One of the objectives of this project is to find a balance between cultural heritage (cultural tourism industry) and popular culture (young people), so this week we have further analysed and reflected on the trends and the current situation of the industry in relation to this theme

The travel industry is facing disruptive changes due to the impact of the epidemic. But no matter what the times are going through, the desire to travel, especially among young people, is very strong. This strong desire is in great contrast to the current downturn in the travel industry. New concepts and models such as micro-camping, micro-vacations and travel photography are also bringing an impact to destination travel. But the travel industry itself still has to find some second curves in the industry, especially for young people demand, how to attract younger groups?

Change of approach

Young people don’t bunch up and don’t follow the crowd
Traditional tourism products and destinations may not necessarily appeal to them, but rather cities with a strong personality, the ability to take photos or share some special experiences to show off on social media will stand out.

The decision making mechanism for consumer behaviour has been greatly compressed, with faster and more fragmented becoming a core feature of consumer psychology, and ‘consumer discovery’ being replaced by ‘content push’. Consumer initiative is being shaped by group sentiment. This has led to higher and different requirements for product communication in terms of content, form and visuals.
Linking products to consumer needs is more direct and important than communicating the product brand, and any product that needs to be explained will lose its chance of success. The faster and more direct the link, the greater the chance of realisation and the faster the conversion cycle and rate.
The giant consumer platforms formed on the basis of internet technology are increasingly losing the value of traffic, and as they create and accumulate traffic, they are also being backfilled by it. Thirst-quenching investments and operations have become their daily routine.
Small and beautiful, small and sophisticated, small and fast commercial terminals are breaking away from the large commercial model and coming into the proximity of people’s lives. The new ant hordes around small communities, office building attached properties, inside museums, scenic spots (and even on tour buses), cinemas, street vending, etc. will become the mainstream commercial bodies of the future. They will become direct, efficient and real-time linking sites, meeting every aspect of life’s needs in a myriad of niche formats.

Emotional needs and service experience

Traditional travel only talks about the good scenery of the destination
But ignore the emotional needs of young people
It’s time for cultural travel products to change from product-driven to emotion-driven

Companies in the field of cultural and creative industries have always been chasing innovative cultural and creative products, as well as emotion-driven cultural transformation and landing, and the cultural and creative products scattered in various scenes and warehouses are just like a chicken feather.

Entrepreneurs in different fields and industries are acutely aware of the cost, the depletion of stock and in-volume, and they feel the crisis of business relatively early.
A business doing children’s custom clothing e-commerce, initially with a fixed model sample to accept a piece of custom, two years to develop sales of more than 100 million, the product base SKU has more than 100, nearly 10,000 square meters of storage, had to embark on the road to scale to maintain sales, traffic and growth. The pressure of product innovation and stocking inventory during this period made him feel trapped in a difficult situation at any time. How do you innovate products to maintain an undefeated position and leadership in the consumer market? He thought that creativity and design were the only options.
The explosion of cultural and creative products, especially tide play, has tantalised many entrepreneurs in the consumer business. The leading tide play companies in Dongguan could not resist the temptation of the market and are all transforming from OEM to OBM, basically dying before they can get out of the gate, with the C-terminal market and consumption mechanism relentlessly striking back, making them understand the importance of culture, creativity and aesthetics.
Not only the cultural tourism industry, but also the food and beverage related industry is currently the most innovative field in terms of products, models and business models, and is also the track that capital has focused on in recent years. They are not only trying to innovate in food culture, product segmentation, consumer behaviour, service models and business mechanisms.

At a time when large supermarkets are struggling, small snack shops and brands are popping up all over the street, and the products and prices they are subject to are basically a physical recreation of the Poundland (e-commerce) model and strategy. With the exception of a few branded consumer foods that maintain low prices (dumping), the vast majority are unbranded or workshop branded products.
New business thinking such as “long-termism” and “all tracks are worth starting over” underpin most business investment and entrepreneurial behaviour. In reality, it is just a continual rehash of the stock market, a stage for the board.
Commodity inventory, consumer stock, aging traffic, etc. are destined to make entrepreneurship difficult, the essence of which is not in the market, but the majority of runs are just stock markets.
The source of the stock market lies in the lack of innovation in products and the lack of new content for consumption. Most products have survived for more than 20 years, and the application of technology still remains to meet basic functions and cannot touch on quality improvement, let alone changing lifestyles.

As the field of cultural and creative products comes to an end, it must break through the inner volume, break its own cage, analyse itself and find its best and most core competitiveness.
It must become a source of creative innovation and construction for new economies, new businesses, new products and new services; it should return to its essence and become a solution for business, providing creative strategies and means in different dimensions and orientations, and giving new value creation.
It should be an ecology that provides innovative values and market dynamics to different business forms and operations. Culture, creativity, design, planning, IP, etc. should all play an empowering role.
Cultural creation is a kind of thinking and a process, and this thinking and process should be predictable; cultural creation should output creative content and create new services, instead of just going to make products to output stock.

Need for a new label (city identity)

One attraction represents a tourist city
We say that classics never go out of fashion, but young people will really be interested in
A tourist attraction that has been around since grandpa’s generation?
In the internet age, it is always possible to use a new label
Refreshing the public image of a tourist city

IP interpretation and analysis, combing, IP incubation and planning, market planning, IP creation and story interpretation, brand building, product design and services, product strategy research and market analysis, supply chain management and services, brand building and marketing planning, content creation and promotion, live streaming, etc. should all become segments of cultural and creative business, so as to shape the city’s personality in a more three-dimensional way and thus gain core competitiveness.

To sum up, cultural and creative business is not a business form that deals with cultural and creative products, but a business operation model that uses cultural creativity to empower content creation, planning and design services, and innovative business operations, not to sell more stock, not to remove inventory, but to create incremental markets and promote rapid growth in new economic cycles.