Scenic spots keep locals coming back

Although the country's tourism has hit a roadblock due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many tourism players have managed to maintain business growth through innovating the services they have to offer.

Tsingtao Beer Museum in Qingdao, East China's Shandong province, has seen the number of its visitors steadily on the rise since 2020, says Yuan Weiwei, the museum's channel operation director.

"At the same time, an increasing number of young people are coming to the museum for new projects, such as theater tours, and they take the opportunity to learn about Tsingtao beer and Qingdao," Yuan says.

The museum was built by Tsingtao Brewery and is located right at the site of its old brewery. It exposes visitors to the country's beer culture.

In 2020, the museum joined hands with the country's major online travel agency Trip.com Group to roll out different packages that integrate a light show, a tour guide and beer tasting for visitors to choose from when booking tickets to the museum.

New products ranging from special wine, beer bread and tea drinks have been developed.

Both parties have also jointly launched a drama tour that has proved a hit.

The goal is to spice up visitors' experiences in the museum, so it is not simply about sightseeing, Yuan says.

The ticket-plus packages have enjoyed brisk sales among visitors, especially those in their late 20s, Yuan says.

The museum is one of many destinations exploring ways to further tap into their fragmented resources to attract multiple visits by local residents, who have become a major driver of business during the pandemic.

Bookings by local residents to tourist spots accounted for nearly 80 percent of all ticket sales during the National Day holiday from Oct 1-7 this year, Trip.com Group reports.

The agency has worked with many destinations across the country to launch the ticket-plus programs, whose bookings have grown by 186 percent during the holiday compared with the same period of last year. Tourism income rose by 130 percent in the same period.

The Shanghai Wild Animal Park has rolled out a tourism festival and promotional events with Trip.com Group since 2019, and each event has resulted in more than 120,000 tourist visits, according to the park administration.

In particular, the night camping experiences have been popular among family travelers, who can observe nocturnal animal activities at close quarters, stay over at the panda and monkey enclosures, and make breakfast for the giant panda.

Bookings by Shanghai residents have risen from 50 percent before the cooperation to 80 percent, the administration says in a statement.

Tourist consumption after buying the ticket has also improved by 15 percent.

"We found that most of the traditional scenic spots continued to just offer a single entrance ticket," says Ji Yihua, CEO of the online agency's attractions business department.

"To develop a deeper and finer consumer experience and a consumption chain, we cannot just rely on an entrance ticket or meals, but have to dig deeper into the consumers' needs and create demand," Ji says, adding that through joint efforts with scenic spots to create festivals and themed activities, secondary consumption and repurchase can be achieved.

The ticket-plus program focuses on the characteristics of each scenic spot and makes full use of the scattered resources to deliver custom-made travel experiences.

Private tour guidance and car services have also been options offered through the program to help travelers make their decision.

For consumers, the package deal will be cheaper than the total costs if they book several items one at a time, Ji says.

"We're also assisting scenic spots in the creation of multidimensional scenes to upgrade appeal to consumers," he adds.

Tourism products that offer flexibility and combine fragmented experiences are the way to go during the pandemic, but they have to be of high quality and interesting to keep drawing visitors, Ji says.