The "May Day" holiday just passed, the tourist flow of scenic spots and popular business districts across the country continued to peak, people were enthusiastic about traveling, and the national tourism market continued to be hot. According to the data released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, during the May Day holiday this year, 295 million domestic tourists traveled across the country, up 7.6% year on year; Domestic tourists spent 166.89 billion yuan, up 12.7% year on year.
It is worth noting that this year's "May Day" holiday, while the traditional popular tourist destinations are popular, the popularity of county tour and rural tour also continues to rise, becoming a new consumption hotspot. Behind these remarkable achievements, financial institutions can not do without extensive participation and strong support.
Take multiple measures to promote the development of rural tourism
Rural tourism is a key component of tourism and rural characteristic industries, which is of great significance in supporting farmers' income increase and rural revitalization. In order to achieve high-quality development of rural tourism, financial support has become an indispensable driving force.
In recent years, local financial institutions have actively played their own advantages to constantly explore and innovate new ways of financial support for rural tourism development by optimizing credit management, enriching credit products, optimizing services and other ways, so as to meet the diversified and personalized needs of tourists and promote the high-quality development of rural tourism.
In June last year, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Bank of China jointly issued the Notice on Financial Support for the High Quality Development of Rural Tourism (hereinafter referred to as the Notice), which aims to provide financial support for the high-quality development of rural tourism from the aspects of increasing credit supply, promoting product innovation, and carrying out comprehensive services.
According to the requirements of the Notice, the Bank of China listed the rural tourism project library as the key financing investigation object to provide a full range of financial services for rural tourism, including working capital loans, syndicated loans, bond underwriting, etc. At the same time, for the business entities in the project library, the Bank of China gives preferential treatment and preference in loan pricing, financing period, service charges, etc. In the next three years, Bank of China plans to issue new loans of no less than 10 billion yuan to cultural, tourism, catering and accommodation customers in the county.
On January 16 of this year, the series of activities of "Shopping in the Village" in 2024, "Shopping in the Village", sponsored by the Bank of China, was officially launched. At the same time, the Bank of China released the main measures of financial support for "travel and purchase in rural areas", aiming to focus on the two themes of "travel" and "purchase" in rural areas, give play to comprehensive service efficiency, unblock supply and demand promotion channels, build a consumption scene for supporting agriculture, and rely on relevant platforms to carry out the promotion of agricultural, cultural and tourism products around rural tourism routes and connect the financing needs of business entities.
By the end of 2023, the loan balance of the Bank of China for rural tourism industry had reached 23.7 billion yuan, and the new loan issued in the same year was 7.7 billion yuan.
In addition to the Bank of China, rural credit institutions around the country are also increasing their support for rural tourism. Taking Jiangsu as an example, the Department of Culture and Tourism of Jiangsu Province and Jiangsu Rural Credit Cooperatives Association (hereinafter referred to as "Jiangsu Province Association") jointly released the "Double Hundred Plan of Rural Tourism E-Loan", which aims to invest more than 10 billion yuan through special products, focus on supporting "first borrowers", entrepreneurial and innovative customers, and continue to increase credit services for rural tourism industry. At the same time, it is planned to let the rural tourism financial post station settle in more than 100 key rural tourism villages, create a village level dynamic and sustainable rural tourism financial comprehensive service hall, and polish the brand of key rural tourism villages and towns.
By the end of 2023, Jiangsu Rural Commercial Bank had granted loans of 39.445 billion yuan to various rural tourism industry customers, of which 2304 households and 10.359 billion yuan had been supported by the special product "Rural Tourism E-Loan", an increase of 1711 households and 6.566 billion yuan respectively from the beginning of 2023.
There is an obvious trend of tourism destination sinking
Behind the continued popularity of the national tourism market, the "May Day" tourism destinations this year have a more obvious downward trend than in previous years. Some relatively small and unpopular third and fourth tier cities and county villages are favored by tourists.
According to Ctrip data, the year-on-year growth rate of tourism orders in the first and second tier cities of the "May Day" this year is less than that in the third and fourth tier cities, and the third and fourth tier cities are less than the county market. The average growth rate of tourism orders in popular county tourism destinations is 36%. At the same time, the tourism supply of the sinking market is also constantly improving. Since this year, nearly 1000 county scenic spots have been added to Ctrip platform. According to incomplete statistics, since December 2023, there have been 127 new 4A level scenic spots in 10 provincial administrative regions, 65% of which are located in counties and county-level cities.
"This year's" May Day "tourism destination is sinking significantly, indicating that the tourism market is developing in a more diversified and balanced direction," said Bai Wenxi, vice president of China Enterprise Capital Alliance.
When talking about the reasons for the above phenomenon, he believed that: first, changes in consumer preferences, avoiding crowded popular tourist destinations, and seeking a more peaceful and comfortable tourism experience, make county and rural tourism popular; The second is the improvement of infrastructure. With the improvement of transportation infrastructure, especially the expansion of high-speed railway network, the accessibility of third and fourth tier cities and county areas has improved, which has promoted the sinking of tourism; Third, supply side reform. County areas attract more tourists by enriching tourism products and service supply, such as increasing scenic spots and improving service quality; Fourth, policy support. The government promoted the rural revitalization strategy and issued relevant policies to encourage the development of rural tourism, enhancing the attractiveness of rural tourism; Fifth, market publicity, media and social platform publicity have improved the visibility of county and rural tourism destinations and attracted more tourists.
At present, although financial institutions have made some achievements in supporting the development of rural tourism, there are still some problems and challenges in practice, such as the asymmetric access to information affecting the credit delivery of financial institutions, the lack of sufficient collateral or credit records of rural tourism projects leading to difficulties in financing financial institutions, and the single financial products for rural tourism.
In this regard, Bo Wenxi suggested that, on the one hand, financial institutions should strengthen the risk control of rural tourism projects by establishing a more complete risk assessment system, and at the same time, further improve the products and services supporting rural tourism, and develop more financial products suitable for rural tourism characteristics; On the other hand, in terms of policy support, the government can reduce the loan costs of financial institutions by providing tax incentives, discount loans and other measures. At the same time, by establishing an information sharing platform, financial institutions can have a more comprehensive understanding of the operating conditions and market prospects of rural tourism projects, and then make investment decisions.
Promoting the high-quality development of rural tourism is a systematic project as well as a long-term work. In the future, with the in-depth implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, the market potential of rural tourism will be further released, and finance will face a broader prospect in supporting the development of rural tourism.
As far as financial institutions are concerned, Bo Wenxi said that financial institutions can rely on scientific and technological means to improve the quality and efficiency of rural tourism financial services, continue to enhance the stability and sustainability of rural tourism economic benefits, and better meet the multi-level and diversified tourism consumption needs of tourists by constantly optimizing the policy environment, innovating financial products, strengthening risk management, etc.
