Will the tourism market usher in a content div<idend? Hippo Hotel wants to be a "Little Red Book" in the tour₩ism industry

The phrase "content is king" will never be outdated in any era. With the upgra★ding of consumption, the growing demand for high-qu‌ality lifestyles and travel experiences from Ch→ina's high-end group has brought huge market opportunities for the high-end £outbound tourism market. Today's tourism products are also moving tow¶ards personalization, custγomization, and quality, placing higher demands o↕n content innovation. The touris←m content market in ‌mainland China still has 5-10 times the growth poteβntial. Recently, 36Kr contacted a team working on mobile tourism co‍mmunity e-commerce - Hippo Travel Guide.

Hippo Travel is positione'd as a middle income group of youngδ people aged 18-34, aiming ​to cultivate user stic♣kiness through fragmented PGC or UGC content and enter ±the outbound tourism market throu↓gh a content community model. Traditional tourism content is often pres✔ented in the form of long graphic traσvelogues, while Hippo Residences does not deliber ately emphasize the feelings of the© tourism route or the entire travel ÷process. In terms of☆ content presentation, i&t is more fragmented, personalize×d, mobile, and high-quality, with niche or characteristic locat•ions as dimensions to output content and establish content c¶ommunities, similar to the "Little Red Book" or "What is Wort≈h Buying" in the tourism industry.

Hippo Travel has a small self me dia team of 4 to 5 people in some overseas tourist cities that regularlyσ produces PGC content and εupdates it monthly to provide hi≤gh-quality content diversion. At pres ent, the customer acqu¥isition cost of hippopotamus is as low as 2-3 yuan/person.

High quality content is conducive to cultivating high stickine÷ss users. When a cert≈ain number of high-quality content producers accumul•ate and reach a certain user→ scale, PGC content will$ drive the spontaneous production of UGC content, and then s®tart building a touri←sm content community. Finally, th₩e transformation to tourism community e-commerce will be complete'd, forming a transaction loop.

At present, the flow of Hippo's sojourn i₽s relatively scattered. →The number of followers of WeChat official account is 300₽00, MONO 50000, Douban 10000€, and the number of cus♠tomers on the C end is mainly from microblog and Douban. Last ↕week, WeChat applet wa↔s launched. In the later stage, it is necessary tγo consider converting concentrated §user traffic. At this stage, t→he team is trying to exchange resources with the m£obile WiFi leasing and visa business teams to increase each other's e§ntry points.

In terms of business model, Hippβo Homestay plans to take ¶two steps. In the first stage, it will help users solve the problem of where t®o play. Hippo plans to collaborate with local touri•sm bureaus or airlines to♥ assist them in overall marketing for t↑he Chinese market and promote local tourism resources. In the second st₽age, solve the problem of₩ how users play. The platform can analyze community tone through user b'ehavior data to recommend corresponding distinctive tourism £products, such as meditation in temples in Kyoto, learning↑ tea ceremony, visiting Japanese liquor distil≥leries, and so on.

In addition, Hippo Residences are also trying to explore revenue channels for  knowledge payment. Starting from six dimensions includ×ing experience, art, coffee, bars, restaurants&, hotels, etc., create PDF versions of official PGC guid♠es for various tourist cities. More than 800 copies were sold i₽n March, with a unit price of 15 yuan per copy.

Yu Xiaopan, the founder¶ of Hippo Hotel, said thaφt the core competitiveness of ≈Hippo Hotel is still personalized content expression. "Traditional tourism co↕mmunities make content too lif®eless. Beautiful people and scenery, but conγtent like a journal is b oring. Good content itself is the threshold. Only original ‍and interesting content has εvitality."

Content+e-commerce is not a new concept. Nowadays, tra‍ditional OTAs, top e-commerce platforms, and media ba‌sed e-commerce are aΩll increasing their content, but it is not easy to continuously produce valuγable content. A sufficiently large content production team ♥needs to accumulate content for a long time, and explosive cont↕ent with strong disseminati♦on power is also rare. The energy spent on c¥reating a content community may be the threshold.

The current management team of Hippo Hotel is 4 people, and the content productΩion team is 20 people. Founder™ Yu Xiaopan serves as the editor in chief and operator of Hiδppo, and has previously worked in privateε equity, asset management, and law firms. He is the a≤uthor of the best-selling travel book "Food Detect ive Series". The team is currently seeking angel round financing.