With the continuous improvement of the consumption level of Chinese residents, future catering consumption will continue or show some new trends. County catering consumption space will expand, and the integration of online and offline will deepen, which is expected to become a new growth pole for catering consumption.
During this year’s May Day holiday, popular shopping districts and scenic spots have seen a surge in food and beverage consumption, with long queues for meals everywhere. Moreover, new gameplay such as “taste buds tour”, “camping tour”, and “county town tour” have enriched tourists’ holiday experiences and significantly promoted food and beverage consumption in various markets.
Some restaurants queue up for more than 1000 tables
“During this May Day holiday, our store is very busy every day, waiting for seats to be arranged from 11am to early morning. The average daily passenger flow has increased by about 15% compared to last year,” said Zhang Yang, the person in charge of Feifei Shrimp Village on Jianghan Road Pedestrian Street in Wuhan, Hubei. At around 10 pm on the night of May 3rd, the entrance of Feifei Shrimp Farm was still filled with customers waiting in line.
“Old Taizhou” is a 14 year old single store located in the central old commercial street of Jiaojiang District, Taizhou City. Regarding the peak consumption of the “May Day” holiday, the owner said, “Since the store has been on the must eat list, many tourists come to have breakfast and check in on holidays. Therefore, this year’s May Day holiday, popular dishes such as fermented rice soup, pancake tubes, and wheat cakes will be prepared more.”
According to data from Meituan, in the first three days of the May Day holiday, the number of orders for dining in restaurants nationwide increased by over 73% compared to the same period last year, with some restaurants queuing for more than 1000 tables. Among them, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, and Shanghai are among the top five cities in terms of the number of dine in orders for tourists from other regions in China. In terms of categories, in addition to traditional popular dishes such as hot pot, Cantonese cuisine, Western cuisine, and Japanese cuisine, orders for specialty local dishes such as Jiangsu and Zhejiang cuisine, Beijing cuisine, and Sichuan cuisine have also seen a significant increase.
Not only Feifei Shrimp Farm and “Old Taizhou”. According to official data from Haidilao, from May 1st to May 4th, Haidilao’s mainland stores received a total of about 7.5 million visitors, an increase of about 15% compared to the first four days of last year’s May Day holiday. The growth of stores in the sinking market is even more significant.
Wang Xiaomeng, the manager of the Beicheng Tianjie Square store of Haidilao Hot Pot in Chongqing, said, “Chongqing people love to eat coriander. This time…”‘
In addition, county-level and rural tourism have experienced strong growth due to “reverse tourism” and “leak picking tourism”. Third – and fourth tier tourist cities such as Yulin in Guangxi, Jingdezhen in Jiangxi, Anyang in Henan, Anji in Zhejiang, and Zhangpu in Fujian have been favored by tourists, with a month on month increase of over 80% in the passenger flow of Hai Di Lao hot pot compared to before the holiday. Among them, Zhangpu is renowned for its unique volcanic island scenery, which has doubled the passenger flow of underwater hot pot in Zhangpu compared to before the festival.
“Camping+Food” Experience is Popular
The May Day holiday coincides with early summer, and people’s willingness to travel has reached a peak.
In Songjiang, Shanghai, the Hai Di Lao camping base, located in the forest, was particularly busy on the first day of the May Day holiday. “Today is the first day of the May Day holiday, and over 100 people are dining at the same time at the entire camping site. It is lively and bustling, with families and children as the main consumer groups. The camping site is very suitable for taking photos and checking in, and the ‘film effect’ can attract young people more. We also set up various activities such as throwing frisbees, playing chess, badminton, etc., to provide a more diverse ‘camping+hot pot+food’ experience for everyone.” said Xue Yongfang, the person in charge of the Shanghai Songjiang Camping Base at Haidilao.
Dingdong Maicai also focuses on “direct delivery to barbecue camping sites” during this year’s May Day holiday. Consumers can search for keywords such as “camping” and “camping barbecue” on the app to visually see various camping barbecue sets and seasonings. In the week before May Day, the overall month on month growth of Cai Changqing’s camping and barbecue set has exceeded 60%, with the sales of this set in Hangzhou increasing by more than double.
In addition, the sales of other products on the Dingdong Maicai platform have also shown some “May Day” characteristic trends, that is, the popularity of summer seasonal products and products related to travel activities has increased rapidly, including fruits, aquatic products, alcoholic beverages, ice cream, braised and cooked foods, and so on. In the week before May Day, the overall sales of Dingdong Maicai and fruits increased by 30% month on month. Among them, the sales of seasonal “fresh” fruits such as Bobo Crispy Blueberries, Kirin Watermelon, Osmanthus Fragrant Litchi, and Mangrove are in a rapid growth stage.
Li Jiwei, Vice President of Meituan Research Institute, stated that with the continuous improvement of the consumption level of Chinese residents, future catering consumption will continue or show some new trends. The space for county-level catering consumption will expand, and the degree of integration between online and offline will deepen, which is expected to become a new growth pole for catering consumption; The multi industry linkage effect will become more apparent, and there will be a large number of scenarios of “catering+” cross industry linkage, effectively increasing consumption heat.