I don't know when it started, but this group of young people fell in love with camping.

Affected by the epidemic, the traditional tourism industry has fallen into an "ice age", and outbound travel and inter-provincial travel have been forced to press the pause button. People had to make up their minds on the suburbs. "Since this year, the screen has been full of camping variety shows. The circle of friends and Xiaohongshu are all about camping, and camping has become popular all of a sudden." In the face of the popular camping activities, some netizens ridiculed on social platforms, "The current 90 Afterwards, either camping or preparing for camping.”

Source: Screenshot of Weibo

According to the 2022 Qingming holiday search data released by Xiaohongshu on April 6, outdoor activities such as camping and picnics have become popular topics in the travel category. Among them, there are 2.12 million camping-related notes, and the search data has skyrocketed by 427% year-on-year.

Camping quickly came out of the circle, giving birth to a fiery and huge camping economy. According to statistics from iiMedia Research, from 2014 to 2021, the market size of camping camps in China increased from 7.71 billion yuan to 29.9 billion yuan. It is expected that the growth rate will reach 18.6% in 2022, and the market size will reach 35.46 billion yuan. The auto industry, which is in a downturn, seems to have found a new outlet.

Of the ten circles of friends, nine are camping

Since the first contact with camping in the first half of 2021, Beibei Liu has gone on the road of pursuing "exquisite camping", from "packing lightly and rushing through the scene" during the first camping, gradually evolving into "putting If you move your home outdoors, you will live for two days and one night.”

At the beginning, Liu Beibei went camping just to try it out. A portable tent, a set of folding tables and chairs and a bunch of snacks could meet her camping needs. With the increase in the frequency of camping, Beibei Liu is no longer satisfied with this "simple camping".

In order to improve the comfort of camping, Liu Beibei began to purchase camping-related products, "buy a canopy this week and a gas lamp next week. According to the frequency of camping every two weeks, you can basically experience new camping equipment every time you camp. "Liu Beibei explained, "Camping is similar to skiing, and it's easily addictive."

The more equipment she buys, the more realistic the problem lies in front of her. Liu Beibei drives out her Accord every time she goes camping, and slowly she finds that the trunk is not enough. "The equipment for camping has to occupy the space in the back row. Once that happens, you can't sit there.

Sometimes, the road surface of the camp is not smooth enough, and the chassis of the Accord is relatively low. This makes Liu Beibei a little distressed. If he changes cars in the future, he will give priority to SUV models with large space and high chassis. "This is what camping taught me. Large space is really important." Camping not only changed Liu Beibei's lifestyle, but also influenced her decision to buy a car.

Source: Photo courtesy of the interviewee

In fact, camping, an outdoor activity that originated in Europe and the United States, is being accepted by more and more Chinese.

Qunar platform data shows that during the May Day holiday in 2022, the sales of park tickets that can be camped will increase by more than 50% year-on-year; Mafengwo released the "2022 Camping Quality Research Report" showing that the post-90s and post-00s young tourists and post-80s parent-child travel are the most common The main force of the camping circle, the two together account for 87%, and 81% of tourists choose to spend 1-3 days to experience camping.

There is a sentence on the Internet that reflects how popular camping is - out of ten circles of friends, nine are camping. After seeing more and more people in the circle of friends join the "camping army", Zhang Xiaofei was also "planted". "If you have nothing to do on holidays, you can go camping to relax, and you won't spend too much energy and time on the road." However, unlike Liu Beibei, although Zhang Xiaofei is also keen on this new project that has just been developed, she will not spend too much on camping. funds. "Rationally, you can't go camping a few times a year. No matter how much equipment you buy, you'll end up 'eating dust' in the basement, let alone changing your car for camping."

Car companies catch up with the camping wind

The camping wind is becoming more and more intense, not only consumers, but also car companies are also excited. Tesla, Xiaopeng Motors, Lantu and other new energy car companies have begun to propose the concept of third spaces such as RVs and bed cars, and strive to catch up with the trend of camping.

In 2019, Tesla added a "party and camping mode" to all its models through OTA. In this mode, when the vehicle is parked, the interior of the cockpit can be maintained at a constant temperature, and electrical equipment such as lights and music can be maintained for 48 hours or more.

In September 2021, Xiaopeng P5 officially launched under the name of "Variety and Comfortable Smart Sedan". In addition to hard-core configurations such as lidar, Xiaopeng P5 also provides consumers with smart sleeping space and smart living space. Optional packages, including sleep kits, car viewing kits for customized ultra-clear projectors, car smart refrigerators and other configurations. "Xpeng P5 conducted user research at the beginning of its development, and made configuration adjustments based on the application scenarios of big data. Camping is one of the application scenarios provided by big data." Future Auto Daily said.

Ideal cars and Lantu cars also follow the trend. Ideal ONE and Lantu FREE also pack the advantages of large space, external discharge, and long battery life into a camping concept. In the ideal car APP mall, there are also camping accessories such as the ideal ONE car air mattress, the ideal portable folding chair, and the ideal portable folding cart. Currently, products such as folding cars are being replenished.

The yet-to-be-launched Ziyoujia NV chooses outdoor, camping, urban exploration and other vehicle scenarios as its main subdivision routes, and is positioned as a luxury medium-to-large urban exploration SUV. Salespeople in end markets are also going to great lengths to market the camping benefits of their products. "In addition to introducing the home attributes of Lili ONE to customers, we also prepared words about camping, such as the ability to discharge externally, the power supply can be connected to a coffee machine, etc." In the view of the sales staff, Lili Auto's slogan is "creating mobile home", which also matches the camping properties.

not the vent of the vent

The camping outlet has opened a new marketing window for car companies, but it is hard to say how long this wind will blow.

In recent years, camping has become popular and sought after, and behind it is a completely cool tourism industry. According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the number of domestic tourists in 2020 will be 2.879 billion, a decrease of 3.022 billion compared with the same period in 2019, a year-on-year decrease of 52.1%; in 2021, due to the basic control of the epidemic, the total number of domestic tourists will be 3.246 billion. , although a year-on-year increase of 12.8%, there is still a big gap compared to before the epidemic, only returning to 54.0% in 2019.

Moreover, the data shows that in 2021, the domestic medium and long-distance travel demand has not been fully released, and the tourist flow is mainly concentrated in the province, mainly for short-distance travel. An economist analyzed the future car daily that the camping economy belongs to "the tuyere that is not a tuyere".

"There are a large number of camping enthusiasts in the European and American markets, which provides a stable source of income for the camping business in the European and American markets. Most domestic consumers can only choose camping as a substitute for tourism due to the epidemic." The economist believes that the camping economy can be Sustainability is very low. When the domestic tourism industry picks up, the camping economy will also slump. "This means that the camping economy will not provide a long-term dividend window for car companies."

Liu Beibei also believes that the current hot camping trend is just a flash in the pan. In Liu Beibei's view, the rise of camping is more driven by "early adopters", and this trend is difficult to sustain. "The threshold for camping is very low, you can have a car and a tent.

But it takes a lot of time and energy to really achieve high-frequency camping. "According to Liu Beibei, most of the people around her rarely start new camping plans after they have been exposed to camping. In fact, every time a new economic model emerges, there will be car companies closely following the heat.

In 2020, with the economic fire of street stalls, SAIC-GM-Wuling launched a special vending vehicle. Once the new car was launched, Wuling Motor's stock price rose by more than 120% the next day. Although SAIC-GM-Wuling was on fire in the capital market at that time, on the sales side, this truck has always had a mediocre response. Today, this car has long been missing from SAIC-GM-Wuling's sales report card.

In this wave of camping, although car companies have frequently jumped out to bind their products to camping, no car company has really tilted its product attributes towards camping. "Camping is only a selling point of Lili ONE, and Li Li ONE's real main customer group is still family users." The sales and service staff of Li Li Auto also told Future Auto Daily that so far, no customers have bought Li Li ONE because of their love for camping. .

The insiders of Ziyoujia also said that camping is a beautiful yearning of the Ziyoujia brand for life, and it is also a reflection of some characteristics of the Ziyoujia NV. "The specific user group portraits of Ziyoujia NV will be announced at a future conference." Zhang Zhiyong, an analyst in the automotive industry, believes that this is a marketing carnival launched by new energy vehicle companies in line with the camping boom. "(Camping is) the hottest topic at the moment. It is easy for car companies to get out of the circle when they fit in with publicity. At the same time, camping can also well reflect the advantages of product strength such as model space and performance."