Who are Yuán Nián Rén (原年人) and Why Are Brands Catering to This Group During the Spring Festival?
Chinese New Year is next week and normally this would be an extremely busy travel period with hundreds of millions of people returning home for the holiday.
But unfortunately this year, because of recent COVID-19 outbreaks in certain regions of China, the Chinese government is encouraging everyone to stay in their cities where they work and not to go back to their hometown during this Spring Festival so as to try to keep the virus from spreading out of those regions. Flights booked for the Chinese New Year Holiday can be returned or changed for free. If you are determined to go home, you need a nucleic acid test confirming you are negative for COVID-19 before boarding.
Under those restrictions, many people, particularly young people, are choosing to stay in the same city where they study or work during the Spring Festival instead of going home, and this group of people is being called Yuán Nián Rén (原年人). This is short for 原地过年的人 or people who are staying in their current location during this Spring Festival.
As a result, many brands have created special offerings for this group.
Travel Agencies Creating Local Guides
Alibaba’s online travel agency Feizhu (飞猪) launched guides to help people figure out how to spend the CNY holiday locally in whatever city they are stuck in. The guides include popular restaurants, scenic spots, hotels and other entertainment spots.
Hotels are also encouraging Yuan Nian Ren to come have a staycation.
Restaurants Creating Special Menus
Many restaurants also launched a Chuxi (除夕, the night before the first day of Chinese New Year) menu featuring special dishes from other regions. For example, if you are a Nanjing person in Guangzhou, you can also have traditional Nanjing dishes on this important evening.
People are also looking for pre-made New Year’s dinners on food delivery platforms such as Ele.me. According to Ele.me’s parent company Alibaba, the search volumes for “new year’s eve dinner” for delivery on Ele.me surged 400% YoY in January.
Even restaurant chains like KFC are offering pre-made new year’s food.
Single Portion and Instant Foods in High Demand
Other than special Springs Festival dishes, the demand for one-person portion food and instant foods has also increased as many people are spending the holiday alone.
According to Alibaba’s live streaming focused media outlet Taobangdan (淘榜单), three instant food products have been selling especially well on Taobao live streams this Spring Festival: instant Buddha Jumps Over the Wall (佛跳墙, a shark fin soup), which is a traditional dish for CNY, 2. Zi Hai Guo (自嗨锅), a self-heated instant food and 3. fish maw and chicken soup. The total turnover of these three products grow 45.64% compared with the same time last year.
Another example is domestic meal replacement brand Misszero (超级零) who has partnered with Ele.me to release a guide giving people ideas for how to spend their time when celebrating CNY without their family. On Misszero’s Tmall flagship store, from February 5 to 17, customers can get 20 RMB off any purchases over 75 RMB. A very good and rare deal!
RIO, a Chinese alcopop brand, recently launched campaign with the slogan 一个人的小酒 meaning “one person’s cocktail” or could also be interpreted as “alcohol to have when you’re by yourself”, which appeals to many young people’s situation at the moment.
Brands Are Staying Open
For many people, it is the first time for them to stay alone during the Spring Festival. This is very similar to the Coronavirus lockdown at the beginning of 2020. What do people usually do when stuck at home? Online shopping.
Usually during the Spring Festival in China, businesses and logistics companies will shut down so that employees can all go home and be with their families, however, with this year’s situation, and to cater to the potential increase in online shopping that brands are expecting, some brands are choosing to stay open.
One example is Chinese beauty brand Florasis who has promised its customers that during CNY, it will work with logistics company SF Express and customers will still be able to receive their Florasis parcels. Customers can also chat with customer service from 9am to 12pm every day.
Well, this is great news for customers, but it is also concerning for employees of brands that are choosing to stay open like this. China has an exhausting work culture and Spring Festival is essentially the only time of the year when employees can typically fully detach from work for a whole week or two and come back refreshed. If so many businesses are staying open throughout the holiday, we are likely to see increased cases of burnout this year.
Read more: 春节不返乡？“原年人”成热词，这些飞猪商家火了
