Photo provided by interviewee
During the National Day Golden Week, popular tourist attractions started the “people follow the herd” mode, and a group of young people gave up on popular tourist attractions and chose to go into the mountains.
The hiking business is experiencing a concentrated explosion. Among them, hiking destinations such as Kashgar, Altay, and Xishuangbanna are quite popular.
In mid-September, the Youxiake applet showed that during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day, hiking tours in Altay in northern Xinjiang, Zhangjiajie in Hunan, Xiaoxinan Mountains in northeastern China, and Yubeng in Lijiang were fully booked. National Day is the biggest peak season of the year, and orders for routes such as Chengdu and Xinjiang explode intensively on leading platforms. There is the “Ghost Laughing Stone Night Climb” departing from Beijing for 1.9 yuan, and there is also the Kazakhstan hiking group for 15,500 yuan for 8 days and 7 nights (excluding air tickets and local cars), which shows that the quota is full.
Commercial hiking groups are paid hiking products organized by qualified outdoor clubs or travel agencies. They package route planning, group leadership, transportation, food and accommodation, and even safety into a one-stop service. Users just pay to go into the mountains and follow along. It is different from the AA group that young people are more familiar with. AA groups share expenses, take responsibility for themselves, are not for profit, and are more like a group of friends.
The real engine of this round of sales is both the outdoor sports craze and an emotional business. Young people who want to escape from their work stations and are tired of the crowds at popular attractions have no time to do guides and are still looking forward to the release of movies and the sense of ritual. What they pay for is an experience that is worry-free, safe, and can be posted on Moments.
From 1.9 yuan to 23,800 yuan, a commercial hiking group’s National Day sales exceeded 800,000 yuan
The prices of commercial hiking tours are obviously stratified.
Low-priced day tours are cost-effective and mostly serve the function of acquiring customers. The Beijing Night Climb costs 1.9 yuan, the Wanlv Lake Water Kayak Paddle Board costs 94 yuan, and the Dayanding Crossing Deer and Wild Goose Scientific Expedition Route departs from Shenzhen for 78 yuan. The price per customer is low and the threshold is low. The core purpose is not to make money, but more to bring users into the private domain and establish repeat purchases.
Baozou Village, known as “Pinduoduo on foot”, is one of the representatives of this style of play. It relied on low prices to seize the market and was founded in 2015. According to reports, its revenue will reach 50 million yuan in 2025, capturing 70% of the market share in Shenzhen, and has successively entered Shanghai, Hangzhou, Beijing, and Chengdu.
Jack, the founder of Baozou Village, once revealed that when he entered the Shanghai market, his peers sold routes for 180 yuan/day, while Baozou Village directly priced the line at 59 yuan or 79 yuan. Everyone only earned 10 to 20 yuan, and they were losing money for a long time. Their logic is to attract users first and then consider making money after they get half of the market share.
What really contributes to profits is the medium and long-term thread groups. The Youxiake mini program shows that the Alibaba Grand Ring Line is priced at 16,900 yuan for 14 days and 13 nights; the 11-day National Day price for Kailash is 13,400 yuan, with only 20 people per group; and the Kazakhstan tour for 9 days and 7 nights is priced at 23,800 yuan. An industry insider bluntly said that there is a big profit difference between a long-term tour group with a single customer price of 4,000 yuan and a peripheral short-term tour with a single customer price of 100 yuan. As a result, many business groups start long-term tours during the National Day, but whether they can form a group depends on whether they have enough customers.
Photo provided by interviewee
Zhang Jinpu, the person in charge of Beijing Hikers, mainly focuses on one-, two-, and three-day tours around Beijing. He “takes root in Beijing and cultivates first-hand customer sources.” He only organizes long-term tours during major holidays such as May Day and National Day. On National Day this year, they issued four long-term lines, including two in western Sichuan, one in Tibet, and one in Daqingshan, Inner Mongolia for six days. Together with surrounding short-term lines, the total turnover during National Day can reach 800,000-900,000 yuan. In his view, long-term customers have high unit prices and high profits, which can only be supported by long holidays.
Haizi (pseudonym), the leader of a business group in Chengdu, mainly focuses on two long-term tours in Chengdu. One of them is moderately difficult and medium-to-high-end, priced at 5,000 to 6,000 yuan for 8 days; the other is suitable for entry-level people, priced at 1,900 to 3,000 yuan for 3 to 5 days. Haizi told Times Finance that his travel agency has registered a total of about 800 people for the two lines of National Day this year. Air tickets will be paid for by oneself, and meals, accommodation, vehicles, tickets, and tour guides will be all-inclusive after landing in Chengdu.
Based on the data provided by Haizi and based on the average price of the two routes, the commercial hiking group he is a part of will have a revenue of about 2.5 million yuan this National Day. At the same time, National Day tour prices generally increase by 400 to 500 yuan. He bluntly said that this is the time when prices rise the most throughout the year, higher than May Day.
Photo provided by interviewee
However, costs are also rising simultaneously. Haizi said that equipment transportation, hotels, and vehicles in each camp are increasing. Zhang Jinpu has calculated that transportation, local caravan fees, and accommodation are all in short supply, and whoever targets them first will take them. The real competition in the industry is all-round. “Copywriting, itinerary highlights, support teams, tour leader services, post-stage risk bearing, etc., all have to be fought for,” Zhang Jinpu said.
Under the craze of sports, commercial hiking groups have shown differentiated ways of living. Some rely on peripheral high-frequency and small profits, some rely on regional price stratification, and some rely on content and high-end to create a platform. However, a common judgment among industry insiders is that the ceiling of this business is far from reaching its peak.
Young people who fled their workplaces spent tens of thousands of yuan to go to the mountains
From a demand perspective, this is a collective emotion about “escape”.
Zhang Jinpu himself escaped into the mountains. In 2014, he wanted to find a way to relieve stress and started hiking. “You can enter a flow state very clearly, talking to the past and thinking about the future.”
As we continued to play, more and more people followed, and safety and security issues arose, so we formed a team leader and slowly developed into a commercial organization. Zhang Jinpu currently manages the Beijing Walker mini-program with nearly 90,000 registered members. The leader of the team grows step by step from the team members, but it takes at least a year and a half to achieve the position of leader.
Haizi, on the other hand, came from a major in sports and majored in outdoor sports at Sichuan Tourism University. He has led the team for more than ten years. The team leader he belongs to has a team leader ratio of 1:6 and a cap of 30 people. This year’s National Day, he led a group with 23 clients. “Most of them are born in the 1980s and 1970s. They are not under financial pressure and come out to relax.”
Photo provided by interviewee
In the past two years, the Haizi team has also added the service of team leader and photographer. After completing the route, medals, certificates and celebration banquets will be held. He keenly observed that publishing on social platforms is a need of many customers, “it must have good photos and a sense of ceremony.”
It is understood that the price of a photography group with a professional photography leader is about 300 yuan higher than that of an ordinary group. Zhang Jinpu’s group is not equipped with a photographer. He said that not everyone likes to take pictures. “Some people like to walk around, some like to take pictures, it’s different.”
“The middle class, middle-aged people, mainly women, aged 26 to 60, have time, money, and health. Women account for more than 60% of actual consumption, and most of them come from first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.” Zheng He, founder of Hiking China, explained the portraits of these people who participated in commercial hiking groups. He also found that more than 60% of customers are attracted by the content, but the core of repurchase is product design and service experience. “After participating once, half of the people will come again; after participating three times, the (repurchase rate) is 80%; after participating five times, basically they will not be able to leave.”
It is worth noting that the business of commercial hiking tours is at a point that is both lively and fragile.
The excitement lies in the fact that the number of people paying to go into the mountains is still expanding. Film production, sense of ritual, and emotional value have turned hiking from a sport into an experiential consumption. The fragile side is that the industry is still growing wildly. Tour leader qualifications vary, low-priced tours reduce safety costs, and accidents and complaints occur frequently. “Just like express delivery and online ride-hailing in the past, the industry will always move from chaos to order.” Haizi said frankly that in the past few years, the gross profit margin of the group was more than 30%, but now it is only about 20%. “It was rolled out.”
The long-term success of this business depends on solid security and formalization. Zhang Jinpu staked his hopes on moving closer to cultural tourism, while Haizi guarded the earliest camp resources in western Sichuan and only worked in areas where he was good at it.
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