A drop in the heat is not a good thing. Only by slowing down can we find problems and solve them. Author: Fu Rao Editor: Haruno 01 Is the Middle Class Movement Going Out? All industries have felt the coldness this year, to a greater or lesser extent. The outdoor industry this winter is no exception. Although there are no concrete data or reports to prove this trend, the middle-class’s favorite sports, such as outdoor hiking, cycling and even skiing, are not as hot as they were last year. On platforms such as Xiaohongshu, some netizens were the first to recognize this phenomenon and asked: “Are we not going out to play this year? The question. Jason, a hiking enthusiast, is one of them. She said that outdoor hiking in this winter is far less hot than last year. Last year, the outdoor bus group opened a group of seconds, now 10 weekly hair 8 because the number of people can not be enough to become a group, and the rest rely on the number of people can barely make up the number of people to send a bus, send away a car. Jason, who has been signing up for outdoor activities for three consecutive weeks in December, has not been able to sign up because of insufficient number of participants. The December 21st trip was canceled due to insufficient number of participants Outdoor hiking has turned cold, and this is not Jason’s personal experience. Xue Xue, a part-time outdoor hiking tour leader who works part-time on weekends and has a full-time job in Beijing, agrees. This winter, there are basically not many groups, 18 people can only be reported to the full hiking activities, each time you can only report on the first 10 people. Now, Xue Xue, who hasn’t led a group in 2 months, chooses to go out with friends on weekends to hike on his own. The same coldness is not only seen in the outdoor hiking circle, but also in the cycling circle. One obvious change is the cooling down of the consumer side. Tiger in October this year released road bike is too hot, the middle class can not buy the article, two-wheeled vehicle industry consulting experts said that after 2023, by the overall economy is weak and other factors, the overall demand for the bicycle market will be compared to the previous three years will be reduced significantly. A road bike industry practitioners also said that there are two major domestic road bike brands this year in the domestic revenue performance decline will reach 30 . Of course, there is the impact of the weather. Winter itself is an off-season for cycling activities. Operating a non-commercial club with 5,000 users, called Flower Young club manager Hao revealed that the sport of cycling itself has a seasonal, winter heat was lower than in summer, we will only be held at the end of each year a cycling circle activities to welcome the New Year, to maintain and active atmosphere of the cyclist group. If outdoor and cycling activities are not suitable for winter, then the snow and ice economy, which can be most developed in winter Skiing is also on the decline, not just because of the weather. December 23, had shot Valley Ailing Su Yiming documentary director Zhang Shaobo, in their own social platform released a snow season, the ski industry’s days are very bad post. In the post, he pointed out that this year’s skiing industry is likely to show the state of the waist. Even in November seems to be a sea of people in Xinjiang Coco Tohai ski resort, as far as his one month in the place to shoot the observation, snow store revenue is not ideal. Although the number of skiers is large, but a large part of the practitioners, it is difficult to drive new spending. Inside 10 people, ski instructors accounted for half, net blogger photographers accounted for 30%, the remaining 20% is to drive other consumption of consumers. Ski industry practitioners Learning Research Society founder of the provincial force brother, also in their social platform that this year’s snow season will be a clear cooling season. The decline in occupancy rates of hotels around ski resorts, the decline in unit prices of food and beverage consumption at ski resorts, and the decline in the attendance rate of coaches are all indicative of the decline in consumer enthusiasm for skiing. 02 Consumption downgrade pot? Why riding, hiking, skiing and other middle-class sports have slipped in popularity this winter? In today’s consumer environment, it’s easy to attribute the cause to consumer downgrading. For the tightening of the purse strings, consumption is more rational consumers, spend a few hundred dollars a month hiking spend thousands of dollars to buy a bike to go on a ski trip to hire a coach to spend a total of a few thousand dollars of consumption does not seem to be a cost-effective deal. But from the actual situation, there are still people willing to buy two or three million or even more expensive car, fly to Hong Kong MacLehose hiking Japan Switzerland skiing and so on. At the same time, there are many people choose a cheaper way to realize, such as the acquisition of second-hand bicycles, find friends to put together a single ski program accommodation tickets, etc., to choose a cheaper or even free hiking routes. In this year, the cycling and skiing circles would have already experienced a wave of price reductions. This shows that the fire of these sports, which the middle class originally loved to play, is not entirely due to the downgrading of consumption. In Slightly Big Reference’s opinion, there are two other factors for the flameout of middle-class sports 1 Middle-class sports represent more of a trend direction, and this trend direction is changing. In recent years, the niche sports that middle class people love to play have a characteristic of sudden popularity. From Frisbee camping in 2022, to pétanque riding in 2023, to skiing earlier this year, to outdoor hiking in the summer, these originally small-scale popular sports have suddenly come into the public’s view. In addition to the fun of the sport itself, the trend and social attributes are important factors in their coming out of the ring. For example, in 2023, the pique ball across the ocean under the fans of Bill Gates, instead of Frisbee has become the new sports trend In early 2024, Valley Ailing Su Yiming drove the skiing sport Zheng Qinwen in this year’s Olympic tennis women’s singles champion, tennis has also become a new fashion sport for the middle class. Little red book, microblogging and other social platforms to promote, accelerate the explosion of these niche sports at the same time, more so that it has become a social currency. For example, the cycling activity that exploded earlier this year has given rise to a whole new way of socializing. In the Little Red Book platform, there are 40,000 notes about the trend of cycling wear sharing, combined with all kinds of offline cycling challenge activities, this year’s national cycling population than last year’s growth of nearly 30, the total mileage of cycling has doubled. And in July, the social currency of the middle-class movement became tennis again. Meituan data show that the number of tennis-related group purchase orders increased by 172 percent year-on-year. Not to mention the explosion of offline sports, more directly driven by the search volume and sales of tennis dresses multiplied. According to data from Vipshop, since August 3 to August 14, the sales of tennis skirts have increased by 122 year-on-year, and the number of tennis skirts purchased by post-95s has increased by more than three times year-on-year. It is easy to see that for the middle class, freshness comes and goes quickly. Once a new sport forms the trend of life, the middle class will immediately change direction and run to the new sport. 2 Low consumption frequency, difficult to form repurchase. For many followers, cycling, hiking, skiing and other sports are more like a kind of experiential consumption. This summer because of outdoor hiking is too hot and turned to riding Jason revealed that after buying a highway car has not ridden a few times, participated in a few evening rides, and then idle. In October, she will be bought in April this year Jiante liv series flat handle highway through the idle fish sold out at a low price. At ski resorts, people spend even less frequently. 2023 2024 China Ski Industry White Paper shows that the number of skiers rose at the beginning of this year, with 1 80 ski trips per capita, basically recovering to the level of two years ago 1 79 , but still did not reach the historical peak of 1 91 trips in the snow season of 2020 2021 before the Winter Olympics, meaning that the skiing population Repeat purchase rate Low. In addition, skiing remains a low-penetration sport. According to a report by the National Ski Areas Association of America (NSAA), in the 2023 2024 snow season, China’s ski trips reached 23.08 million, a year-on-year increase of 16.3%, while U.S. ski trips in the same period reached 60.4 million, and U.S. domestic skiing trips still managed to reach 2,517,000 people, despite the relatively high proportion of foreign tourists. On the one hand, the U.S. ski market matured earlier than China. As early as the 1950s, skiing had already become a way for people to enjoy themselves in winter On the other hand, although the number of ski resorts in China is close to 1,000, the location of the resorts is far away, and the inconvenient way of traveling is a factor that affects the number of times people go skiing. More importantly, the longer the time invested in riding, hiking or skiing, the more money is spent on upgrading equipment, repairing equipment, hiring coaches and other additional costs. Low audience size, low consumption frequency, the threshold of the sport and the need for professionalism are all reasons for the decline in popularity of these middle-class sports. Only consumers who are truly attracted by the charm of niche sports will become sticky, and when these niche sports no longer have greater social attributes, niche sports will eventually return to being niche again. 03 Niche sports back to niche? In the past two years, including cycling outdoor hiking skiing and other middle-class sports are regarded as a trend of social ways, which triggered the consumer side of the demand for a substantial increase in the trend, attracting a lot of speculators into the game. Take the outdoor scene as an example. As of September 2024, there were more than 177,000 outdoor-related enterprises in China, of which more than 42,000 were newly established from January to September 2024. On social platforms such as Xiaohongshu, the number of outdoor hiking groups, which are minimally based on building groups, has skyrocketed this year. In the cycling circle, eyeball check data shows that up to now, there are about 5 million domestic road cycling related companies enterprises. 2024 to date, more than 1.3 million new enterprises, the current survival of more than 1.2 million companies in business. Last year, the number of new enterprises in the same period was more than 1 million, an increase of 30 percent year-on-year survival of more than 750,000 active enterprises, an increase of 60 percent year-on-year . In the skiing industry, the high customer fees and diversified profit models of ski resorts have attracted a lot of people to enter the market. For example, in the 2023 2024 snow season earlier this year, the number of skiers rose 16.3% year-on-year to 23.08 million, which directly drove the construction and investment of 30 ski resorts in China. But no matter which sport, the road to commercialization is difficult, the main reason is because of the fierce competition. The cake is so big in total, who are trying to seize the market share. Right now, the number of domestic car store openings continues to increase, but with the increase in supply, the demand for buying cars does not continue to grow highly, so that the entire industry’s inventory pressure are increasing. This trend began to show up during the second quarter of this year. According to data reported by CycleCorner, as of the second quarter of 2024, a number of well-known brands have excess inventory, with Jetta up to 40 and Merida up to 45. In the market demand can not keep up with the supply, the market capacity is limited, the brand can only choose to roll price, with significant price cuts to clear inventory to drive sales. From the high-end brand of Trek Cost-effective domestic road brand upland, to Decathlon’s EDR af105, etc., have appeared in different ranges of price reductions. Competition in the domestic skiing scene is fierce, but the competitors are not limited to the country. Some consumers who are looking for cost-effective services are already carefully comparing the prices, services and quality of ski resorts at home and abroad. A guangxi ip named mint netizen posting, than in the country to spend thousands, she thought it would be better to go abroad. Go to Japan or South Korea for a week, skiing plus travel costs can be controlled within 6000 yuan, than the domestic incense. In addition, for these niche sports that suddenly burst into flames among the middle class, the time to enter China is short, there is no mature pusher, relying only on the enthusiasm of consumers and platforms to boost, doomed to go not long. At the same time, due to the lack of industry standardization, chaos is still a difficult problem for these middle-class sports to solve. For example, in the outdoor circle, many people are running with the goal of making a few hundred dollars a time by leading a group, the more the number of people, the more they earn, which is also one of the reasons why outdoor activities are in chaos this year and accidents occur frequently. In Jason’s opinion, no matter whether the leader has no qualifications, who all want to eat a bite of outdoor hiking dividends. Some outdoor teams will be registered as travel agencies or travel companies to obtain qualifications, but more just build a group dare to lead the team. Jason revealed that the China Mountaineering Association actually has relevant course training and grading assessment for leaders, but in the outdoor circle, there are not many leaders who really have such qualifications. Skiing circle is also the same. For the skiing beginners who have just entered the pit, the ski coaching market is not properly teaching the chaotic phenomenon of indiscriminate charging, and even easy to directly dissuade consumers. Two days ago, just went to Chongli skiing wanton exposure of the other coaches mixed hours of chaos. An industry insider also said that the current domestic ski coaching market is more chaotic, there are many wild coaches without teaching qualifications, specializing in 0 basic teaching, charging between 300 500 yuan hours. Now for these middle class sports, the decline of the heat is not a good thing. There is a saying in the 2018 Xiaomi documentary A ball of fire A fast one covers a hundred ugly ones. When you develop quickly, those ugly things about you are easily covered up. Only by slowing down can you find problems and solve them. This is also true for those niche sports that the middle class loves. For example, rock climbing, which has been in China for 37 years, it was included as an Olympic sport in 2016, but it still hasn’t become a sport known and loved by the public. In 2012, there were only nearly 10,000 rock climbers in the country. The boost from social platforms such as Little Red Book in 2023 accelerated the entry of rock climbing, a niche sport, into more people’s eyes. By the end of 2023, rock climbing enthusiasts had grown to more than 500,000 people. Although the role of the Internet boost, but this does not mean that rock climbing is a business that can immediately earn money. Rock climbing founder Wei Junjie said in a media interview, the high cost of input return cycle is long, doomed to rock climbing is a slow business, usually 2 3 years back to the capital are considered good. This means that rock climbing is not suitable for making quick money, only through continuous operation, rock climbing hall can earn money. In recent years, climbing gyms have been making an effort to do the same. For example, most gyms are still providing more diverse climbing experiences as much as possible, and according to a report from the Common Research Institute, more than 60% of gyms now offer both difficulty bouldering and speed programs, and more than 25 gyms are equipped with additional training boards. Niche business can pay off even if it’s done slowly. In 2023, about 80% of climbing gyms reportedly stepped over the break-even line, and about 60% made a profit. And in this year, rock climbing still has a long tail effect of traffic on social platforms. Rock climbing hall, for example, microblogging and jitterbug official account dynamics are stuck in the last year, still does not prevent a large number of consumers flocked to the offline stores to experience and consumption this year. In the comment section of the public review, there are new customers who carry on the experience, but more are rock climbing enthusiasts. Even without the impetus of the Internet, rock climbing sports and climbing gyms can develop at their own pace. As for the middle class, don’t worry, they’ll always have new sports trends as long as they still have a need to socialize. Header image credit AI Graphics
A drop in the heat is not a good thing. Only by slowing down can problems be identified and solved.
Written by Fu Rao Edited by Haruno
Author Fu Rao
Editor Harano
01 The Middle Class Movement Goes Out?
All walks of life, in one way or another, have felt the chill this year. This winter’s outdoor scene is no exception. Although there are no concrete data or reports to prove this trend, the middle class’s favorite sports, such as outdoor hiking, cycling and even skiing, are not as hot as last year’s. Some netizens on platforms like Xiaohongshu were the first to notice that middle-class sports were not as hot as last year. On platforms such as Xiaohongshu, some netizens were the first to recognize this phenomenon and asked: “Are we not going out to play this year? The question. Jason, a hiking enthusiast, is one of them. She said that outdoor hiking in this winter is far less hot than last year. Last year, the outdoor bus group opened a group of seconds, now 10 weekly hair 8 because the number of people can not be enough to become a group, and the rest rely on the number of people can barely make up the number of people to send a bus, send away a car. Jason, who has been signing up for outdoor activities for three consecutive weeks in December, has not been able to sign up because of insufficient number of participants.
All walks of life, in this year, more or less feel the chill. This winter’s outdoor circle is no exception.
Although there are no concrete data or reports to prove this trend, the middle class’s favorite sports such as outdoor hiking cycling and even skiing are not as hot this winter as they were last year.
On platforms such as Xiaohongshu, some netizens were the first to recognize this phenomenon and asked: “Are we not going out to play this year? The question.
Jason, a hiking enthusiast, is one of them. She said that outdoor hiking in this winter is far less hot than last year. Last year, the outdoor bus group that opened the group in seconds, and now there are 8 out of 10 weekly because the number of people is not enough to form a group, and the rest rely on the number of people who can barely make up the number of people to send a bus, and send away a car.
Jason, who has been signing up for outdoor activities for three consecutive weeks in December, has not been able to sign up because of insufficient number of participants.
Picture: December 21st trip was canceled due to insufficient number of participants.
It’s not Jason’s personal experience that outdoor hiking is getting cold. Xue Xue, a part-time outdoor hiking tour leader who works part-time on weekends and has a full-time job in Beijing, agrees. This winter, there are basically not many groups, 18 people can only be reported to the full hiking activities, each time you can only report on the first 10 people. Now, Xue Xue, who hasn’t led a group in 2 months, chooses to go out with friends on weekends to hike on his own. The same coldness is not only seen in the outdoor hiking circle, but also in the cycling circle. One obvious change is the cooling down of the consumer side. Tiger in October this year released road bike is too hot, the middle class can not buy the article, two-wheeled vehicle industry consulting experts said that after 2023, by the overall economy is weak and other factors, the overall demand for the bicycle market will be compared to the previous three years will be reduced significantly. A road bike industry practitioners also said that there are two major domestic road bike brands this year in the domestic revenue performance decline will reach 30 . Of course, there is the impact of the weather. Winter itself is an off-season for cycling activities. Operating a non-commercial club with 5,000 users, called Flower Young club manager Hao revealed that the sport of cycling itself has a seasonal, winter heat was lower than in summer, we will only be held at the end of each year a cycling circle activities to welcome the New Year, to maintain and active atmosphere of the cyclist group. If outdoor and cycling activities are not suitable for winter, then the snow and ice economy, which can be most developed in winter Skiing is also on the decline, not just because of the weather. December 23, had shot Valley Ailing Su Yiming documentary director Zhang Shaobo, in their own social platform released a snow season, skiing industry days are very bad post.
Outdoor hiking heat cold, this is not Jason’s personal feelings.
Xue Xue, a part-time weekend outdoor hiking group leader with a full-time job in Beijing, agrees. This winter, there are basically not many groups, 18 people can only be reported to the full hiking activities, each time you can only report on the first 10 people. Now, Xue Xue, who hasn’t led a group in 2 months, chooses to go out with friends on weekends to hike on his own.
The same coldness is not only seen in the outdoor hiking circle, but also in the cycling circle.
One obvious change is the cooling down of the consumer side.
Tiger sniff in October this year released road bike is too hot, the middle class can not buy an article, two-wheeled vehicle industry consulting experts said that after 2023, by the overall economic weakness and other factors, the overall demand for the bicycle market will be compared to the first three years of a substantial reduction. A road bike industry practitioners also said, there are two major domestic road bike brands this year in the domestic revenue performance decline will reach 30 .
Of course, there is the impact of the weather. Winter itself is an off-season for cycling activities. Hao, who runs a non-commercial club with 5,000 users called Flower Young club, reveals that cycling is a seasonal sport in itself, and the heat of winter is lower than that of summer, so we will only organize a cycling circle at the end of each year to welcome the New Year and maintain and activate the atmosphere of the cyclists’ group.
If the outdoor and cycling these two activities are not suitable for winter, then the most in the winter development of the snow and ice economy Skiing, heat is also a downward trend, not just the weather.
December 23, had shot Valley Ailing Su Yiming documentary director Zhang Shaobo, in their own social platform released a snow season, skiing industry days are very bad post.
In the post, he pointed out that this year’s skiing industry is likely to show the state of the waist. Even in November seems to be a sea of people in Xinjiang Coco Tohai ski resort, as far as his one month in the place to shoot the observation, snow store revenue is not ideal. Although the number of skiers is large, but a large part of the practitioners, it is difficult to drive new spending. Inside 10 people, ski instructors accounted for half, net blogger photographers accounted for 30%, the remaining 20% is to drive other consumption of consumers. Ski industry practitioners Learning Research Society founder of the provincial force brother, also in their social platform that this year’s snow season will be a clear cooling season. The occupancy rate of hotels around snow parks has dropped, the unit price of food and beverage consumption at snow parks has dropped, and the rate of coaches attending classes has dropped, all of which indicate that consumers’ enthusiasm for skiing has declined.
In the post, he pointed out that this year’s ski industry is likely to show the state of the waist. Even in November seems to be a crowded ski resort in Xinjiang Coco Tohai, in terms of his one month in the place to shoot the observation, snow store revenue is not ideal. Although the number of skiers is large, but a large part of the practitioners, it is difficult to drive new spending. 10 people inside, ski instructors accounted for half, net blogger photographer accounted for 30%, the remaining 20% is to drive other consumption of consumers.
Ski industry practitioners Learning Research Society founder of the provincial force brother, also in their social platform that this year’s snow season will be a significant cooling season. The occupancy rate of hotels around snow parks has dropped, the unit price of food and beverage consumption at snow parks has dropped, and the rate of coaches attending classes has dropped, all of which indicate that consumers’ enthusiasm for skiing has declined.
02 Consumption downgrade pot?
Why riding, hiking, skiing and other middle-class sports have slipped in popularity this winter? In today’s consumer environment, it’s easy to attribute the cause to consumer downgrading. For the tightening of the purse strings, consumption is more rational consumers, spend a few hundred dollars a month hiking spend thousands of dollars to buy a bike to go on a ski trip to hire a coach to spend a total of a few thousand dollars of consumption does not seem to be a cost-effective deal. But from the actual situation, there are still people willing to buy two or three million or even more expensive car, fly to Hong Kong MacLehose hiking Japan Switzerland skiing and so on. At the same time, there are many people choose a cheaper way to realize, such as the acquisition of second-hand bicycles, find friends to put together a single ski program accommodation tickets, etc., to choose a cheaper or even free hiking routes. In this year, the cycling and skiing circles would have already experienced a wave of price reductions. This shows that the fire of these sports, which the middle class originally loved to play, is not entirely due to the downgrading of consumption. In Slightly Big Reference’s opinion, there are two other factors for the flameout of middle-class sports 1 Middle-class sports represent more of a trend direction, and this trend direction is changing. In recent years, the niche sports that middle class people love to play have a characteristic of sudden popularity. From Frisbee camping in 2022, to pétanque riding in 2023, to skiing earlier this year, to outdoor hiking in the summer, these originally small-scale popular sports have suddenly come into the public eye.
Why have middle-class sports like cycling, hiking and skiing slipped in popularity this winter?
In today’s consumer environment, it’s easy to attribute the reason to consumer downgrading. For the tightening of the purse strings, consumption more rational consumers, a month to spend a few hundred dollars hiking spend thousands of dollars to buy a bike to go on a ski trip to hire a coach to spend a total of a few thousand dollars of consumption does not seem to be a cost-effective deal.
But from the actual situation, it seems that there are still people who are willing to buy 20,000 to 30,000 or even more expensive car, fly to Hong Kong MacLehose hiking Japan Switzerland skiing and so on. At the same time, there are many people choose a cheaper way to realize, such as the acquisition of second-hand bicycles, find friends to put together a single ski program accommodation tickets, etc., choose cheaper or even free hiking routes. In this year, cycling and skiing circles would have already experienced a wave of price reductions.
This suggests that the flame out of these sports originally loved by the middle class is not entirely due to consumer downgrading.
In the view of Slightly Bigger Reference, there are two other factors for the extinguishing of middle-class sports
1. Middle-class sports represent more of a trend direction, and this trend direction is changing.
In recent years, the niche sports that middle class people love to play are characterized by a sudden popularity. From Frisbee camping in 2022, to pétanque riding in 2023, to skiing earlier this year, and outdoor hiking in the summer, these originally small-scale popular sports have suddenly come into the public eye.
In addition to the fun of the sport itself, the trend and social attributes are important factors in their coming out of the ring. For example, in 2023, the pique ball across the ocean under the fans of Bill Gates, instead of Frisbee has become the new sports trend In early 2024, Valley Ailing Su Yiming drove the skiing sport Zheng Qinwen in this year’s Olympic tennis women’s singles champion, tennis has also become a new fashion sport for the middle class. Little red book, microblogging and other social platforms to promote, accelerate the explosion of these niche sports at the same time, more so that it has become a social currency. For example, the cycling activity that exploded earlier this year has given rise to a whole new way of socializing. In the Little Red Book platform, there are 40,000 notes about the trend of cycling wear sharing, combined with all kinds of offline cycling challenge activities, this year’s national cycling population than last year’s growth of nearly 30, the total mileage of cycling has doubled. And in July, the social currency of middle-class sports has become tennis again. Meituan data show that the number of tennis-related group purchase orders increased by 172 percent year-on-year. Not to mention the explosion of offline sports, more directly driven by the search volume and sales of tennis dresses multiplied. According to data from Vipshop, since August 3 to August 14, the sales of tennis skirts have increased by 122 year-on-year, and the number of tennis skirts purchased by post-95s has increased by more than three times year-on-year. It is easy to see that for the middle class, freshness comes and goes quickly. Once a new sport forms the trend of life, the middle class will immediately change direction and run to the new sport. 2 Low consumption frequency, difficult to form repurchase. For many followers, cycling, hiking, skiing and other sports are more like a kind of experiential consumption. This summer because of the outdoor hiking is too hot and turned to riding Jason revealed that after buying a highway car has not ridden a few times, participated in a few evening rides, and after that it is idle. In October, she will be bought in April this year Jiante liv series flat handle highway through the idle fish sold out at a low price. At ski resorts, people spend even less frequently. 2023 2024 China Ski Industry White Paper shows that the number of skiers rose at the beginning of this year, with 1 80 ski trips per capita, basically recovering to the level of two years ago 1 79 , but still did not reach the historical peak of 1 91 trips in the snow season of 2020 2021 before the Winter Olympics, meaning that the skiing population Repeat purchase rate Low. In addition, skiing remains a low-penetration sport. According to a report by the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA), in the 2023 2024 snow season, China’s ski trips reached 23.08 million, a year-on-year increase of 16.3, while U.S. ski trips during the same period amounted to 60.4 million, and U.S. domestic skiing trips still managed to reach 2,517,000, even though foreign tourists accounted for the majority of the total.
In addition to the fun of the sport itself, trendy and social attributes are important factors in their out-of-circle appeal.
For example, in 2023, the pique ball across the ocean under the fans of Bill Gates, instead of Frisbee has become the new sports trend In early 2024, Valley Ailing Su Yiming drove the skiing sport Zheng Qinwen in this year’s Olympic Games women’s singles tennis champion, tennis has also become a new fashion sport for the middle class.
The promotion of social platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Weibo has accelerated the popularity of these niche sports and made them a social currency.
For example, the cycling activity that exploded earlier this year has given rise to a whole new way of socializing. On the Xiaohongshu platform, 40,000 notes were shared about trendy cycling outfits. Combined with various offline cycling challenges, the national cycling population this year has increased by nearly 30% compared to last year, and the total mileage of cycling has doubled.
And in July, the social currency of the middle-class movement became tennis again. Meituan data show that the number of tennis-related group purchase orders increased by 172 percent year-on-year. Not to mention the explosion of offline sports, more directly driven by the search volume and sales of tennis dresses multiplied. According to data from Vipshop, since August 3 to August 14, the sales of tennis skirts have increased by 122 year-on-year, and the number of tennis skirts purchased by post-95s has increased by more than three times year-on-year.
It is easy to see that for the middle class, freshness comes and goes quickly. Once a new sport forms a trend in life, the middle class will immediately turn around and run to the new sport.
2 Low consumption frequency, difficult to form repurchase.
For many followers, cycling, hiking, skiing and other sports are more like a kind of experiential consumption.
This summer because of the outdoor hiking is too hot and turned to riding Jason revealed that after buying the highway car has not ridden a few times, just to participate in a few evening rides, and after that on the idle. In October, she will be bought in April this year Jiante liv series flat handle highway through idle fish sold out at a low price.
At ski resorts, people spend even less frequently. 2023 2024 China Ski Industry White Paper shows that the number of skiers rose at the beginning of this year, with 1 80 ski trips per capita, basically recovering to the level of two years ago 1 79 , but still did not reach the historical peak of 1 91 trips in the 2020 2021 snow season before the Winter Olympics, which means that the ski population Repeat rate Low.
In addition, skiing remains a low-penetration sport. According to a report by the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA), in the 2023 2024 snow season, China’s ski trips reached 23.08 million, a year-on-year increase of 16.3, while U.S. ski trips during the same period amounted to 60.4 million, and U.S. domestic skiing trips still managed to reach 2,517,000, even though foreign tourists accounted for the majority of the total.
On the one hand, the U.S. ski market matured earlier than China. As early as the 1950s, skiing had already become a way for people to enjoy themselves in winter On the other hand, although the number of ski resorts in China is close to 1,000, the location of the resorts is far away, and the inconvenient way of traveling is a factor that affects the number of times people go skiing. More importantly, the longer the time invested in riding, hiking or skiing, the more money is spent on upgrading equipment, repairing equipment, hiring coaches and other additional costs. Low audience size, low consumption frequency, the threshold of the sport and the need for professionalism are all reasons for the decline in popularity of these middle-class sports. Only consumers who are truly attracted by the charm of niche sports will become sticky, and when these niche sports no longer have greater social attributes, niche sports will eventually only return to being niche again.
On the one hand, the U.S. ski market matured earlier than China. As early as the 1950s, skiing had already become a winter recreation for people On the other hand, although the number of ski resorts in China is close to 1,000, the location of the snow parks is far away from the inconvenience of traveling, etc., which will affect the number of times people go skiing.
What’s more, the longer you ride, hike or ski, the more money you have to spend on upgrading your equipment, repairing it, hiring an instructor and so on.
Low audience size, low consumption frequency, the threshold of the sport and the need for professionalism are all reasons for the decline in popularity of these middle-class sports. Only consumers who are truly attracted by the charm of niche sports will become sticky, and when these niche sports no longer have greater social attributes, niche sports will eventually only return to being niche again.
03 Niche sports back to niche?
In the past two years, middle-class sports, including cycling, outdoor hiking and skiing, have been seen as a trendy way to socialize, which has triggered a trend of significant growth in demand on the consumer side, attracting a lot of speculators to enter the market. Take the outdoor circle as an example. As of September 2024, there were more than 177,000 outdoor-related enterprises in China, of which more than 42,000 were newly established from January to September 2024. On social platforms such as Xiaohongshu, the number of outdoor hiking groups, which are minimally based on building groups, has skyrocketed this year. In the cycling circle, eyeball check data shows that up to now, there are about 5 million domestic road cycling related companies enterprises. 2024 to date, more than 1.3 million new enterprises, the current survival of more than 1.2 million companies in business. Last year, the number of new enterprises in the same period was more than 1 million, an increase of 30 percent year-on-year survival of more than 750,000 active enterprises, an increase of 60 percent year-on-year . In the skiing industry, the high customer fees and diversified profit models of ski resorts have attracted many people to enter the industry. For example, in the 2023 2024 snow season earlier this year, the number of skiers rose 16.3% year-on-year to 23.08 million, which directly drove the construction and investment of 30 ski resorts in China. But no matter which sport, the road to commercialization is difficult, the main reason is because of the fierce competition. The cake is so big in total, who are trying to seize the market share. Right now, the number of domestic car store openings continues to increase, but with the increase in supply, the demand for buying cars does not continue to grow highly, so that the entire industry’s inventory pressure are increasing. This trend began to show up during the second quarter of this year. According to data reported by CycleCorner, as of the second quarter of 2024, a number of well-known brands have excess inventory, with Jetta up to 40 and Merida up to 45.
In the past two years, middle-class sports, including cycling, outdoor hiking and skiing, have been seen as a trendy way to socialize, which has led to a significant increase in demand on the consumer side and attracted many speculators to the market.
Take the outdoor circle as an example. As of September 2024, there were more than 177,000 outdoor-related enterprises in China, of which more than 42,000 were newly established from January to September 2024. On social platforms such as Xiaohongshu, the number of outdoor hiking groups, which are minimally based on building groups, has skyrocketed this year.
In the cycling circle, eyeball check data shows that up to now, there are about 5 million domestic road cycling related companies enterprises. 2024 to date, more than 1.3 million new enterprises, the current survival of more than 1.2 million companies in business. The number of new enterprises in the same period last year was more than 1 million, an increase of 30 percent year-on-year, and the number of surviving enterprises was more than 750,000, an increase of 60 percent year-on-year.
In the skiing industry, the high customer fees and diversified profit models of ski resorts have attracted a lot of people to enter the market. For example, the number of skiers rose by 16.3% year-on-year to 23.08 million in the 2023 and 2024 snow seasons, which led to the construction and investment of 30 ski resorts in China.
But no matter which sport, the road to commercialization is difficult, the main reason is because of the fierce competition. The cake is so big in total, and everyone is trying to grab a share of the market.
Right now, the number of domestic car stores opened continues to increase, but with the increase in supply, the demand to buy a car does not continue to grow highly, so that the entire industry’s inventory pressure are increasing.
This trend began to show up during the second quarter of this year. According to data reported by CycleCorner, as of the second quarter of 2024, a number of well-known brands have excess inventory, with Jetta up to 40 and Merida up to 45.
In the market demand can not keep up with the supply, the market capacity is limited, the brand can only choose to roll price, with significant price cuts to clear inventory to drive sales. From the high-end brand of Trek Cost-effective domestic road brand upland, to Decathlon’s EDR af105, etc., have appeared in different ranges of price reductions. Competition in the domestic skiing scene is fierce, but the competitors are not limited to the country. Some consumers who are looking for cost-effective services are already carefully comparing the prices, services and quality of ski resorts at home and abroad. A guangxi ip named mint netizen posting, than in the country to spend thousands, she thought it would be better to go abroad. Go to Japan or South Korea for a week, skiing plus travel expenses can be controlled within 6000 yuan, than the domestic incense. In addition, for these niche sports that suddenly burst into flames among the middle class, the time to enter China is short, there is no mature pusher, relying only on the enthusiasm of consumers and platforms to boost, doomed to go not long. At the same time, due to the lack of industry standardization, chaos is still a difficult problem for these middle-class sports to solve. For example, in the outdoor circle, many people are running with the goal of making a few hundred dollars a time by leading a group, the more the number of people, the more they earn, which is also one of the reasons why outdoor activities are in chaos this year and accidents occur frequently. In Jason’s opinion, no matter whether the leader has no qualifications, who all want to eat a bite of outdoor hiking dividends. Some outdoor teams will be registered as travel agencies or travel companies to obtain qualifications, but more just build a group dare to lead the team. Jason revealed that the China Mountaineering Association actually has relevant course training and grading assessment for leaders, but in the outdoor circle, not many leaders really have such qualifications. Skiing circle is also the same. For the skiing beginners who have just entered the pit, the ski coaching market is not properly teaching the chaotic phenomenon of indiscriminate charging, and even easy to directly dissuade consumers. Two days ago, just went to Chongli skiing wanton exposure of the other coaches mixed hours of chaos. An industry insider also said that the current domestic ski coach market is more chaotic, there are many wild coaches without teaching qualifications, specializing in 0 basic teaching, charging between 300 500 yuan hours.
In the market demand can not keep up with the supply, the market capacity is limited, the brand can only choose to roll price, with a significant price cut to clear inventory to drive sales. From the high-end brand of Trek Cost-effective domestic road brand upland, to Decathlon’s EDR af105, etc., have appeared in different ranges of price reductions.
Domestic ski competition is fierce, and competitors are not limited to domestic.
Some consumers who are looking for cost-effective services are already carefully comparing the prices, services and quality of ski resorts at home and abroad. A guangxi ip named mint netizen posting, than in the country to spend thousands, she thought it would be better to go abroad. Go to Japan or South Korea for a week, skiing plus the cost of traveling can be controlled within 6000 yuan, than the domestic incense.
In addition, for these niche sports that suddenly burst into flames among the middle class, the time to enter China is short, there is no mature pusher, relying only on the enthusiasm of consumers and platforms to boost, doomed to go not long. At the same time, due to the lack of industry standardization, chaos is still a difficult problem for these middle-class sports to solve.
For example, in the outdoor circle, many people are running to take the group once to be able to earn a few hundred dollars to the goal, the more the number of people earn more, which is also triggered by the outdoor activities this year, the chaos of more accidents occur frequently one of the reasons.
In Jason’s opinion, no matter whether the leader has no qualifications, who all want to eat a bite of outdoor hiking dividends. Some outdoor teams will be registered as travel agencies or travel companies to obtain qualifications, but more just build a group dare to lead the team. Jason revealed that the China Mountaineering Association actually has relevant course training and grading assessment for leaders, but in the outdoor circle, there are not many leaders who really have such qualifications.
Skiing circle is also the same. For the skiing beginners who have just entered the pit, the ski coaching market is not properly teaching the chaotic phenomenon of indiscriminate charging, and even easy to directly dissuade consumers. Two days ago, just went to Chongli skiing wanton exposure of the other coaches mixed hours of chaos. An industry insider also said that the current domestic ski coach market is more chaotic, there are many wild coaches without teaching qualifications, specializing in 0 basic teaching, charging between 300 500 yuan hours.
Nowadays, for these middle-class movements, the decline of heat is not a good thing. There’s a saying in the 2018 Xiaomi documentary A Ball of Fire A quick fix covers up all the ugly. When you develop very quickly, those ugly things about you are easily covered up. Only by slowing down can you find problems and solve them. This is also true for those niche sports that the middle class loves. For example, rock climbing, which has been in China for 37 years, it was included as an Olympic sport in 2016, but it still hasn’t become a sport known and loved by the public. In 2012, there were only nearly 10,000 rock climbers in the country. The boost from social platforms such as Little Red Book in 2023 accelerated the entry of rock climbing, a niche sport, into more people’s eyes. By the end of 2023, rock climbing enthusiasts had grown to more than 500,000 people. Although the role of the Internet boost, but this does not mean that rock climbing is a business that can immediately earn money. Rock climbing founder Wei Junjie said in a media interview, the high cost of input return cycle is long, doomed to rock climbing is a slow business, usually 2 3 years back to the capital are considered good. This means that rock climbing is not suitable for making quick money, only through continuous operation, rock climbing hall can earn money. In recent years, climbing gyms have been making an effort to do the same. For example, most gyms are still providing more diverse climbing experiences as much as possible, and according to a report from the Common Research Institute, more than 60% of gyms now offer both difficulty bouldering and speed programs, and more than 25 gyms are equipped with additional training boards. Niche business can pay off even if it’s done slowly. In 2023, about 80% of climbing gyms reportedly stepped over the break-even line, and about 60% made a profit. And in this year, rock climbing still has a long tail effect of traffic on social platforms. Rock climbing hall, for example, microblogging and jitterbug official account dynamics are stuck in the last year, still does not prevent a large number of consumers flocked to the offline stores to experience and consumption this year. In the comment section of the public review, there are new customers who carry on the experience, but more are rock climbing enthusiasts. Even without the impetus of the Internet, rock climbing sports and climbing gyms can develop at their own pace. As for the middle class, don’t worry, they’ll always have new sports trends as long as they still have a need to socialize.
Today’s decline in popularity for these middle-class sports is not a good thing.
There’s a saying in the 2018 Xiaomi documentary, A Ball of Fire, that one fast covers all the bases. When you’re growing fast, it’s easy to cover up all those ugly things about you.
Only by slowing down can you find problems and solve them. This is also true for these niche sports that the middle class loves.
For example, rock climbing, which has been in China for 37 years, it was included as an Olympic sport in 2016, but it still hasn’t become a sport known and loved by the public. In 2012, there were only nearly 10,000 rock climbers in the country.
The boost from social platforms such as Little Red Book in 2023 accelerated the entry of rock climbing, a niche sport, into more people’s eyes. By the end of 2023, rock climbing enthusiasts had grown to more than 500,000 people.
Although the role of the Internet boost, but this does not mean that rock climbing is a business that can immediately earn money. Rock climbing founder Wei Junjie said in a media interview, the high cost of input return cycle is long, doomed to rock climbing is a slow business, usually 2 3 years back to the capital are considered good. This means that rock climbing is not suitable for making quick money, only through continuous operation, rock climbing hall can earn money.
In recent years, climbing gyms have been making an effort to do the same. For example, most gyms are still offering more diverse climbing experiences as much as possible, and according to a report from the Common Research Institute, more than 60% of gyms now offer both difficulty bouldering and speed programs, and more than 25% of gyms are equipped with additional training boards.
Niche business can pay off even if it’s done slowly. According to the report, in 2023, about 80% of rock climbing gyms stepped over the profit and loss line, and about 60% of them realized profits.
And in this year, rock climbing still has a long tail effect of traffic on social platforms. Rock climbing hall, for example, microblogging and jitterbug official account dynamics are stuck in the last year, still does not prevent a large number of consumers flocked to the offline stores to experience and consumption this year. In the comment section of the public review, there are new customers who carry out the experience, but more are rock climbing enthusiasts.
Even without the push of the Internet, climbing sports and climbing gyms can develop at their own pace.
As for the middle class, don’t worry, they’ll always have new sports trends as long as they still have a need to socialize.
Header image credit AI Graphics
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