CCTV News From November 28 to December 1, the 8th China International Hotel Industry Conference, hosted by the China Hotel Association, Hainan International Economic Development Bureau, and Hainan Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, was held in Haikou, Hainan. The event was themed "Green Leading, Integrity and Innovation", summarizing and reviewing the achievements of high-quality development of the hotel industry in 2023.

It is worth noting that this conference officially released the group standards "ESG Management System Requirements for Accommodation Industry" and "ESG Evaluation Guidelines for Accommodation Enterprises" to promote the sustainable development of the hotel industry. As one of the drafting units of these two group standards, Dongcheng Group played an important role. At the conference, Cheng Xinhua, Vice President of the China Hotel Association, Chairman and General Manager of Dongcheng Group, accepted an exclusive interview with CCTV.com reporters to provide relevant insights for the high-quality development of the industry.

Photo: Cheng Xinhua (left) accepted an exclusive interview with CCTV.com reporters

Question: At present, green hotels have become the development direction of the accommodation and catering industry, and are also the main trend of sustainable development of hotels. Could you please share with us the specific practices and achievements of Dongcheng in green development, and what role do you think ESG plays in the sustainable development of the hotel industry, and what impact does it have on promoting the industry to develop in a greener and more sustainable direction?

Cheng Xinhua: ESG, or environment, society and governance, is a concept that measures the performance and value of a company in sustainable development, and is increasingly valued by governments, investors, regulators and social stakeholders. The hotel industry is an industry with high energy consumption and high emissions. The origin of the hotel industry is service, which is related to the connection between people and people and people and the environment, which has a natural fit with ESG construction.

In recent years, Dongcheng has actively implemented the country's dual-carbon strategy, attached great importance to ESG construction, formed a green development concept, and run through the entire process of construction, operation, and service to reduce the environmental footprint of business development. First, it pays great attention to the greenness of materials and promotes the reduction of plastic. For example, core consumables use bio-based materials instead of plastic products; kraft paper rings are used instead of slippers plastic bags for packaging; store lunch boxes and take-away boxes use degradable materials to reduce the use of disposable plastic products and reduce environmental pollution. Second, actively practice the low-carbon concept and use energy-saving products. For example, all hotel guest rooms and public areas use energy-saving lighting fixtures; provide hotels with hot water system resources with lower energy consumption costs, promote air energy heat pump products to replace boiler products; configure water-saving bathroom appliances, including faucets, shower faucets, showers and toilets; third, reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions through smart systems. For example, through the intelligent dimming system, the time-sharing control and partition control of hotel scenes can be achieved to reduce energy costs from the source.

At the same time, Dongcheng and its partners jointly build a green supply chain. We incorporate ESG management into the supplier screening and management mechanism, and evaluate and supervise partners in terms of environmental management systems, labor rights protection measures and governance structures in order to select suppliers with strong compliance and high social responsibility. At the same time, we encourage partners to develop and innovate in environmentally friendly materials and processes, and motivate them through evaluation and rewards, expansion of supply shares, etc.; through diverse and multi-dimensional training, we popularize carbon emission management requirements and trends to partners and guide them to implement carbon emission management. Dongcheng actively implements the ESG concept, takes low-carbon and environmental protection as the basis, protects the green future throughout the process, and leads the hotel industry to continuously move towards environmental friendliness and social friendliness.

Question: According to the data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, in the first half of 2023, the total number of Chinese tourists reached 2.384 billion, an increase of 929 million over the same period last year, a year-on-year increase of 63.9%; China's tourism revenue (total tourism expenditure) reached 2.30 trillion yuan, an increase of 1.12 trillion yuan over the previous year, an increase of 95.9%. Since the beginning of this year, China's tourism market has flourished, and the demand for mass travel and accommodation has rebounded strongly. Could you please share your observations and views on the current mass market trends? At the same time, can you give us an example of how Dongcheng Group has adopted unique practices in this mass market to meet the needs of different consumers and succeed in the highly competitive market?

Cheng Xinhua: The "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Tourism Industry" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan") points out that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, China will fully enter the era of mass tourism, and the development of the tourism industry is still in a strategic opportunity period of high-quality development. The "Plan" clearly states that by 2025, the level of tourism development will continue to improve, the modern tourism system will be more sound, the effective supply, high-quality supply and flexible supply of tourism will be more abundant, and the mass tourism consumption needs will be better met.

Dongcheng has always believed that the mass market is the core market of the hotel industry, and with the mission of "letting mass travelers spend less money and live better", it is based on the mass market, provides universal value products, promotes industry investment, accelerates the balance of supply and demand, and strives to meet the mass travel accommodation needs. Up to now, Dongcheng Group has established 14 independent hotel brands with market influence, covering mid-range and mid-to-high-end hotel grades with economy hotels as the core, to meet different types of mass travel people. At the same time, Dongcheng continues to enrich and improve the accommodation network. At present, Dongcheng's franchised hotels have covered more than 30 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, with more than 3,500 franchised hotels that have been opened or are to be opened. The number of registered members of Dongcheng Club has exceeded 80 million, striving to meet the people's needs for a better travel.

In addition, Dongcheng Group has also implemented a comprehensive sinking strategy, focusing on the sinking market, and will go deep into China's third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities, county-level cities and developed towns, increase the franchise hotel network, and support convenient travel for the public.

Question: The influence of young consumers in the hotel industry is increasing, and their needs and ideas are constantly changing. Please share your understanding of the needs and ideas of the young consumer market, and what innovative measures Dongcheng Group has taken in brand rejuvenation to capture the "hearts" of young people and maintain brand vitality and competitiveness?

Cheng Xinhua: From the perspective of future mainstream consumer groups, Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) will become the main force of travel consumption. As Generation Z gradually emerges, the average age of Dongcheng Group members is also moving downwards-from 2019 to 2023, the 19-25 year-old group among Dongcheng Group members will increase from 13% to 17%.

Behind this data, it reflects that the Z generation group, who grew up in the era of China's economic prosperity and the popularization of the Internet, are mostly well-educated, have more symmetrical information, and the consumption choices they make are more focused on accommodation needs themselves, and they prefer new brands of economy hotels with higher "quality-price ratio". In this process, Dongcheng Group has continuously optimized its strategy of taking root in the mass market by accurately predicting the development trend of the hotel industry, providing cost-effective accommodation experience, and thus winning the favor of young consumers.

Now, embracing young people has become an important strategic grasper for Dongcheng Group. In terms of product rejuvenation, Dongcheng Group uses its unique product concept to integrate young and fashionable elements that young people love into product details. The first is brand rejuvenation. In the first half of this year, Dongcheng released the super IP Qingmao in a few days, becoming the first hotel group in China to introduce a super IP. Qingmao Super IP is an upgraded expression of hotel brands in the new era of communication. Secondly, in terms of product rejuvenation, in the past two years, Dongcheng Group has successively released three iterative products, namely City Convenience 4.0, Yishang 3.0, and Yicheng 3.0, and continues to provide more high-quality and multi-level hotel products for the young public. For example, the new version of the city convenience room has customized illustrations unique to the local city to attract young people to check in; the employee uniforms are replaced with trendy T-shirts to break the business impression; the new version of the green garden restaurant design of Yishang draws on new catering brands and is more youthful; the new version of the Yicheng Hotel lobby hanging paintings will use the original paintings of masters such as Lang Shining to realize new works of ancient paintings through young people born after 1995. In addition, Dongcheng has also made many attempts in communicating with young people. For example, Dongcheng hosted the "Insomnia Front Alliance" event, and joined hands with QQ Music to launch the "Listen to What I Want to Listen to, Sleep Better" cross-border event, etc., to "YOUNG together" with young groups online and offline in a way that young people like.

In the future, Dongcheng Group will continue to adhere to the path of green and high-quality development, starting from the needs of the people, and through continuous enrichment and improvement of the hotel terminal network, continuous iteration of the business model, and the use of information technology to promote the transformation and upgrading of the traditional hotel industry, meet the public's more diverse travel needs, and promote high-quality development.

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