Pitch a tent outdoors and make coffee by hand. This is the “wild luxury” popular among the urban middle class.

My friend Chen Zenan has not yet gone on a “wild luxury camping” trip, but has been “squeezed dry” by some brands selling exquisite camping equipment.

When he said this, he made a dumbfounded expression, but I could feel that he was determined to do this. In the process of purchasing these equipment, he became friends with many outdoor equipment sellers and camp leaders in Hangzhou, which indirectly contributed to my acquaintance with the two interviewees.

“Wild luxury camping” has become popular in China, and the number of urban middle-class people like Chen Zenan who are ready or have experienced it is growing.

The full name of “wild luxury camping” is “wild luxury camping”, which is also called “exquisite camping”; they are both translated from the same English word – “glamping”. It can be felt that people in the outdoor camping circle, or some fashionable urban elites in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, prefer to use “glamping” to describe this most popular lifestyle nowadays.

I can understand it, after all, the word sounds quite smooth and playful, and the final sound is loud when it falls, making it sound like some kind of social secret language. Perhaps more importantly, only its original English word can accurately explain what this lifestyle is.

Just like “brunch”, which is popular among the urban middle class in China, “glamping” is also an abbreviation, which can be broken down into two English words: “glamorous (luxury, exquisite)” and “camping (camping)” word.

The word “glamping” first appeared in the UK in 2005. As the outdoor lifestyle it represents is accepted by more and more European and American consumers, “glamping” was officially included in the Oxford English Dictionary in 2016.

According to the definition of the Oxford English Dictionary, this type of outdoor camping often includes comfortable equipment and supporting facilities, such as beds, electrical facilities, toilets, kitchen utensils, etc., but these equipment are not usually used in traditional camping.

In fact, many people should have seen “glamping” in American TV series or European and American movies. In those film and television works, the characters drive into the wild in a modified RV, choose a suitable place to camp, set up a thick tent, move out a folding chair, and set up a small stove. One side is frying barbecue, and the other side is making hand-made coffee.

This is fairly simple. More sophisticated outdoor camping is almost equivalent to replicating high-end hotels in the wild. For example, when you go to Africa to watch wild animals, in order to facilitate the migration of wild animals, you live in safari tents (safari tents); or tree houses common in Europe and the United States. Hotels (tree houses).

Perhaps the closest thing to the nature of contemporary “wild luxury camping” is the African safari camping trend that originated in the 1920s. At that time, wealthy Americans and British people went to Africa to explore and see wild animals, but they did not want to eat and sleep in the wild and suffer. Therefore, the book ” Safari: A Chronicle of Adventure ” published in 1992 stated that those British and Americans brought generators, folding bathtubs and champagne during their adventures in Africa to ensure that they had adventures in the wild. When camping, you can still enjoy exquisite home life.

Nowadays, this kind of exquisite camping is rapidly becoming popular in China. The epidemic is naturally an important event that promotes the development of this trend. Some media in China have defined 2020 as “the first year of wild luxury camping in China.” Behind this is the substantial growth in sales of related industries and peripheral products.

An intuitive example is the just-concluded 2021 Shanghai ISPO Outdoor Products Exhibition. The exhibition introduction mentioned that the area of ​​the “Camping Life Exhibition Area” in 2021 has increased tenfold compared with 2020, which is almost equal to the total area of ​​other outdoor products category exhibition areas. This confirms the booming development of China’s camping industry in the past year.

The pace at which a lifestyle sweeps across the world is usually inconsistent. It becomes popular at different points in time depending on the birth and gathering of wealthy classes in each region. But “Exquisite Camping” is an exception. Fueled by the epidemic, exquisite camping became popular in the United States, Europe, South America, East Asia, the Middle East and other regions at almost the same time. China has also caught up with the pandemic.

In the past two years of the epidemic, cross-border travel bans have led to the interruption of international travel, which has indirectly forced the international travel retail industry to fall into the ice valley. Overseas luxury goods consumption returns to the local market, promoting the prosperity of the domestic luxury goods market. Fundamentally, it is the increasing purchasing power of Chinese urban consumers that has promoted the strong growth of high-end consumption in the local market.

Against this background, “wild luxury camping” almost perfectly caters to the needs of some domestic consumers who want to travel outdoors and enjoy themselves, becoming an excellent alternative to traditional tourism methods. According to Hugo, a professional outdoor guide, “It is inevitable that glamping will become popular in China, as it caters to Chinese people’s entertainment consumption habits.”

In the past year, wild luxury camping camps have sprung up across the country. In the suburbs of the city, many small and medium-sized commercial campsite brands have been established. At the same time, some large camps established earlier, as well as B&Bs, hotels and scenic spots, have also extended new wild luxury camping services based on their original main businesses.

Among these options, there have been high-end service options that support campers to check in directly with their bags. Hugo mentioned that this kind of luxury camping, which is far from self-service traditional camping, “isn’t even outdoors at all.” But is China’s “glamping” really that different from British and American “glamping” today? The answer is: no.

In November 2020, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Camping Gets More High-end During the Epidemic.” The article ” Camping Goes Upscale During Covid-19. Way Upscale .” mentioned that wild luxury camping camps have emerged in many states in the United States after the epidemic, including luxury camping operated by major US campground developers and operators. The project also includes a wild luxury camping tent outside a hotel converted from a container on Governors Island, a branch island in New York – visitors can enjoy the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline nearby. These projects can meet the needs of sophisticated campers with their bags. After the epidemic, some middle-class Americans want a safer way to travel, but they “don’t want to sleep on the ground.”

Similar to how many lifestyles have become popular around the world, commercial power is an important driver of the development of “glamping” in a region. In addition to the above-mentioned camp developers developing the camping scene behind the scenes, the commercial brands closest to consumers are playing the role of educators and shouldering the task of conveying this lifestyle and aesthetics.

In May of this year, Prada held a camping sharing session in Rongzhai, Shanghai, further popularizing the concept of Glamping to its core consumers.

At the event, after nearly two hours of popularization by outdoor explorer Gu Yue and Erica, the manager of the camping camp “Ono Park”, more people knew that “glamping” tents are thicker and heavier, and generally require a trolley to push them around. . A set of “standard equipment” for wild luxury camping also includes small cookers and barbecue grills, flip-top portable refrigerators, hand-brewed coffee sets, etc. This means that if you want to practice exquisite camping, it is necessary to have a car.

In the past two years, high-end fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton, Prada, Fendi, and Gucci have launched outdoor products or camping products in their own ways. These luxury brands have staggering annual marketing budgets, and a single promotional campaign can create a huge buzz on social media. With their help, exquisite camping has been noticed by more Chinese people.

Before their entry, Decathlon, which is famous for its high cost performance and large number of SKUs, has long conveyed a simple value: outdoor sports do not require high costs, and finding suitable and practical products is the key.

Later, through the hands of local professional buyers and agents, the top professional brands in the field of international outdoor camping – from the American traditional tent brand springbar to the Nordic tent brand Tentipi, and then to Japan, which sells a multi-person tent for more than 20,000 yuan. Wild luxury camping equipment brand Snow Peak has also entered the Chinese market.

Wang Jingmin, the manager of ABC Camping & Cafe, a camping equipment buying store, said that these imported professional brands have profoundly influenced the aesthetics of domestic wild luxury camping. Nowadays, when many people are trying to get started, stylized and personalized wild luxury camping has emerged in the domestic market. Looking at the photos posted by netizens on Xiaohongshu, the styles of wild luxury camping equipment and tent soft furnishings are diverse, including French pastoral style, American retro style, Nordic style or Japanese “frigid style”.

At Prada’s sharing session, two girls in their early 20s were also impressive. They seemed to know many brands of camping equipment, and they actively discussed with the instructor which brand of equipment was better. Later they learned that the number of times they went to wild camping was actually only a handful.

Wild luxury camping brand equipment seems to have a tendency to become the new “social currency”. Expensive imported brands and affordable or domestic brands are creating circles among wild luxury campers.

A recent report published by Sanlian Life Weekly seems to further strengthen this assumption. This article is titled ” Hangzhou Wild Luxury Circle, Exquisiteness Comes First?” “The article mentions that a “glamper (wild luxury camper)” will distinguish between novices and experienced campers by looking at whether there are plastic bags outside the tent. “Only novices use plastic bags. Veterans use storage.”

This artificially set threshold creates psychological difficulties for latecomers. Chen Zenan mentioned that the reason why he has not tried wild luxury camping for the first time is “because I am nervous. I want to play professionally and be good at it. I don’t know how to get started.”

Since the purpose of wild luxury camping is to escape the city and relax in the wild; then, when a dozen wild luxury tents are erected in a commercial campground, will the limited physical distance between tents force campers to return to social mode again? Erica thinks this varies from person to person and should not be a problem.

But while talking about this, a confusion arises: is the essence of wild luxury camping first of all, the outdoors, or the enjoyment?

“The final question is: What are people doing wild luxury camping doing? If they are playing with equipment, it has nothing to do with nature. Although this is not a problem.” Outdoor explorer Yue Gu said, “However, Again, whether you sit on the lawn or on a $1,000 folding chair, the view is the same.”