From an event to the creation of an industrial zone, China's sports tourism market is witnessing an upward development trend, fueled by mega-events, policies, and the overall background of consumption upgrading. The World Tourism Organization expects that the size of the global sports tourism market in 2020 is expected to exceed 400 billion U.S. dollars. As early as the end of 2016, the former National Tourism Administration, the State General Administration of Sports *** with the issuance of the "guidance on vigorously developing sports tourism" is proposed, by 2020, the total consumption scale of sports tourism exceeded one trillion yuan.
Sports tourism "play mountain and water" era
Sports celebrities into the sports tourism track, or can be seen as one of the epitome of the development of sports tourism, Deng Yaping is one of the representatives. 2016 October, Deng Yaping team and the Central Plains Investment Company *** with the initiation of the establishment of Deng Yaping in Henan Province, sports industry investment fund, which is the first domestic investment fund. Sports Industry Investment Fund, which is the first domestic sports industry fund named by a famous athlete, plans to raise a total of 5 billion yuan, the first phase of the scale of 500 million yuan, will be raised and operated in a market-oriented way.
Data shows that as early as 2016, more than 20 sports and culture industry investment funds have been set up in China, with a cumulative scale of more than 40 billion yuan. Deng Yaping believes that the sports tourism market space is huge, and everyone's pursuit of consumption upgrading and having a quality life will be more and more combined with the thematic, sports and leisure type of tourism. From the sports level, tourism is "see the mountains and water" era has passed, "play the mountains and water" era has come, experience lifestyle upgrading is a must.
One of the business layouts of Deng Yaping's sports industry investment fund is centered around scenic spots, which are used as carriers to add sports projects, such as rock climbing, skiing, mountain biking, mountain marathon, hot-air ballooning and paragliding, to form a three-dimensional system of fun and games in one area.
These sports tourism programs have a fit in terms of meeting the demand for participatory and experiential tourism consumption. The same is true for sports tourism programs such as golf, equestrian, mountaineering, diving and outdoor sports. Distinguished from traditional sightseeing tours, sports tourism has more prominent features in terms of the breadth of participant groups, diversified consumption needs and customer stickiness. Take marathon events as an example. The 2017 China Marathon Big Data Analysis Report shows that in 2017, the number of marathon events of various scales in China reached 1,102, more than three times the 328 events in 2016 and more than 50 times the 22 events in 2011. It has not only brought heat to the upstream and downstream of the related sports industry, but also become an entry point for tourism traffic.
Sports towns can be regarded as a higher or more comprehensive form of the sports tourism industry.In May 2017, the General Administration of Sport issued the Notice on Promoting the Construction of Sports and Leisure Characteristic Towns, pointing out that by 2020, it will support the construction of a batch of sports and leisure characteristic towns across the country with distinctive sports characteristics, strong cultural flavor, industrial agglomeration and integration, good ecological environment, and benefiting people's health. Ninety-six exemplary pilot sports towns have previously been selected across the country.
In the policy and market to promote, real estate developers, investment companies, sports industry companies and other sports town construction and operation of the main body. According to incomplete statistics, up to now, more than 20 real estate companies, including China Evergrande, Wanda Group, Greenland Group, Vanke, Agile Group and so on, have made layouts in the sports industry.
Data shows that in 2016 alone, more than 100 sports towns in China have entered the construction stage; construction heated up in 2017. Outdoor programs such as cycling, marathon, fishing, mountaineering, ice and snow have become the main implanted content or business of sports towns.
The gains and losses of policy boost
Behind the emerging industry, it can not be separated from the continuous support of many policies. According to the reporter incomplete statistics, only from May to November 2016, the State Council, the National Development and Reform Commission, the State General Administration of Sports and other relevant departments have issued nine sports tourism policy documents of varying sizes, including the "Sports Development" Thirteenth Five-Year Plan, "Healthy China 2030" Planning Outline and so on. Healthy China 2030", etc. The main contents of these documents include, but are not limited to, the proposal to build a sports tourism center. Its main content includes not limited to put forward to build a number of sports tourism major projects; promote industrial integration, support and guide the conditions of the tourist attractions to expand sports tourism projects; cultivate diversified main body, guide the social forces to participate in the construction and operation of fitness and recreational facilities; the formulation and implementation of ice and snow sports, mountain outdoor sports, water sports, aviation sports and other special sports industry development planning.
Wang Xingbin, a former planning expert at the National Tourism Administration, believes that the effectiveness of policies issued by some individual departments is not necessarily good. For example, the recent General Office of the General Administration of Sport issued a document on accelerating the promotion of the development of automobile self-driving sports camp industry, in his view, the General Administration of Sport to promote the initiative of automobile self-driving sports camps is good, but this camp involves planning, land and transportation, etc., in promoting the landing of the need to be related to the other departments together to promote, or else relying on a single department of the policy document is more difficult to solve. "Comprehensive things, to be comprehensive to grasp."
Corresponding to this, before the "automobile self-driving sports camp development planning" that is by the General Administration of Sport, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Land and Resources, the Ministry of Housing and Construction, the Ministry of Transportation and the former National Tourism Administration jointly issued.
Wang Xingbin believes that the introduction of the policy will have an effect, but the effect of how much is still difficult to see. Policy documents are too intensively introduced in the specific implementation of the implementation of the local government level may be difficult to implement all the problems. Because a new policy has not been fully implemented, the new policy may come again. He said that the key to this still lies in the local government to really meet the demands of the masses of sports, as an important part of the government's work to do.
Hidden worries behind the boom
Deng Yaping has shared a set of data that the annual growth rate of the global tourism industry is now 4 to 5 percent, the annual growth rate of the global sports tourism is 14 to 15 percent, and the annual growth rate of China's sports tourism is 30 to 40 percent. At the same time, developed countries sports tourism accounted for 25% of the tourism industry, while China is only 5%, the development space is huge, which also shows that China's sports tourism is still in the primary stage of development.
A related phenomenon is that hot money is pouring into the sports tourism industry, but investors can invest in high-quality projects or resource purposes are still relatively lacking. Deng Yaping said that most scenic spots need to be integrated into high-quality sports projects, but its sports industry investment fund has not yet been able to find a good project that can be put together with scenic spots. She also said that the team with sports + tourism cross-border operational level is still lacking, the need to introduce foreign teams into China, and its localization in China to adapt to the landing, the need for a very strong local team for cooperation, but is in a state of disconnection.
Sports town is also in the primary stage, during which the problems exposed are representative. Many real estate developers in the construction of sports towns, playing the role of investment development and construction of the main body, but in the creation of sports tourism products, small town operations, the overall ability is still lacking. For them, the development and operation of the featured town is a "new battlefield" that is very different from the business they once had.
Tian Tongsheng, co-founder of Running Wherever Technology, believes that not all sports programs can be combined with tourism, and very few sports towns can really operate successfully. As pointed out by Liu Li, vice president of Jiangsu Sports Industry Research Institute and vice president of Tsinghua University Alumni Real Estate Association in a recent article, according to the town's basic qualities, top-level design and planning, investment and implementation, operation and management of the four aspects of the assessment, the current construction of sports towns, from the structural design to the industrial engine have inherent shortcomings. Including the lack of top-level design, no industrial chain concept, the lack of sports industry view and leading projects.