text | Commercial data shot, author | Luo Ning, Liao Yu, editor | Tang Xunfang
"If you have money or not, go home for the New Year." Under the influence of the epidemic, this iron rule of the Spring Festival that everyone followed in the past was still broken.
On the first day of the Spring Festival travel rush (January 28), the passenger flow at Shanghai station was less than one-third of the previous year, and the take-off and landing volume of Hongqiao Airport was only half of the same period in previous years. On the Little Year, Beijing West Railway Station had only some sporadic passengers; the pre-sale volume of tickets before the Spring Festival travel rush was nearly 70% lower than in previous years.
"There are no people at the airport," an airline staff told the Commercial Data: "In previous years, the Spring Festival travel season was the peak season for air ticket sales. There were basically no discounts on popular routes, and prices would rise. However, the air ticket prices this year are generally lower than in previous years, and the passenger flow is much less."
"Spring Festival travel cooling" is more obvious in first- and second-tier cities. Behind the declined data are workers who are restricted by the epidemic and stayed in other places under the call of policies.
Xiaokai, who just joined JD.com, is one of them. This year marks Xiaokai's fourth year of working in Beijing. Although his hometown Henan is not far from Beijing, in Xiaokai's eyes, it seems that it is safer to stay at the workplace than the nucleic acid test and the 14-day requirement for home isolation. "There are also some colleagues who don't go back, mainly friends from Northeast China who plan to have the New Year's Eve dinner with fellow villagers. Then everyone will cook together, and it will be lively. Although they haven't returned home, after all, the New Year is over, and there will still be a ceremony."
There are quite a few young people who think like Xiaokai. Among them, many of them choose to "celebrate the New Year at home", have the New Year's Eve dinner with a few friends around them, and have an unforgettable Spring Festival together.
Lao Na, who also stayed in Beijing for the New Year, launched the "Spring Festival Imperial Capital Forced to Stay in Youth Free Dining Plan" in his circle of friends. From New Year's Eve to the Eighth Day, he went to a good friend's house to "contribute his cooking skills" every day to spend a delicious Spring Festival together.
Picture from: Lao Na Moments
"The first year without family, my strategy this year is to have a meal, and I don't plan the menu anymore. Friends come and save the elderly and widows. I contribute my cooking skills, and you fill in your names." After calling friends, Lao Na's homemade forms quickly became full.
This year, there are many people like Xiaokai and Lao Na. In such a Spring Festival, when they cannot be reunited with their families, how to have a "New Year's Eve dinner" with the "New Year's Eve" touches the hearts of every foreigner.
check in to the New Year’s Eve dinner, and the foodies made the restaurant burst into orders
alone in a foreign land for strangers, but these workers in foreign lands are not willing to pay for the New Year’s Eve dinner. How to eat
with a more "New Year atmosphere"? The "lazy" foodies who are used to checking in online celebrity stores everywhere have become their first choice to have a big meal in the restaurant.
On the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month, Lin Cheng finally decided to celebrate the New Year in Beijing after repeated confusion, so he made an appointment with more than ten friends to prepare a big meal. But what he didn't expect was that after calling five or six restaurants in succession, he found that all the private rooms of restaurants of all sizes in Beijing were fully booked from New Year's Eve to the seventh day of the New Year.
According to the relevant person in charge of Judehuatian Catering Company, the number of people spending the New Year in Beijing this year has increased by 50 to 6 million compared with previous years. Large and medium-sized families like Beijing’s time-honored catering brands and small families like specialty restaurants. This is an absolute "year-end big order" for the entire Beijing catering industry, and a good location will naturally be more intimate.
"Affected by the epidemic, customers started booking New Year's Eve dinners in July and August this year. In previous years, reservations were often after the 'Eleventh Day'. This year's New Year's Eve dinner reservations were 90%, and even the attendance rate on the New Year's Eve day was more than 80%. The above-mentioned catering industry insiders told the business data class that the business this year is quite good. The business orders for the New Year’s Eve dinner at
made the catering people very happy. After all, for the catering industry, it is a blessing to survive the entire year of 2020. This year, the chefs and waiters in the hotel cannot go home, and the salaries of these people have to be paid. Now the epidemic situation across the country has been under control, with almost zero local new growth, and everyone is willing to go out and consume. This is really a great opportunity.
However, judging from the predetermined consumption, this year's consumption has not changed much compared with previous years. A survey report on the New Year’s Eve dinner in 2018 showed that between 500 yuan and 2,000 yuan is the more mainstream New Year’s Eve dinner consumption range for the people. According to a rough observation of this year's business data on Meituan , the basic consumption of New Year's Eve dinner for 10 people per table is around 600 yuan to 2,000 yuan in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. "We are all very satisfied with this reservation and the amount," said a restaurant owner.
(Price of New Year’s Eve dinner in some restaurants, data source: Meituan)
In addition to dining in the store, some people present the delicious food in the store in another form. In some large cities, a few high-consumption groups make appointments for chefs to come to make New Year’s Eve dinner, allowing their relatives and friends to taste the deliciousness of a five-star Michelin chef.
First-tier cities have become so popular that restaurants in third- and fourth-tier cities are just the opposite.
On November 29, at the Guilin catering industry symposium, many catering companies in charge said that due to the sporadic outbreak of the epidemic, the number of people going out to eat outside Guilin, Guangxi has significantly decreased. Some customers who had already booked New Year's Eve dinners have been unsubscribed one after another, and some stores have even cancelled their orders for cancellation rates of more than 80%, with huge losses.
Based on this situation, many low-tier cities have launched self-operated takeaway platforms and online and offline discount activities. Guilin Macau Restaurant takes 10% off on New Year's Eve, and get 100 yuan for every 100 yuan spent. Wuxi Eddie Garden Hotel has changed its dine-in model, and this year it mainly promotes a New Year's Eve dinner package of 1,888 yuan per serving. Currently, the pre-order sales of New Year's Eve dinner and assembled gift boxes have exceeded one million yuan.
According to business data observations, many catering companies have begun to try the "hotel package takeout" model. For people in medium and low-tier cities, this not only takes into account safety and ritual sense, but also more economical and applicable. Merchants have also made some improvements to this model. Not only does the packaging and dishes design have a "New Year atmosphere", but the content also includes many categories such as hot pot, main course, hot dishes, desserts, and more popular among consumers.
There is not enough cooking skills, so takeout comes to make up
on the 25th day of the 12th lunar month, clean the soil in the house. The single Taohua Island owner cleaned up his house and was preparing to invite her best friend to come to her home to celebrate the New Year together. Although her hometown of , Hebei is only 100 kilometers away from Beijing, she cannot go back due to the outbreak of the epidemic. Her parents are in her hometown and she is in Beijing. She had planned everything, and on the night of 30, everyone would join in hot pot.
She pre-selected a lot of fresh hotpot ingredients online. In order to make her best friends eat and drink well, she plans to place an order on the morning of New Year's Eve. Before this, she asked the delivery guy that it would be delivered on New Year’s Eve.
is not good at cooking, so takeaway. In addition to the easy-to-cook hotpot, many semi-finished and cooked foods have also become life-saving straws for young people who are not good at cooking to prepare big meals in front of their friends.
In Shanghai, Hema and Shanghai Old Hotel have launched a "Memory Taste New Year's Eve dinner" suitable for families who spend the New Year locally. The per capita cost is less than 100 yuan. It includes the eight-treasure duck New Year dishes from the old hotel in Shanghai, as well as the Sixi roasted bran, squirrel and mandarin fish launched by Hema itself. Compared with the restaurants outside, this price is more acceptable to young people for dinner.
According to official data from Hema, during the 2020 Spring Festival, the semi-finished dishes sold by Hema in Shanghai doubled compared with the 2019 Spring Festival. On New Year’s Eve last year (January 24, 2020), users living in Shanghai bought more than 2,000 semi-finished New Year’s dishes and New Year’s Eve dinner from Hema and delivered them to their homes. Hema staff said that they will also open for business on New Year's Eve and the first day of the Lunar New Year, and this year should be more popular than last year.
Daily Youxian launched hundreds of local specialty dishes before the New Year, allowing everyone to conveniently purchase specialty New Year products and taste the taste of their hometown. Guangdong people can buy coconut chicken and special refreshments on the platform, Beijingers can buy beef sauce and scorpion hotpot, and Sichuan and Chongqing people can buy spicy sausages and Dongpo buckle pork. The person in charge of Daily Youxian said that these regional specialty dishes are semi-finished products, covering categories such as cold dishes, hot dishes, soup dishes, pastries, etc., and also provide a "New Year's dish combination" to enrich the options for the New Year.
Since January 15, the search volume of "New Year's Eve dinner" on Meituan Takeout Platform has increased by 200% compared with the same period last year. According to the relevant person in charge, in previous years, the business rate of merchants was not high during the Spring Festival, but this year was different. Many quality restaurants continued to operate during the Spring Festival, with a business rate of nearly 70%, and the overall delivery range was expanded to 10 kilometers, allowing more consumers to order their favorite food through the takeaway platform. On the merchant side, this year, the single and double New Year’s Eve dinner packages will be launched for the Spring Festival in line with the trend of celebrating the New Year at home.
In the first three days of February, the search volume of "New Year's Eve dinner" on the Ele.me platform increased by 3 times compared with the previous week. The number of catering brands that Ele.me has provided online New Year’s Eve dinner packages this year has increased by 164% compared with the same period last year, and the number of participating stores has surged by 260%. The number of New Year’s Eve dinner packages supplied has increased by nearly three times year-on-year. Moving the New Year’s Eve dinner from the lobby to the online has become a significant trend for catering businesses this year’s Spring Festival. As of February 2, nearly 200 catering brands have participated in the online New Year’s Eve dinner package sales with more than 10,000 products, covering more than 5,000 offline stores.
"Make it yourself, it is much more cost-effective than eating it outside, and it will be more hearty." During the interview, Xiaokai told Business Datapay that his plan to spend the New Year's Eve dinner per capita of 200-300 yuan, and such a budget can also allow friends to have a sumptuous New Year together.
Whether it is a set meal or a semi-finished product, even if you cannot reunite with your family, the dishes you make yourself contain every homesick heart.
The Chinese New Year’s Day reversed, the taste of childhood is home
on the 25th day of the twelfth lunar month. When I learned that I could not go home this year, Xiaofang called my father and said that she missed the bacon and bacon in my hometown.
On the morning of the 27th day of the twelfth lunar month, Xiaofang received a New Year’s package sent by her father, full of the smell of home.
(Logistics point in Gaolou Town, Zizhong County, Sichuan Province, the receipt and delivery of New Year goods increased by more than 40% compared to weekdays)
When receiving the goods, the courier brother said that he would not go home during the Chinese New Year this year, and a lot of goods had to be delivered and he was too busy. It just so happened that it was not convenient to go back to my hometown this year, so I took my wife and children over, making money while taking them to celebrate the New Year in Beijing.
"I heard that I can't go home for the New Year. A few days ago, my family sent me local specialties, including beef balls made at home and vermicelli made from sweet potato flour." Xiaokai said that although his relatives were not around, eating these foods from his hometown during the New Year was like being at home.
There are many people like Xiaofang and Xiaokai who are happy. People who stay in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou can feel the familiar New Year’s Eve dinner and the warmth of their relatives through bags of New Year’s goods. Xiaofang and Xiaokai also sent New Year gifts to their parents to express their New Year's blessings and longing for their relatives. New changes such as
have put forward higher requirements for the logistics industry. Although many express delivery companies have shouted the slogan of "No Closed on the Spring Festival" in previous years, many people still go home for the New Year. The express delivery industry will enter the Spring Festival operation mode, with few staff and slow logistics, which is the intuitive feeling of people in the past Spring Festival.
This year, due to the impact of the epidemic, relatives cannot be reunited. The demand for sending New Year’s goods to relatives, sending gifts, and buying New Year’s goods by themselves has increased rapidly, and the flow of goods has increased. In addition, many couriers have also responded to the call to celebrate the New Year at home. Therefore, express companies such as Debang Express, "Three Links and One Da", Best, SF Express , and China Post have responded one after another, taking a step further towards the goal of "not closing during the Spring Festival".
According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, since the launch of the 2021 National Online New Year’s Festival, as of February 3, the national online retail sales have exceeded 510 billion yuan, a much higher than in previous years. Some experts say that this year will be the first step for the express delivery industry to truly achieve normal logistics during the Spring Festival. From now on, the logistics of the Spring Festival will be delivered on time as usual.
Conclusion
For Chinese people on the tip of their tongue, Dragon Boat Festival = Eat Zongzi, Mid-Autumn Festival = Eat mooncakes, and eating a good New Year’s Eve dinner is equivalent to having a good New Year.
Many people who are away all year round, the New Year’s Eve dinner reunited with their families every year is the best comfort for a hard and busy year, and it is the most precious and wonderful time.
But this year, people who are celebrating the New Year at home choose to spend it with their friends and this city that struggles day and night, reminisce about the little things of the year together, and guard the hard-won stability of the epidemic together, which will be an unforgettable memory for life.
