Giant bloody battle, online travel is no longer a start-up company's food

Wen/Lone Sail far shadow

As of yesterday, all four of China's online tourism companies have released their quarterly report for 2014.

In the third quarterly report of Ctrip, a friend in the micro-trust Circle hair Status: Online travel Lin Winter will be. I think it's a bit exaggerated to say that winter is coming. Winter, it shows that the industry has been a huge problem, such as depression, no growth. But if we look at the three quarterly reports of several companies, the growth is very rapid.

Let's take a look at the revenue growth of four companies, Ctrip's net revenue of three quarters is 2.1 billion yuan, up 38%. Where are you going? Total revenue of 500 million yuan, 107%, 85% cattle, the art Dragon is the worst, the year-on-year growth rate of only 2%. Three companies have maintained more than 30% of the growth rate, said the industry is too cold to come, it is premature.

In the category of large tourism, two plates are still growing at a high speed, namely hotels and leisure tourism.

Ctrip three quarterly hotel bookings increased 69%, the chain increased by 26%. Where to? Hotel revenue of 111.7 million yuan (direct sales accounted for 51%), increased by 98%. Yi Long three quarter of hotel reservations for 9.4 million nights, the year before the third quarter of 7.7 million nights, the growth rate of 22%. The hotel is scheduled to develop today, has been a very standardized product. From 1999 to now, the hotel has been scheduled to develop for more than 10 years, is still in the high-speed growth of a tourism category, but also the most fat piece of the market. China's 300,000 hotels, online booking penetration rate is less than 10%, the future space is huge. In addition, due to the low chain of Chinese hotels, small and medium-sized family hotels are more dependent on the channel. Another feature of the hotel is higher gross margin, which is much higher than airfare and leisure travel. The industry's average gross margin is about 15%. The market space is big, the on-line penetration rate is low, the chain degree is low, three characteristics make Ctrip, art dragon, go where three place all the competition point all focus on the hotel.

Another high-speed growth plate comes from travel vacations. Ctrip's three-quarter tour and self-help tour of the volume increased by 52%, the income year-on-year increase of 12%, the chain increase of 74% (because of the three quarter of China's national Day, is a year in the tourist season). Year-on-year growth of 52%, although and the way cattle with group tour 89%, self-help travel 81% of the growth is inferior to some, still high growth. It is worth mentioning that China's leisure tourism penetration rate is still very low: according to the data forecast by the cattle prospectus, 2014 domestic Leisure tourism penetration rate of about 9.6%. Online bookings are 43 billion yuan in size. In the next three years, the online growth rate is 35.6%. Leisure tourism is still a fast growing market.

Four listed companies in the Three quarterly bulletin, the real surprise is: Ctrip is expected to appear in the four-quarter loss, operating profit rate will be 12% to 17%. The only money in the online tourism, Q4 estimated losses, released the most clear signal is: industry competition is unusually fierce, short-term price war will be unusually bloody, short-term market share rather than profit! From the capital market, the results of the day Ctrip closed down 8.48%, passers-by also plunged 12.88%. The market's anxiety is clear.

For a fast-growing industry, everyone is not making money and is also willing to lose money to rob the market share. Online travel is not a good business for a company.

Online travel has become a capital-intensive industry. Over the past two years, large amounts of capital have entered online travel. Tickets booking, hotel booking, leisure travel, tens of millions of dollars. Capital comes in at the same time, also push high industry's threshold, pull low industry gross profit margin. For startups, to get into the core of the three big markets: air tickets, hotels, travel vacations, there is a listed company in front of the guard. It's not that startups don't hit listed companies, they're listed companies, and they've already amassed a lot of advantages. Whether it's brand or cash, these are things that startups can't reach in the short term.

Brand effect, for example: Ctrip published three quarterly app download volume of 300 million times, Art Dragon for 100 million times. The two methods of promotion, market investment, may have some similarities and differences, but have to admit, Ctrip's brand advantage is very strong.

Capital level, we'll take the cash. In the three quarter of 2014, Ctrip's cash and short-term investment balance is $1.8 billion; the art dragon has 315 million dollars in his hand; the newly-listed bull, although the market value of only 600 million U.S. dollars, but still has 200 million dollars in cash and equivalent. The dense capital itself has been a barrier. In a word, "money is willful". Ctrip, an art dragon with hundreds of millions of of dollars in cash, can make a direct return to cash. Start-up companies? are VC willing to do this?

Low margin, high flow cost of the reality. Now want to choose the airline ticket and hotel field to start a business, not exaggeration to say, almost 0 opportunities. A holiday in the last year or two seems like a fire, and it's also a listed company like the Bull. So, some people say: travel vacation This piece also can be born listed company, everybody hurriedly on! Tourism industry, it seems that the market is big, but a few key points are neglected. First is the profit margin, the industry's average gross profit below 10% (the three-quarter profit margin of the bull is 6.1%), to make money, how to break?

The gross margin is low, the solution method mainly has two: enhances the margin, the scale effect. There are two ways to increase gross margin: the introduction of high margin products, the expansion of scale to increase the bargaining power upstream. No matter which point, it is not what the start-up company does. Take the way cow, three quarter net revenue is 1.31 billion yuan, 12.9亿来 income. In other words, even if the current size of the cattle, the expansion of the plate appears very cautious. The core business of the pedestrian is still leisure tourism, rather than extending to a higher margin hotel. Due to the direct 2C retailers, the current task is to expand the scale to enhance the upstream bargaining power. A year less than 4 billion of the gmv,6.1% gross profit margin, to improve bargaining power, the passers-by have a long way to go.

In the flow to obtain costs, look at the major listed companies spend the money to know: three quarter Ctrip sales and marketing costs of 97 million U.S. dollars (nearly 600 million RMB); Where to go three quarters of the marketing cost of 260 million yuan. The first three quarters, where to pay Baidu to the heart of the search costs reached 450 million yuan. This cost, basically is where to go to get the cost of traffic. Three quarter of the market cost of cattle for 120 million yuan, the listing has increased the TV and online ads under the advertising, and the title of "Do Not Disturb." Three listed companies, only the art dragon in marketing and sales costs are down. The other three adopted a more expansive strategy.

Listed companies: money, human nature. Low margin, high flow costs, this is the industry's current status.

The product is highly standardized, the price war becomes the most important competitive parameter. Ask a question: Air tickets, hotels, tickets, these three categories, platform competition between the differences? or the price. Hotels, Ctrip, art dragon Spell Hotel return, where to go, Ctrip ticket Commission rate. As for the ticket, it is the most standardized one of the three categories, and there is no obvious difference in booking any platform. Also, there is no high demand for service capability. Booking tickets will also have to return to sign, refund, ticket refund through the mobile phone client can be self-service processing.

Therefore, in three categories, ticket price war competition is also the most intense. The first is the same travel shouted "one yuan to travel", then Ctrip, passers-by, where to quickly follow up. Now no matter which mobile phone client to download, almost all can see "a dollar to travel." Do not need to provide differentiated services, and the platform of the home and competition, must only take the price axe. And once a category becomes the core of price warfare, and the Giants can take the category as a strategic loss category, startups with tickets as a core category will be very sad.

such as the two days of cattle and the same way of the saliva war. The same way announced the march of leisure tourism, to the cattle to send "afternoon." Here's the question: Why do you want to go on a vacation with a ticket?

The same process is the first to do is King + Wine mode, through the B2B2C mode of continuous development. The same journey from the hands of the travel agency in the hotel, tickets, and then repackaged to sell to consumers, in the B2B2C this model, the tourism agency is the most upstream of B, the same process is the middle of B, consumers are c. In the whole process, the same network acted as a redistribution role.

The same Cheng announced into the cattle hinterland leisure tourism, the core reason for two: the low margin of admission and leisure travel market. The ticket business, which has just been said, belongs to highly standardised goods. When people buy tickets, they basically lock in their spending. In other words, tickets are a normal sales, not like air tickets, there is a sharp fluctuation, need to lock in advance. Although the first to do tickets, but because the category comparison standard, lower unit price, the giant is easy to kill in, and the advantage is more obvious (Ctrip three quarter traffic ticket booking volume increased 98%).

Frankly speaking, selling tickets for this job does not require too much technical content. The only technical content is the price. All the start-up companies with tickets as the core category have no future to change. So now, whether it's the same path network, or the donkey mother, the two are all on the admission of the company's crazy expansion category, the two mobile phone clients, in addition to the first plate is the attractions, the mother after the donkey is outbound travel, hotels, cruise, the same way even air tickets, train tickets are not spared!

China's online tourism market is huge, the penetration rate is low (2014 leisure tourism penetration rate is only 7.7%), the rapid growth (compound growth rate of more than 30%), but at present is not a very lucrative business. The market is big, many people do not make money, it seems like another industry's flip-board: E-commerce. The Giants are still struggling to make money. And fighting with each other. Here, there are rich, wayward people. Start-up companies, or away from the good.