China’s corporates are riding on the rising popularity of glamping to organise scaled-down marketing events and product launches in less restrictive outdoor settings compared to indoor venues.
Violet Wang, managing director of Realm and former China head of Pacific World, said there was huge glamping demand for incentives and corporate meetings from car manufacturing, finance and luxury brand companies for groups of up to 400 participants.
Wang continued: “Prices can range from RMB2,000 (US$119) to RMB15,000 per night per person and these programmes are short, comprising one night in an indoor venue and one night outdoor with hiking in a national park.”
Alexander Glos, CEO, China i2i Group, which provides B2B and B2C tourism-related services, noted desert locations in northern and north-western China offered lots of different experiences from horseback riding and farm visits, to campfires and night astronomy, which were attractive to urbanites.
Glamping, Wang pointed out, is also giving undiscovered second- and third-tier cities with less developed infrastructure a fillip in attracting event groups.
Meanwhile, numbers at glamping sites remain intimate.
Sam Braybon, director, Bespoke Travel Company, said: “Most of them are really small with perhaps 10 or 15 tents which book up really, really early in the high season, like what we saw in spring and autumn.”
But while it would be quite hard to secure inventory, Braybon said it was possible for a corporate to take over an entire glamping site for a retreat, for example.
To meet demand, Wang said five glamping projects were being developed close to Shanghai in “natural spaces” and would be ready in two years’ time.
