Discussion keeps the world's turning.
This is Roundtable. Hello everybody, welcome to Roundtable.
Coming to you from Beijing, I'm Hayoung.
Good to have you join us on a day's show in RV.
Short for recreational vehicle is a motor vehicle or trailer equipped with living quarters designed for accommodation.
Think of it as you are home away from home on wheels.
Arena's RV scene is revving up and it's a whole new ballgame compared to North America, where the RV culture is most popular.
Whether you're dreaming of your own mobile mention or just enjoying the ride from afar, one thing is for sure.
China's roads are about to get a whole lot more interesting.
And from page turning reads to binge-worthy shows, we're sharing the happiness that lit up our week essentially what's made us happy in Roundtable's happy place.
For today's program, I'm joined by Yushan and Steve Hatharly, first on a day's show.
2024 has become the year China's RV scene shift into high gear.
Remember, the buzz back in 2022 about young Chinese dreaming of trading apartments for recreational vehicles fast forward to 2024?
And those dreams have hit the road.
Young people in China aren't just talking the talk, they're driving the drive.
RV sales and last year? Gathered records and 2024 is gearing up to be even bigger.
So what are the numbers saying to us now?
Oh yeah, according to a June article from Japanese media platform Nikesh Asia, RV sales in China exceeded 13,000 units to set a record in 2023 that's according to local media.
And the China Automobile dealer association.
And the total number of registered RVs in China as of 2023 was approximately 19,865, marking a year on year increase of 24% compared to previous years.
But as fancy as in my sound, we need to realize on the fact that RV is still a super niche market here in China comparing to numbers on China's auto sales in general.
Well, according to data from the international organization of motor vehicle manufacturers, China has the largest single automotive market globally in 2023 with its automobile sales reached 30.09 million units last year.
And it is projected that this year the total sales going to exceed 31 million.
So we hear 31 million units and then we look back on the 13,000 units to set a record of RV market here in China, which is, you know, it's still like a lot for us to improve or maybe there's still a long way to go on the RV market to boom or to be fully embedded in China.
But it's worth mentioning that although RV ownership in China is still kind of niche, like it's kind of new among people, the trend is definitely rising.
As many automobile consumers, especially among the younger generation these years, and of course, fans of the camping culture that are paying extra attention on practicality offered by RV.
It's interesting that this is a growing part of the culture, the vacation culture here in China, in the West, in Canada and America.
I think this has been a part of the culture for a long time.
But that being said, in Canada and America, it's still a niche thing.
It's not like all Canadians are driving around in these huge motor homes to go to work on, you know, Monday to Friday.
But it's definitely more common, I guess, than it would be here in China.
As I was looking up some things to discuss on the show today, one of the things that I didn't realize is that in the United States, they say that RV sales or the RV industry is kind of a window into how the US economy is doing on a whole kind of fascinating, right?
Michael Hicks, he's an economics professor at Ball State University.
And he said that when consumer sentiment falters or the economy starts to get a little bit weaker, it starts to teeter than RV sales follow suit.
He's an economics professor, like I said at Ball State.
And that's what his point was, is that when the economy weakens, RV sales weaken.
But if we see the RV market start to come back in terms of sales, that's a pretty good indicator that the US economy is starting to recover as well.
Didn't think we could look there to find that info.
And as an interesting window to look at the economy and also Steve, a quick question about what do you usually associate with RV ownership and driving?
Is it older dads possibly?
I'm wanting to take the family on a road trip.
I think that's the thing that comes to mind for a lot of people, right?
Older people, retirement, perhaps selling their home, buying an RV and just driving, you know, from one corner of the United States to the other or one side of Canada to the other.
I don't think that's the case anymore though, right?
Yeah, that is so true here because apparently in recent years here in China, over 35% of RV owners are actually individuals aged between 30 to 45.
So among relatively younger or like young parents to be exact, reside in bigger cities in China, including like Beijing or Shanghai.
And also their purpose is to employ these vehicles as mobile residences like Steve mentioned earlier and sometimes for family trips as well.
And it's really interesting when I was reading this part, it also make like a small comparison.
There wasn't any data showed, but it didn't mention in the article that in China, we have a lot of RV owners that are retirees like where they're 60s or 70s who just want to travel around and don't want to stay in one spot forever.
But nowadays we see like a rise among the younger generation or young parents who is getting into the same hobby.
So are you saying that people have this as a side thing that they have their own apartment which is a permanent residence or are they actually living in the RV?
I think that's kind of interesting because last time when RV hit the news was when young people talk about really high housing price and then why not just live in your RV.
But so I'm wondering if that news story has actually caught on?
Well, this is based on my observation from social media.
I don't really have the exact number of how much of a portion of people are just living on the road instead of living indoor for a while and then just go on trip with RV for the rest of the year.
But it does show that a lot of the RV owners they just use the RV for traveling.
For making videos on social media as there are over 720,000 posts regarding RV on Xiao Hongshu which is one of China's largest social media platforms among the young.
So I would say that it's more of a travel tool for a lot of these families instead of just living in the RV as a major accommodation for the family.
I think that's probably the case in Canada and the US as well.
It's more like a vacation thing to do or a summertime family trip thing to do rather than that's your home.
But one of the things that perhaps surprised the RV market was during the pandemic and I guess it makes sense when we talk about it.
This was a huge boom for RV sales in the United States because people couldn't travel internationally.
They could only travel domestically and flying.
Nobody wanted to get on an airplane in many parts of the world during the pandemic.
So there was a massive, massive increase.
62% over the last 20 years if you look at that part of it and also during the pandemic, the remote working started to become a thing for people after the pandemic.
Still a thing for people.
So young people now are remotely working from anywhere in the United States or other parts of the world.
When we think about RVs, they're using their RV as their home and they're moving their work location and they're living location at the same time.
It's kind of a cool trend.
Yes. And think of that RV as the ultimate mobile workstation for digital nomads.
It's the best office in the world you could say.
But also we know that it might be a bit of a privilege to become a digital nomad because that kind of work has to be fully remote.
And if you're a freelance writer, I don't know how much they're making.
If you're the really successful ones, then you make a lot and also social media influencers as such.
I think it might be more common than we realize though because when we started this conversation and you asked me, who owns an RV?
The image that comes to mind is grandparents, right?
That's not the case anymore.
Progressive did a survey.
Progressive is one of the biggest auto insurers in the United States and they asked people about life on the road to living in an RV.
I think what they expected to find was it was going to be a lot of retirees, not the case at all.
As a matter of fact, the people that own the RVs, most of them are in the age range of 18 to 44 and only 18% are 65 or older.
The biggest group of RV owners is between 18 and 44 years old.
This is in North America.
Correct. Here, it's kind of similar.
I can't see why in China because years ago, maybe two decades ago, can you imagine people saying, I don't even own a car.
Why would I have an RV? And also another major hurdle, supposedly, in the minds or perceptions of people owning an RV in this country, in my opinion, is that you can't drive this thing to work.
There's no place to park it and there are plenty of places parking lots.
You simply just can't fit in because it's massive.
And then for most folks, we're still focusing on getting the first car or maybe getting a second car to replace the first one because you've had it for a decade and maybe you want something new and flashy.
Yeah, I think so. So an RV is like a bit far-fetched.
It's like a lifestyle as opposed to just a mode of transportation, a way to get to work during the weekdays.
Yeah, it's a lifestyle, isn't it?
You live out of your home, you travel to a different spot, you eat out of there, it's yeah, it's like your house.
Yeah, and you mentioned something that I kind of echo with, Juliane, because I read that the RV industry in China actually experienced like a two decades-long path of growing because it initiated ever since the turn of the century, which is around 2001, and that marks nearly two decades of development until this date.
Now that we're talking about it, now that it's becoming a trend here.
And the other thing is we mentioned how big of a market were like the world's largest automobile manufacturing market China is these days.
And also, that's one of the major reasons why RVs can have a very big potential to be very affordable here, because as data shows that the average price of small RVs or like compatible RVs in China is actually just between 200,000 to 300,000 yuan, which is roughly 27 to 41,000 US dollars, and that could cover like a medium, not so luxurious, day-to-day car price.
That's like a mid-range RV, or is that on the lower end?
I think it's like mid-range closer to the lower end.
Yeah, that's not really the luxurious one.
No, definitely not the luxurious ones.
It's the same in the North American market.
The average low cost RV will cost about 12 to 15,000 dollars, but I mean, if you look at the different styles of RVs that are on the market, you can find things that, you know, trailers that you pull behind your truck, but then you see these massive, they look like small cities themselves.
And the most expensive one in the world, it was a couple of years ago, and I'm sure it probably still is now, was $3 million.
Oh my gosh. Yeah. But that's what I mean, right?
Like here in China, people look for places to park, they look for practicality and compatibility, like the smaller size, the not so big and enormous size of an RV, but still is able to provide all the living condition that they require for a family trip or something.
That's good enough for a Chinese family.
Question. Because people, if you own an RV or even if you're renting an RV, which is a popular thing to do in North America as well, you still need a place to take it, right?
You don't just get in the RV, drive around, and then come back to your house and park in the parking lot, right?
You go to a campground. In Canada, there are 4,300 different campgrounds across the country, which is really kind of connected to tourism in Canada as well.
They think that if they provide more parks and more RV camping spots, that it's an opportunity for more people from probably America, but also plenty of other places in the world to come and use that as their Canadian vacation.
Lots of places in Canada, even more actually in the United States, more than 15,000 campgrounds in RV parks across the country.
That's a 1.1% increase in 2023 from 2022.
But still an increase, though.
My question was, in China, I'm wondering, are there plenty of places for people to go to take their RV?
Are there a lot of campgrounds?
The country is geographically massive.
I can imagine that there are probably a lot of places for people to go.
Oh, yeah. I was looking on some shopping platform earlier yesterday and I actually called four of the RV camps.
The news that I heard from them is they've developed this whole sophisticated chain of services that they can offer to RV drivers based on their needs.
So the first one said it's a relatively lower-end camping site, which can take 200 yuan to allow your RV to come in and stay overnight.
In the meantime, the 200 yuan covers both water supply and power supply.
So basically, you can just plug your RV onto an AC charging post or something.
It's lesser seen in North China, I would suppose.
It's not really all over the place out on the street.
But also, I saw videos of consumers from southern China, like in Georgia and province.
There are a lot of apps designed for you to just search for the nearby charging spots, which is literally all over the place.
It's like five or six different charging spots everywhere.
So you can just charge your RV very conveniently outside or inside the camp.
But here in the case of the RV camps that I call, which is all surrounding Beijing in North and China, they have to charge you to provide you the specific service for you to charge it.
So you can just link your car with water pipes to the public toilets to get water supply as well.
And the second one told me that, well, that one is like a higher-end one.
They charge you 400 per night for you to stay overnight and get supplied.
But they also provide extra services like they give you this large piece of ground where you can just put up your tent and just hang around with your friends.
And that 400 yuan per night covers the usage of four people.
So one extra person will have to charge about maybe a hundred more.
It's like a hotel room. Yeah.
And then the third one, he was trying to sell me to buy the membership of their camp.
Once you get a membership, you get a discount and stuff like that.
But the thing with this one is that they don't allow one single overnight staying if they're not a member of their camp.
So there are plenty of businesses that are latching onto this.
They're really hoping that there's a growth in this culture and man.
And plenty of different styles and options too.
I made the joke about comparing it to a hotel room, but I think it's very similar as a matter of fact.
Because as far as I know, these campgrounds have check-in times and check-out times, right?
You drive your RV in there and then you plug it in.
Well, you can't do that any time of the day.
It's like on a schedule.
So there's that. Bookings for extra people, things of that nature.
And different qualities, you have more expensive hotels where you're going to pay a lot of money or you have cheaper hotels where you're not going to get the same services.
Sounds quite similar as a matter of fact.
Exactly. And that's what the Forest Camping Site provides me as well.
They don't allow you to drive your own RV, but you can book one of theirs.
Just like booking hotels.
And you're allowed from, say, 9 a.m.
in the morning to 9 p.m. in the evening.
So yeah, that's like a daytime accommodation that you can just stay in their RVs.
Right. But I would actually tilt more towards comparing it with camping.
Maybe I've seen some of the not-so-popular options or, you know, RV offerings out there.
You know, you've got the super nice ones, but I think it's a lot of investment to buy one, but renting one sounds quite appealing.
But also, I think I'll need to learn how to drive the big chunky bad boy as opposed to my little sedans.
I'm guessing you probably need a special license to operate one of those.
Oh, yes. Yes. Don't have that.
That's how it works here in China.
You can't use your normal like C, U1 or C2 license, but I've recised license, yeah.
An extra one. So yeah, I suppose you guys might have both sort of hit the nail on the head on identifying the possible reasons why we're seeing a growth of RV culture in this country.
Part of it is, well, people are into camping, and part of it is that people want to go to places, want to travel, and especially if you can sort of acquire that freedom to go on a trip and you're the captain, you're not relying on anybody else to sort of chart the course.
You're literally doing it yourself.
Absolutely. And that's kind of new for Chinese people.
That's the attraction, I think.
I think people who are really into this kind of lifestyle will say exactly that.
That's the freedom to come and go as you please, to go wherever you want within the country or even cross borders on occasion.
These are the attractive things that people really like about RV life and the lifestyle itself out on the open road.
It's that connection with nature almost as well, isn't it?
My family when I was growing up, I think we went camping one time because my mom is more of a four to five star hotel in Dorsey type.
I have faith memories of our one camping trip.
All I remember is that it did not go well at all.
And I think my parents had a fight over that.
So I didn't grow up in this culture, but I have friends who, you know, it's Canada, it's nature, it's camping, it's fishing, it's hiking, it's enjoying the outdoors, and RV culture is part of this as well.
All right. And here I think that's something that still needs a little bit more time to grow.
That's certainly the pandemic really, I think, added impetus to going outdoors in general.
And I can't remember how many times we talked about camping during those four years.
And there's a major growth in sales for a tense outdoor swear.
And you've even got a whole bunch of office workers who don't camp, who don't go into the wild, but they want to adopt the outdoor fashion anyway, because, you know, just even having that aspiration that, oh, one day I'll go into mother nature and embrace what nature has to offer.
That thought is appealing enough.
And I suspect that RV sales and all this interest in RV and also so many eyeball time that is devoted to watching these videos on social media has something to do with them.
Anyone in the States RV sales rocketed 600,000 in sales because it was pandemic times, right?
Now people are kind of over it a little bit.
And people who had purchased those RVs, what they're doing now is they're giving them to rental companies and saying rent this out on my behalf.
It's like a profit sharing thing.
So what I would do, you know, obviously it's a massive investment to buy an RV and probably the majority of the population would say no, it's not financially feasible or we're going to put that money somewhere else.
But how about this, what about just get the license for it?
That's a very probably small amount of time committed to getting the license and then that'll allow you to rent one for a weekend or a week's vacation and then you can go out and explore China and all its wonderful geography and its wonderful nature.
Just one quick add on to that, I checked that one comment on Shah Heng Shoo shared that you can just spend 1,700 yuan which is about a bit more than 200 US dollars to rent a RV here in China for one day.
And that's much more affordable than spending, you know, 25,000 American dollars to buy one for yourself.
And you don't need the parking space when you rent it either.
So here I think we kind of need to remind all of the potential, say buyers of RVs that don't get overly bewitched by the say the halo effect of how flashy it seems to be able to drive an RV with your family and sit there and look all posh and fashionable and all that.
As it probably shows on the Shah Heng Shoo and social media, there's a lot to consider if you actually decide to get an RV.
I'm sorry I made a little noise just now because it's just, you know, people have very different visions of what they want for their life and what's seen as maybe posh, nice or whatever it is.
So it's fascinating. And what do you see as the possible speed bumps that this RV industry is encountering now?
I think the driver's license is a speed bump obviously because it's something that you'd have to go and study to get, right?
So that's extra time, it's extra money, it's extra effort.
And that's even if you want to rent one, right?
The cost, you know, you mentioned $200 a day.
Well that's still quite expensive, isn't it?
You know, if you're renting a car, if you're spending $200 a day, that's probably a pretty nice car I would imagine.
So that might be a speed bump as well.
And just a general lack of information about where to go if you do rent an RV because you do need to take it to an RV park to park it at night.
So I think if there's more information available through social media outlets where people have more knowledge about where they can take it if they do have the license, then okay, but all of those I think are going to be things that people need to try to do, which will make it perhaps a little bit slower growth wise.
Okay. Owning the RV is one thing, but also being attached to the RV spirit or all the things that it represents is another thing.
And that, I think the spirit thing is something I can relate to.
It's almost about breaking free from the ordinary, embracing spontaneity and turning every day into an adventure.
It's for those who hear the call of the wild, but also appreciate a hot shower and a comfy bed.
So are you ready to trade your house keys for RV ignition keys and hit the road less traveled?
I'm not ready yet. Actually.
It seems like you just made a very quick decision in your brain.
You'll like you thought about it and no, no, it's not going to be today, huh?
It is for you.
