Popular scenic spots and venues in Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu are hard to find with just one ticket! What do you think about the difficulty of making appointments this summer? Attractions | Tickets | Chengdu
"I have already booked my flight and hotel, and even took my annual leave. I never expected that I would never be able to get a ticket!" "Whether or not I can travel, I used to rely on transportation, but now I have to rely on tickets." As we enter the summer, Beijing has become one of the most popular travel destinations in the country, and many tourists have a deep understanding of the "difficulty of booking" famous tourist attractions.
Not only in Beijing, but also in Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Xi'an and other popular scenic spots and venues recently, the phenomenon of "no shortage of tourists, no shortage of tickets" is equally prominent. The difficulty of booking reflects a good trend of accelerated consumer recovery and increased market heat, and also puts forward new requirements on how to meet demand.
"I expected the attraction to be 'beautiful', but I didn't expect it to be so 'difficult'."
"The popularity of tourist attractions is even higher than the temperature of recent weather!" Ms. Li, a Shanghai resident, originally planned to take her newly enrolled elementary school child to Beijing for a trip during the summer vacation. However, when planning her itinerary, she unexpectedly found that the tickets for Beijing tourist attractions are really hot this year. "I have seen many well-known tourist attraction reservation platforms, and almost all of them have sold out their tickets. It's also a snap to grab them. I expected the attractions to be very attractive, but I didn't expect it to be so difficult." Helpless, Ms. Li and her family temporarily gave up their summer trip to Beijing and started making other plans.
Recently, many tourists have experienced the difficulty of booking and grabbing tickets for tourist attractions and cultural and museum venues. On social media platforms, some out of town tourists have reported that they have arrived but have not booked tickets, while industry insiders have jokingly claimed that "Beijing tourism practitioners have become ticket grabbing 'machines'.". Due to the varying booking and ticket release times in various scenic spots, there are also circulating "ticket grabbing calendars" on the internet that accurately indicate the specific ticket grabbing time... However, situations such as "National Expo tickets sold out in 3 minutes" and "travel agencies urging tourists to return due to lack of attraction tickets" still frequently appear on the internet.
On July 10th, the reporter found that all tickets to the Forbidden City have been fully booked within one week; The admission ticket reservation page of the WeChat official account of the National Museum directly shows that "the product has been sold out"; Tickets for Universal Studios Beijing are still available, but recently the price of Euexpress products has risen to 1500 yuan and all of them have been sold out.
With the arrival of summer, not only Beijing, but also popular tourist attractions in cities such as Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou, and Xi'an are also hard to find. For example, Xi'an's Shaanxi History Museum, the Terra Cotta Warriors, the "Everlasting Regret" show and other ticket reservations are popular. According to data from Qunar platform, as of July 3rd, the booking volume of indoor museum tickets has increased by three times compared to the same period last month, and the booking volume of national oceanarium tickets has increased by four times compared to the same period last month. The Palace Museum, the National Museum of China, the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum Museum, the Shaanxi History Museum, the Qingdao Ocean Museum, and the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base have become the hottest routes, and some venues have very tight ticket reservations.
"There are joys and sorrows behind the difficulty in obtaining a single ticket," Jing Junmei, Deputy Director of the Institute of Culture at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told our reporter. This reflects people's greater emphasis on improving their spiritual world, increasing demand for cultural and leisure activities, and driving consumption towards quality and diversity. It is a direct reflection of people's yearning for a better life. On the other hand, it indicates that everyone is still focused on the hot topics, and more cultural and leisure spaces and consumption choices still need to be known by more people. At the same time, the supply side still has some shortcomings in undertaking the consumption boom.
The demand for travel is booming, and the supply-demand contradiction is becoming more prominent
Why is booking a ticket difficult? Because the demand is really hot.
Accumulated a travel demand for 3 years, it has been released during various holidays such as May Day and summer vacation this year. In terms of summer vacation, Qunar data shows that after June 23rd, the number of summer flight bookings has entered a period of rapid growth, with the first week of July being the peak of bookings. From then on, the weekly booking volume will remain at a high level, and it is expected to continue until after August 13th before gradually decreasing.
"Thanks to the increase in flight volume and the huge demand for passenger travel, the domestic passenger volume on June 30th has approached the peak of the 'May Day' holiday. Based on previous year's booking data, this is only the beginning," said Xiao Peng, a researcher at Qunar Big Data Research Institute.
When demand is surging and concentrated towards some destinations, the contradiction between supply and demand becomes prominent. Generally speaking, scenic spots have the maximum tourist carrying capacity, and cultural and museum venues are particularly important to ensure the safety of ancient buildings, cultural relics, and the quality of tourism. The recent "second light" of tickets for places such as the Forbidden City and the National Museum is a direct reflection.
In fact, making appointments is difficult, not only for tourists, but also tests the management level of scenic spots and cities. Recently, multiple measures have been launched to expand supply.
——Maximizing consumer demand. The Beijing Municipal Park Management Center stated that municipal parks such as the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven will dynamically adjust the ticket release volume and promptly fill in the ticket pool with refunds and missed appointments.
——Deeply explore leisure resources. For example, Beijing not only has famous attractions such as the Forbidden City, National Museum, and Great Wall, but also a large number of celebrity residences, historical relics, cultural clubs, and other places scattered throughout the urban space. Recently, some online platforms have launched "Fun Play" maps, which not only explore popular check-in destinations but also discover niche treasure attractions for tourists to choose from. CITYWALK, central axis cycling, and other attractions have also attracted many young people.
"The excessive concentration of tourists in certain places not only affects everyone's travel experience, but also hinders the overall improvement of market activity, and even restricts related consumption." Jing Junmei suggests that relevant departments can build an information resource sharing platform, fully tap into the leisure cultural resources in the city, reasonably divert and guide traffic, and let everyone have a good urban experience.
Some tourists have also found that tickets that cannot be obtained through official channels can sometimes be purchased through third-party platforms or scalpers. There are also venues where free tickets cannot be reserved, while there are extra tickets for paid packages and special exhibitions; Tickets for individual travelers are displayed as "sold out" early on, and tickets can be purchased through travel agencies.
"In the face of difficulties in booking appointments and tickets, the first thing to do is to scientifically allocate resources as much as possible, making services more subtle and three-dimensional, and not giving speculators opportunities to take advantage of. At the same time, necessary cultural law enforcement should be carried out to crack down on market chaos and purify the market environment." Jing Junmei said.
Flexibly adjust and provide high-quality personalized services
The heat of summer travel has prompted various parties to think about how to further improve "reservation".
In recent years, the appointment system for tourist attractions has been gradually promoted, especially in the past few years, the appointment system has been normalized for the need of COVID-19 prevention and control. On the one hand, implementing a reservation system has obvious advantages. Many industry insiders have analyzed that for scenic spots, implementing a ticket reservation system is an important means to strengthen fine management, improve the quality of scenic spots, and protect tourism resources. For tourists, a reservation system can disperse passenger flow, avoid the impact of overcrowding on the experience, and save queuing time for ticket purchases. It can be said that appointment based and online systems are the trend.
On the other hand, consumers have also expressed that the normalization of appointments should not be "absolute", and more flexible adjustments should be made.
Ms. Long, who lives in Beijing, has had some unpleasant experiences. At the beginning of this year, Ms. Long and her family accidentally discovered a professional museum on the street that they were interested in. She approached to inquire, but was told that there was only one way to enter the museum, which was to make an appointment in advance. "The number of visitors who entered the museum on that day was not very high. If the number of visitors did not reach the limit, we were simply rejected because we did not make an appointment in advance, which is really difficult to understand." Ms. Long, who returned with regret, said that although the appointment system is good, it cannot be too rigid.
For example, don't turn away the elderly. The implementation of appointment system, although easy and convenient for most people, is equivalent to a new threshold for the elderly group who are not familiar with the internet. It is understood that some places have set up elderly care service windows, which can handle on-site ticket purchases. Consumers hope that similar practices can be widely promoted.
For example, adding some flexible arrangements beyond the appointment system to better meet the needs of citizens. "Living in the city, or suddenly encountering good weather, or occasionally having free time, there are always moments of temporary inspiration. When the number of scheduled visits on the same day does not reach the limit, scenic spots and cultural heritage sites, as public resources in the city, can be more flexible in terms of booking and ticket sales, preserving a sense of randomness and romance for citizens," said Ms. Long.
In addition, appointment services should be more refined, transparent, and convenient for consumers. It is understood that some scenic spots currently require tickets to be snatched one week in advance, while others require tickets to be snatched five days in advance; The ticket release time is sometimes in the afternoon or evening, while others are at midnight. "Late night ticket grabbing" has even become a hot topic on social networks. Regarding this, experts suggest that it is possible to concentrate the ticket release time during the day? Can we allocate resources reasonably and cater to the different needs of team tourists and individual travelers? Against the backdrop of rapidly rising travel consumption, can relevant parties timely evaluate market changes and increase the supply of peak season tickets as much as possible within their carrying capacity?
Under the reservation system, for a large number of free venues, consumers have varying degrees of behavior of "making an appointment first before making a reservation". At this time, not only should they promptly fill in the ticket pool with non compliant tickets, but they should also do a good job of calculation and evaluation, and appropriately expand the number of ticket placements based on the proportion of non compliant tickets.
"The appointment system is ultimately just a means, and providing quality and humanized services to the public is the goal." Jing Junmei said that as urban public resources, scenic spots, cultural and museum venues, etc., should not go to extremes in ticket booking. Do not build a "digital wall" under the name of "smart life", but fully allocate resources, do a good job in fine services, and strive to make people who come satisfied and return.
