BEIJING, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Taking shelter from the scorching sun under a comfy canopy with barbecues and a cup of coffee in hand, such cozy breakaway “heats up” again with summer making its grand introduction of constant heatwaves.
The growing appetite for camping also fuels the camping economy, with equipment purchases, site booking, among other related expenditure injecting new vitality into the consumption market, reported China Securities Journal.
The camping trend also drives the invention of new camping packages and combinations which at the same time fuels consumption upgrades, experts say.
This aerial photo taken on April 29, 2023 shows a camping site in Qianxi City, southwest China's Guizhou Province.(Photo by Fan Hui/Xinhua)
Sought-after leisure
Workers are busy assembling camping tents in the factory of outdoor product company Xuanwen. Later, Zhu Yuelai, the general manger of Xuanwen, will arrange delivery for these tents. Making transfer via China Yiwu Commodity City, these tents will be on shelves for sales in shops across the country in about two days.
Zhu’s business has been growing rapidly in the past three years thanks to the booming camping market. The company’s tent sales rose to 220,000 in 2022 from 120,000 in 2020. Forecast for this year is above 400,000, he said.
A research report by Orient Securities note that camping, with different preferences and combination of activities, now fall into such three varieties as traditional camping, portable camping, and exquisite camping.
Tourists go camping in Nanchuan District of southwest China's Chongqing, Oct. 2, 2022. (Photo by Qu Mingbin/Xinhua)
Traditional camping derived from outdoor sports is more of an adventure in the wilderness and appeal to a certain group of people, while portable camping is good to go for novice camper as the camping site provides all the facilities and equipment.
Exquisite camping, on the other hand, moves things a notch higher in style and expenses yet is what currently dominates social media platforms. Tent with fancy lights, sleeping bag, mattress, even caravan are “essential items” in those “moment-sharing” pics. Exquisite camping is in line with Generation Z’s sought-after of a trendy lifestyle, observers say.
At present, the penetration rate of camping population in China is about 3 percent, which is still in the incremental stage thus posing large room for growth. The continuous expanding of camping goers will boost sales of related equipment and inject vitality into consumption market, noted above-mentioned research report.
Promising market
Long-trek travel requires longer holidays, compared with which short-distance camping is ideal for weekends, Wang Ke, a camping lover says in her inflatable sofa with a drink while bathing the sunshine in the outskirts of Beijing. There is no long holiday recently, adding the summer heat, camping pops up in more people’s to-do lists, Wang noted.
The flaring-up of the camping economy could be further testified by data as well.
Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, has seen totally more than 26.58 billion plays of camping related topics, while Xiaohongshu, a lifestyle-focused social media platform, records more than 5.35 million shares of notes on camping-related experiences.
Data by China's e-commerce platform Meituan says by its measurement, recent camping “popularity” increased by 1000 percent compared with that of last year and Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shenzhen among other cities have become the cities with the highest camping popularity in China.
Research firm iiMedia Research predicts that core market size of China's camping economy will grow to 248.3 billion yuan, driving a related market size of approximately 1.44 trillion yuan by 2025.
The promising market is attracting more and more investment as well.
There are currently over 100,000 camping related enterprises in China. In the first quarter, the newly-registered camping related enterprises in China reached 13,100, a year-on-year increase of 137.69 percent, according to Qichacha, a leading platform offering company information inquiry services.
New input of vitality
As people explore new ways and combinations of camping activities, camping-related consumption will injecting new vitality into consumption upgrades, said Fu Yifu, senior researcher with Star Atlas Institute of Finance, noting that consumption market is expected to heart up further with summer striding forward and summer vocations approaching.
China’s camping economy is still in infancy with further time needed for user cultivation and camping infrastructure construction, said Pan Helin, co-director and researcher at Research Center for Digital Economics and Financial Innovation with ZIBS (International Business School of Zhejiang University). Meanwhile, China’s rural tourism economy is also heating up, and this could further drive the popularity of camping, he noted.
Infrastructures such as camping sites and facilities should be further improved for campers’ better experiences, Pan suggested. Also knowledge on tent use and outdoor skills should also be further educated and popularized with the public to further enhance security, he noted. Some camping sites can even be converted or constructed into a lasting scenic spots to make camping more sustainable, Pan noted. (Edited by Niu Huizhe with Xinhua Silk Road, niuhuizhe@xinhua.org)
A single purchase
