September 5, 2023
Taiwanese families cannot schedule overseas travel during Lunar New Year before the coronavirus pandemic subsides, how do Taiwanese allocate their consumption budget for the New Year celebration? How do brands communicate with the market effectively to increase turnover during the 2021 spring break?
People are going to celebrate the Christmas and New Year holidays under a series of limitations, and the restrictions may diminish the cheerful atmosphere that festival celebrations should be.
Turkey, Netherlands, and Italy impose four-day lockdown, gathering limitation, and travel restrictions in the holiday period, and other governments have already announced various special stipulations as well. Predictably, large parts of retail companies and ski resorts are impacted by COVID-19.
So far, pandemic control in Taiwan is satisfactory. According to the latest report, the percentage of Taiwanese female consumers who expect the situation is going to get better in the next 12 months is more than they think the situation was getting better in the past 12 months, and the result is almost constant since June. In different segments, the age of 16-29 female group is optimistic, and most participants who expect the situation is going to get better in the next 12 months are in the age group. Contrarily, most people whose age is between 40-50 expect the situation is getting worse and show a pessimistic attitude.
The report also addresses that the Taiwanese female’s estimation of the global epidemic situation becomes more pessimistic because there seems no subside amid the novel coronavirus outbreak around the world. The economic revival in Taiwan is slow, and people cannot celebrate New Year overseas during the spring break. In this situation, the participates expect that the market will take last longer to recover to the normal compare with the survey result this June. In their prediction, the situation will back to normal at the end of August.
The pandemic seems not to impact the consumption intention in Taiwan that the high demand in the consumption market is expected to continue from a series of promotions at the end of 2020 that includes the anniversary of department stores, Single’s Day, and Christmas sale to Chinese New Year in 2021.
Nevertheless, the female age group of 16-29 increase their purchasing budget in December to prepare for the Chinese New Year celebration. In terms of the purchasing category, the participants allocate the budget in household goods, electronic devices, dining and entertainment, a health supplement, and home appliances in December as they did in October. The decline budget for the luxury items and alcoholic beverages is mitigating, but customers tend to reduce the expenditure on travel, sporting goods, packaged foods, skincare and cosmetics, and clothing and fashion. In this situation, ingenious promotion and interesting advertising may be the essential factors to stop the expected recession.
Some customs of Lunar New Year still stimulate business growth, although the spending budget in December is equivalent to the budget in October in total. First of all, the demand for cleaning the house before New Year’s eve advances the increased consumption of household goods in December. Secondarily, the survey found out an increase in purchasing of clothing and shoes will appear during the Chinese New Year because people need to wear new clothing in traditional Chinese New Year. Third, people raise the budget for domestic travel in the spring break although they cannot travel abroad. In addition, the participant whose age is between 20-29 significantly increase their budget on clothing and shoe purchasing, domestic travel, entertainment, and health supplement for New Year shopping. Fourth, the female age group of 40-50 has a significant rise in the budget of Chinese New Year shopping, and they are going to buy clothing and shoes, domestic travel, health supplement, and entertainment for the Chinese New Year celebration. Fifth, Taiwanese people will still cook at home for family reunion dinner followed by ordering from restaurants.
Under the impact of the pandemic, some creative promotion campaign comes up in the European and American market. For instance, some American gyms started their distance classes, and the members can attend online classes on ZOOM for free during the holiday period.
Another example is in the hotel industry. Some hotels in Europe are collecting photos of New Year celebrations in different countries around the world to attract people to stay in their hotel for vacation. Instead of a discount, interesting marketing ideas can attract customers better now. Creativity can shape the 2021 New Year celebration to be a special and delightful one.
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