Sitting on the driving train, the grasslands, lakes, Populus euphratica , and Gobi slowly pass by, and the oil paintings are right in front of you; inside the window, there are exquisite decorations and delicious meals. This is Meng Tian’s imagination of luxury tourism trains.
In June this year, she and her mother took the New Oriental Express from Xinjiang and purchased the "upgraded blue diamond" for 30,999 yuan per person - a double car made by folding the original four-person car with two sleeper berths. The itinerary was 17 days in total. From northern Xinjiang to southern Xinjiang, China's largest inland freshwater torrent lake Bosten Lake , Narati lavender sea of flowers, strange Tianshan mysterious Grand Canyon , Western-style restaurants and Tajik men and women who can sing and dance all made Meng Tian feel that "the trip is without regrets."
Meng Tian checked into the "upgraded blue diamond" carriage of New Oriental Express, and the train conductor introduced her. Photo/The interviewee provides
The natural beauty of Xinjiang left a deep impression on Meng Tian, but she thinks that the tourist train is more like a means of transportation. "It is a happy trip overall, but since it is not a tourist railway, the scenery outside the window is relatively ordinary." Train tours are a common way of travel abroad. The California Breeze in the United States and the Four Seasons Island in Japan are all well-known luxury trains. In China, there are also special tourist trains such as panda trains that cost 1,000 yuan, but high-end train tours are relatively lacking.
New Oriental Express, created by Urumqi Railway Bureau, was put into operation in 1999 and was previously for overseas tourists and has only been open to the domestic market in recent years. Qian Riwen, head of Huayun Culture and Tourism, the operator of New Oriental Express, told reporters, "New Oriental Express has been sold until October. The October itinerary has not been released yet, but the 'Golden Diamond' carriage with a total of 64 seats has been booked for more than 40 people."
htmlOn July 3, another high-end tourist train, Hulunbuir, , was launched from Harbin. The five-day and four-night itinerary covers a variety of landscapes of grasslands, forests, and volcanoes. It has a load of only 44 people, and the price is between 20,999 and 26,999 yuan per person. Liu Jianbin, founder of the boarding bar, took the Hulunbuir at the end of June. He believes that high-end train tours are an innovation, but the details of the itinerary still need to be polished.Domestic tourism industry has rebounded recently, and high-end tourism has also rebounded rapidly. Zhou Mingqi, founder of Jingjian Think Tank, an industrial economic consulting agency, told reporters that the tourism industry has been bleak in the past few years, with most products being oversupply, but in the high-end tourism market, it is the opposite. High-quality high-end vacation products are very limited, and luxury train tours are a supplement to market demand. Is the ticket price of
0,000 yuan worth?
Meng Tian and his mother boarded the New Oriental Express in Urumqi on June 7. Not long after she returned to China, she was attracted by this high-end train two years ago, but due to the epidemic, she and her mother quickly signed up.
Before boarding the bus, Meng Tian took a photo with New Oriental Express, with the black iron logo printed on the body. Photo/Respondents provide
They set out from Urumqi and passed through kuitun , yili , kuche , beitun and other places. At this time, it is the season when Yili grassland is growing vigorously. Looking out from the car window, the blue sky and the grassland are galloping past, and blue, white, green, yellow and gray are harmoniously presented in the same scenery.
Yining The grassland is majestic, Meng Tian is in it and feels very small. During the 17 days, she rode a horse across the shallow water bay and rode a camel through the mysterious Grand Canyon of the Tianshan Mountains. The Gobi Desert along the way made her feel a "cold beauty". In the lake with its back against the desert, she saw an black swan fishing. She thought it was a journey worth experiencing.
From the experience of the journey itself, the experience brought by this way of travel is completely new. At the end of June, Liu Jianbin, the founder of the Boarding Bar, was invited by Hulunbuir to experience the "Volcanic Forest and Grassland Journey". Affected by the epidemic in Beijing and Shanghai, there were only a dozen guests at that time. The ticket price for the five-day and four-night summer trip of Hulunbuir ranges from 20,999 yuan/person to 26,999 yuan/person. Liu Jianbin stayed in the Supreme Zijin Room with the highest price and an area of 12.1 square meters. On average, it is about 5,400 yuan/person per day. There are two single beds in the Zijin room and a bathroom separated by dry and wet.
Summer is not the most magnificent season for the local scenery. What impressed him the most throughout the journey was a sunset dinner in the car. On the train to the completion station on Yakeshi , sheep and cattle can be seen occasionally on the grassland outside the window. The evening sun shines in from the carriage. The dinner is a combination of Chinese and Western styles and exquisite avocado quinoa salad, silver cod and bald butter bibimbap. All kinds of experiences are unforgettable.
However, for Meng Tian, he may not choose the "luxury train" method again when traveling in the future.
During the 17-day trip, Meng Tian stayed in the car for only four or five nights, and the rest of the time was arranged to check in at the local star hotel or B&B . The 17-day tour route of New Orient Express in the north and south Xinjiang includes three seats: blue diamond, upgraded blue diamond and gold diamond, with prices of 22,999 yuan, 30,999 yuan and 42,999 yuan per person respectively. Meng Tian and her mother chose the upgraded blue diamond, which averaged about 1,823 yuan per person per day.
Unlike ordinary trains, New Oriental Express has a "steward" service. Meng Tian said that more than 20 people in the Blue Diamond Carriage are under the responsibility of a "steward", and every time he arrives at a scenic spot, another place to accompany . "The housekeeper has been taking the local group for many years and knows the local area very well." On her birthday, the housekeeper brought her cakes and camel dolls.
What satisfied Meng Tian was that the operator arranged personnel receptions in various places. In Kuitun, a small-scale tour opening ceremony was prepared in the local area. In Kashgar , the operator invited the local singing and dancing troupe to greet him in ethnic costumes and dance. She still remembers a Kashgar restaurant arranged by the operator. The hall was magnificent, the dome was towering, and it was full of Western Regional characteristics. Some people performed walking tightropes. She likes these lively events.
Compared to a pleasant journey, train tours still have their inconveniences. Since only the Golden Diamond has a separate bathroom and shower room, each carriage and upgraded Blue Diamond share a bathroom and shower room, and sometimes you need to queue up to take a shower. "The bathing time is allocated according to the private room, but basically no one follows it, and they all rely on queuing."
The most expensive Supreme Zijin Room in Hulunbuir has two single beds, an area of 12 square meters, and an independent bathroom in the room. Photo/Respondent provided the
train entertainment car that can drink and sing K. The interior decoration is quite simple. It has a small screen TV equipped with a microphone and speaker, only a sofa, two short round coffee tables, and no dazzling lights in the bar. To her surprise, there is a fee for singing K, which is 30 yuan per person, and the free wine provided is only canned , Wusu .
car space is also limited. The upgraded blue diamond box where Meng Tian and his daughter stayed in is less than 10 square meters. Meng Tian said that the upgraded blue diamond box is exactly the same as the high-end soft-sleeved layout of other ordinary trains, but the furnishings are more refined. Although Meng Tian bought the "upgraded blue diamond", which is different from the four-person room with ordinary blue diamonds. It enjoys a double private room on the train, but it is the same as the "blue diamond" guests on the ground-based hotel. This disappointed Meng Tian a little. She felt that the extra money did not reflect the value. Especially New Oriental Express has a large number of people, and can ride 204 people with a full load, which can easily bring pressure in management. "We stayed in the same hotel as Lan Xuan, and we had to compete with them for a house when we got off the train," said Meng Tian.
Although the itinerary is 17 days in total and the train and bus are used to alternately travel, Meng Tian still feels that the itinerary is very tight. One night, they arrived at the hotel at around 12 o'clock in the evening. "The whole trip was very hurrying, and later I was so tired that I felt exhausted all over," said Meng Tian.
high-end tourism products limited
Qian Japanese first came into contact with New Oriental Express in 2015, which was the first generation of high-end train created by the Urumqi Railway Bureau. In March 2021, after the second generation of New Oriental Express transformed by Ukraine was launched, Qian Riwen went to Xinjiang to inspect the car body. Due to the high transformation cost and the impact of the epidemic on the tourism industry, Huayun Culture and Tourism launched the first New Oriental Express route in July 2021 after consideration, aiming at the domestic market.
His Huayun Cultural Tourism Group has been engaged in tourism trains for more than ten years. In the past, the reason why tourism trains were popular was that they were "high cost-effective". Qian Riwen said that since train tours can save some accommodation in landed hotels, they have always been very popular among middle-aged and elderly people.
However, he gradually captured the changes in the demand for tourism market .Customers gradually tend to in-depth tours with long time and rich content, and also go from pursuing cost-effectiveness to focusing on experience. The train tour team of Huayun Culture and Tourism used to be able to reach 600 or 700 people in a group, but now, some customers prefer customized and small-scale products.
Zhou Mingqi, founder of Jingjian Think Tank, believes that due to the vast land and sparse population in western China, the distance between point-to-point is long, especially in the county towns where some tourist attractions are located, high-end accommodation products are lacking, and luxury trains can fill the gap in the high-end tourism market.
"The biggest advantage of train tours is that they can 'travel multiple tours on the front line', using various transportation modes such as trains and cars to save travel time." Qian Riwen said, "Xinjiang has a large span of north and south. If you only use cars to travel around, the pressure will be very high."
"In Xinjiang, the train speed is advantageous than the cars. The train speed is 120~160 km/h, and the cars will be limited to 40~60 km/h. In addition, passengers of high-end special trains enter the station and wait for the train, which can save a lot of time." In addition, he gave an example, tourist special trains can currently reach the train station closest to the scenic spot, which is an advantage that cars do not have. For example, tourists usually drive a car from Kanas to the Kokotohai Scenic Area for five or six hours, but the special train can directly reach the train station nearest to the scenic area. After getting off the train, you can get directly to the scenic area by just 40 minutes.
In June and July, when Xinjiang's tourism season enters its peak season and tourists are full of tourists, Kanas is crowded, but New Oriental Express guests take the VIP channel and take the scenic spot direct train to enter the scenic spot in one stop. "Each car costs five or six thousand yuan more, and even our staff is responsible for the ticket inspection, which saves a lot of links in the middle." Qian Riwen said.
Although train tours have advantages in the itinerary, Qian Japanese also admitted that as a new product, the operator is still exploring how to build high-end special trains. He recalled that when the first trip was departing, many of the luggage was taken by the guests themselves; from the second trip, before the guests boarded the bus, all the luggage was delivered directly to the train compartment through the logistics staff. In terms of operating high-end tourism products, domestic operators are still gradually improving.
High-end tourism products focus on experience and need to be constantly polished in details. This is the biggest difference from affordable tourism products and the shortcomings of the current domestic high-end tourism market.
When Liu Jianbin and his party boarded the train at Xiangfang Station in Harbin, the operator arranged the violin accompaniment and introduced the history of the railway - this is the Dongqing Railway built a hundred years ago. However, Liu Jianbin suggested that there should be more localized elements in the itinerary. The Hulunbuir travel route is the famous Dongqing Railway in history. There are many historical and cultural heritage along the way. Many platforms have a long history. You can explore the cultural connotations behind it and transfer scenes such as afternoon tea to the platform. He believes that in terms of catering and activities, it is not necessarily Western-style, but also provides Mongolian diet and snacks to increase the unique local cultural activities.
When boarding the Hulunbuir number, Liu Jianbin saw the interior view of the restaurant. Photo/Respondent provided
Liu Jianbin has been engaged in high-end tourism business for a long time. He believes that when outbound travel is blocked, the supply of domestic high-end tourism products is limited. Although Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and other travel have been affected by the epidemic to a certain extent, the overall market has rebounded, bringing an increase in travel demand.
New Oriental Express was greatly affected by the epidemic in the first year of its operation. Qian Riwen revealed that last year, although the sales of the previous few lines were good, due to the impact of the epidemic, customers in Guangdong, Nanjing and other regions brought an impact. The local epidemic also affected travel. In October last year, all New Oriental Express tourists had already gathered in Urumqi, but in the end they all turned back. In the first half of this year, ticket refunds from customers in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Beijing and other countries also affected the attendance rate.
However, after the tourism industry rebounded this summer, New Oriental Express sales also increased. Qian Riwen introduced that New Oriental Express has been sold until October this year. He believes that New Oriental Express can gain market recognition, on the one hand, because of the uniqueness of its products; on the other hand, after outbound travel is blocked, the increase in domestic demand for high-end tourism has increased, and the purchasing power of high-end tourism has increased. "Otherwise, it will take a process to be accepted in the domestic market."
Liu Zhaohui, founder and chairman of Beijing Zhihui Group, told reporters that in the past five years, even before the epidemic, the number of tourists in China's scenic spots has been on an overall downward trend, with the decline of each scenic spot ranging from 10% to 20%. The problem reflected is that the sales formats of tourist attractions are facing rapid changes in the consumer market, especially the demand for the younger consumer market. High-end train tours are a novel product that meets needs.
has high investment cost, can the business model make a profit?
Although high-end train tours are highly sought after, their business model is still questioned, and one of the reasons is its high costs.
A staff member of the Urumqi Railway Bureau who did not want to be named told reporters that New Oriental Express is a star product that has been operating locally for many years and has good social and economic benefits. After the old car body expired and was abandoned in 2019, it chose to transform the new car body and continue to operate the project because there were continuous foreign customers at that time. The transformation of
was carried out in Qingdao for one year. The car body renovation cost 48 million yuan, and the later soft decoration cost more than 2 million yuan, and the overall more than 50 million yuan was exceeded. New Oriental Express has adopted the previous design. The above-mentioned staff revealed that the old car body mainly uses boards, while the furniture of the new car body is all solid wood. Details are also enhanced. Each car is equipped with a small refrigerator, the air conditioner is adjustable in wind speed, and the gold diamond box is equipped with a safe. In terms of appearance, it is specially painted into Green Train , aiming to create a retro atmosphere.
This year, Huayun Culture and Tourism obtained operational qualifications through bidding through Urumqi Railway Bureau. In 2022, New Oriental Express plans to run 13 trips. According to the existing data, New Oriental Express has a full load of 204 people. Even if the cheapest blue diamond is 22,999 yuan per person, New Oriental Express's annual income is 60.99 million yuan. In other words, after deducting the daily operating expenses, it only takes a full load for one year to run, and New Oriental Express can recover the cost of the body transformation.
In comparison, Hulunbuir's road to profit is longer due to its high investment cost, short line days and only 44 seats. Hulunbuir was officially launched on July 3 this year. It is a high-end tourism special train jointly created by Fosun Cultural Tourism, Harbin Railway Bureau , and Hulunbuir Municipal Government. The Hulunbuir operator Fangxingjing Tourism once told the media that its transformation cost was close to 100 million yuan. If you run three times a month and run 36 times a year, the annual income will only be 42.77 million yuan.
However, since the off-peak and off-peak tourism seasons in the northwest and northeast regions are particularly obvious, it is not ruled out that the two trains will be suspended during the off-season of the tourism season. In addition to the costs of operation and subsequent renovation, the two trains are still facing pressure to achieve profitability.
Qian Japanese said that even if it can achieve full load, it will have more than 60 million yuan in revenue every year, of which the ticket price paid by the operator to the railway bureau is still not enough to support the cost of vehicle body transformation. With the staff costs, hotel and catering costs, and distribution costs of various travel agencies, the operator's profit is only about 10%.
The above-mentioned Ukrainian iron staff believes that high-end train tours need to be continuously operated to achieve profits. Qian said that there is indeed pressure to recover costs, but the effect of building an iconic brand train will be higher than the benefits it can get in the short term.
In Liu Jianbin's view, the time is a little shorter in terms of the four-night and five-day route of the Hulunbuir. To achieve high-end experience and in-depth tours, you should be longer. For example, eight days and seven nights, the advantages of the train can be reflected in the long run, and different destinations can be connected. Compared with conventional land tourism, it is irreplaceable, and the tourist experience will be richer, the premium will be higher, and the sales pressure will be smaller.
Even if high-end train tours are not profitable in the short term, for operators, they can also use this product to leverage other routes and discuss cooperation with other places. Zhou Mingqi believes that after a sample is successful, it will help expand the business network. If some western cities can be connected in the future, the overall business scale will be more beneficial.
In some countries, high-end train travel has made great progress. Some industry insiders revealed that the Hulunbuir borrowed the "Kyushu Seven Stars" from Japan's top train.
Japan officially proposed the policy of "Sightseeing and Establishing a Country" in 2006.Railway companies also cooperated with each other to create a multiplication effect by integrating railway transportation services, entertainment services, hotels and other businesses, and combining local tourism resources. For example, the famous Kamakura Einodien also became a tourist attraction.
Kyushu Seven Star was launched in 2013. According to the "Toyo Economics", the special train was jointly produced by Kawasaki Heavy Industry , Hitachi and JR Kyushu. The production cost is about 3 billion yen, which is approximately RMB 155 million. Compared with the "exploded" of the domestic luxury special train, the green car , Jiuzhou Qixing is customized in construction and railway design, with exquisite interiors, and the most expensive suite has a full surface of glass for viewing.
Jiuzhou Seven Stars has 14 private rooms, the largest suite is about 21 square meters, the tourist route is to travel around Jiuzhou, and experience the charm of pottery , hot springs, local wine and nature. However, the four-day and three-night itinerary is also quite expensive, with prices ranging from 1.59 million yen to 2.09 million yen per person, which is about 81,000 to 106,000 yuan.
"The high-speed rail itself is a large transportation solution that can travel multiple tourist attractions and reorganize the experience and consumption of tourism products." Liu Zhaohui believes that "currently, most of the domestic tourism trains stay at the primary and rough integration level."
Liu Zhaohui took his 2015 train trip in the Napa Valley in the United States as an example. Tourists were eating steaks and savoring red wine on the train, and drove all the way into the famous winery in the valley. "Local cultural content is not only something that can be exhibited, but also something that can be sensible, tactile and consuming. The exquisite buildings and excellent wines of the red wine house can attract tourists to consume when they leave, achieving a comprehensive experience of the establishment."
This year, due to the impact of the epidemic, the railway passenger transport market has been impacted. According to National Railway Administration data, the number of railway passengers nationwide in June this year was about 16,700, a decrease of 32% from the same period last year. Against the backdrop of railway passenger landslides, many subway railway bureaus have launched special tourism trains to improve passenger transport capacity.
Some industry insiders revealed that China's railway department pays more attention to safety first. Generally speaking, regular buses such as freight, high-speed rail, and ordinary passenger transport are preferred, and tourism special trains are temporarily added to the top, and the operating schedule is often ranked last. In terms of vehicle body renovation, tourist trains also need to take into account the safety of trains and can only be modified within a limited range.
Take New Oriental Express as an example. During the renovation process, Uttar refers to the suggestions on curtain decoration, bedding, toiletries, etc. proposed by Huayun. However, since the vehicle body renovation requires safety and strict requirements, the train hardware renovation plan was ultimately decided by Uttar.
tourism trains are cooperated by the Railway Bureau and the operator. Generally, the railway bureau provides the body, and the operator is responsible for line design and other operations. Taking New Oriental Express and Hulunbuir as examples, its train drivers and some flight attendants are staff members of the Railway Bureau, while other housekeepers, local companions, etc. are responsible for the operator. This requires both parties to cooperate more closely. Industry insiders said that Fosun Culture and Tourism's companies have also hired personnel who were originally responsible for dispatching in the railway system to better understand the rules.
Some places have gradually paid attention to tourism trains. Taking the Urumqi Railway Bureau as an example, New Oriental Express is its innovative product. Its staff told reporters that in addition to the fixed daily flights, the timetable for New Oriental Express is the best among all trains this year. "New Oriental Express is our star product. In order to ensure the interests of customers, we will give priority to New Oriental , try to ensure that tourists have sufficient ground travel time, and ensure that the train arrives in the evening."
(At the request of the interviewee, Meng Tian is a pseudonym)
