,698 live - streaming rooms and over 50,000 short videos promoting unreasonable low - cost tours. 444 influencers had their group - buying permissions revoked due to serious violations.

Those internet celebrities who used to manipulate algorithms and traffic finally realized that they can't cross the bottom line.

It's worth mentioning that the major actions in the low - cost tour section in this substantial annual report are just the tip of the iceberg of Douyin's efforts to purify the life services ecosystem.

For example, during major travel holidays like the Spring Festival, May Day, and National Day, illegal tourism marketing used to take advantage of the surging traffic. However, now the platform's governance measures are in place at every critical moment.

The report shows that in response to the most common problems tourists encounter, such as sudden price increases, bundled sales, and forced shopping, Douyin will directly implement pre - compensation. For "one - day tour" fraud, the compensation will be "refund the full amount and pay double the price".

As for the long - standing problem of hotels having no rooms after confirmation, the platform's maximum compensation for the price difference can reach up to three times the order amount.

With the old tricks fading out, tourists feel much more secure.

During this year's May Day, a distant relative signed up for a two - day tour around the area on Douyin. Before the trip, she kept worrying about being scammed. But after coming back, she said that no one forced her to buy things during the whole journey, and the tour guide was very reliable. She learned more from the guide from the Great Wall to the Ming Tombs than from reading travel guides by herself.

As the bad players are gradually driven out by the platform's strict rules, new and healthy supply is emerging like mushrooms after a rain.

02

Low - cost tours are naturally the traffic code for illegal merchants. But why does Douyin Life Services, a super - traffic platform, decide to take tough actions even at the cost of sacrificing a part of its transaction volume?

In fact, the industry has long criticized products like "handsome men and beautiful women accompanying tours in Beijing". The foundation of their business model is distorted.

After all, the 199 - yuan local tour fee in Beijing can't even cover the basic costs of bus fuel and accommodation. If merchants want to set the front - end price at an irresistibly low level that results in a loss, they have to extract profits through improper means at the back end.

Forced shopping and high kickbacks have become the only lifeline for these low - cost tours. Every complaint and negative emotion caused by forced shopping is like withdrawing money directly from the platform's credit account. This is why the platform doesn't hesitate to take drastic measures against those illegal merchants operating in the dark.

Meanwhile, the larger the GMV scale, the heavier the social trust cost externalized by bad merchants. In the end, this burden falls entirely on the platform. As a super - entry point for traffic, Douyin Life Services cannot and definitely doesn't want to bear the huge cost of a damaged reputation for such a poor business model.

Whether it's Xiaohongshu, Douyin, or Kuaishou, the most valuable asset on the balance sheet of content platforms is actually an intangible asset that can't be seen. That is the users' habitual willingness to believe when they see any product - promotion content in the information stream.

From the tough governance measures taken by the Douyin Life Services platform in the past year, its strategic intention is very clear.

Facing the huge incremental market of local life and cultural tourism, they obviously don't want to turn themselves into a low - end distribution center for cheap and inferior products. So they choose a path of self - improvement by cleaning out these low - cost tour groups that rely on information asymmetry to make profits through rules and strict technical means. In fact, they are sacrificing short - term transaction volume fluctuations to gain long - term ecological health and consumer trust.

Guo Liang, the person in charge of service experience and governance at Douyin Life Services, further mentioned at a recent platform open - day event that consumer experience is the core competitiveness for the platform to build long - term trust. Single - point governance and post - event compensation can no longer meet consumers' needs.

To put it simply, getting rid of the bad guys is just the beginning, and the real challenge lies in what comes next. The platform needs to shift from compensating after receiving complaints to taking risks proactively.

Guo Liang also revealed that in the past year, the Douyin Life Services platform has provided pre - compensation for more than 3.9 million orders, with the amount of advance payment exceeding 240 million yuan.

This huge advance payment of hundreds of millions of yuan has exchanged for more than 710 million times of instant refund guarantees, shouldering the various anxieties of consumers when they are traveling with real money.

When a super - content platform starts to pay for certainty regardless of cost, the survival rules of content monetization have actually been rewritten.

Those once - popular live - streamers promoting low - cost tours with the gimmick of handsome men and beautiful women are destined to become obsolete bubbles in the wild - growth period of the industry in the face of the platform's reshaped and solid foundation.

03

The large - scale cleansing of the content ecosystem by Douyin Life Services has only completed the first half. The real test usually comes after the tough governance.

In recent years, the competition in the cultural and tourism industry has undergone a qualitative change. Trust in service fulfillment has become a new battlefield between content platforms and traditional online travel giants.

The moat of traditional giants lies in their long - term resource control and service fulfillment capabilities in the offline market, while the advantage of short - video and live - streaming platforms is their huge product - promotion traffic and content explosiveness. Now, the once - clear boundary between them is being completely broken, and both sides are advancing towards each other's territory.

Under the general industry trend, the self - positioning of Douyin Life Services is also changing subtly. They are trying to transform from a pure traffic - providing transaction facilitator to a quasi - infrastructure in the industry.

Recently, I noticed that Douyin Life Services, in order to guide merchants to provide high - quality services, has started to cooperate with the China National Institute of Standardization to formulate service standards for peace - of - mind services and provide multiple forms of support and resource incentives for merchants offering such services.

These frequent actions go far beyond the scope of an Internet company's governance of its internal ecosystem. It's more like re - establishing the basic rules for the chaotic cultural and tourism market, deeply integrating the platform's algorithm and strict technical means with the national - level industry compliance standards, so that speculators on the legal edge can no longer find loopholes to exploit.

For all cultural and tourism practitioners in the industry, the trend of industry evolution has also undergone a fundamental change. The old and wild way of quickly getting rich by simply finding a handsome man or a beautiful woman to shoot some promotional copy and relying on information asymmetry and traffic arbitrage is fading away rapidly.

After the tide recedes, those who can survive and make long - term profits on the platform must be the ones who are willing to do solid work in offline service fulfillment.

Official data from Douyin Life Services shows that last year, the monthly number of paying users on the platform increased by 22%, the average consumption frequency per user increased by 9%, and the average order value increased by 30%.

After the wave of selection, the flywheel has started to spin on its own. Users are attracted by the product - promotion content and visit the stores. If they have a good time, they are willing to come back. Merchants, with a stable customer flow, are more willing to invest in service quality. The platform, together with merchants and users, moves forward. The closer they are connected, the smoother the flywheel spins.

When the bubbles of speculation are completely squeezed out, the domestic cultural and tourism market will enter a clearer and more rational normal state.

Only those who truly respect the rules and are committed to service quality can see the way forward in this reshaped new ecosystem.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Travel World", author: Theodore Xishao. Republished by 36Kr with permission.