Tourism Enterprises Open Up Tax-Free New Track: "Break Through" Look Forward To Policy Enrichment

The huge impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic on the tourism industry has made domestic travel enterprises fully aware of the large business risk of the single business mode. Through this epidemic, how to enhance the ability to resist risks has become a common topic faced by domestic travel enterprises.

"Tourism enterprises have the advantage of customer resources innate, and how to further" flow realisation "can become a train of thought for tourism enterprises to achieve diversified business development. A tourism analyst told the twenty-first Century business news reporter.

In fact, for domestic travel enterprises, it is almost a consensus to achieve diversified development around the main business. Among them, the domestic travel enterprises represented by Kaiser travel (000796.SZ) and 002707.SZ are trying to combine the customer resources with the tax exemption domain, opening up a new tax exemption track.

However, some people in the industry pointed out to the twenty-first Century economic news reporter that the tax exemption industry in the layout of the tourism enterprises can complement each other with its tourism business, but the duty free retailing belongs to the national franchise industry. The restriction of the tax-free licence indicates that it is difficult for the tourism enterprises to play an active role in this market.

Domestic travel enterprises try to combine customer resources with tax exempt areas to create a new tax exemption. IC photo

Tourism enterprises speed up tax-free "new track"

On the evening of April 8th, Kaiser travel announced that it would change its registered place from "Shaanxi Baoji" to "Hainan Sanya". More than 20 days ago, the company just signed a cooperation agreement with the Sanya municipal government, and the business development of tourism and tax-free business of Kaiser's travel industry in Sanya was endorsed by the local government.

In twenty-first Century, the economic news reporter found that the layout of Kaiser's travel industry in the area of tax exemption can be traced back to last June.

At that time, the company announced the cooperation with China overseas personnel service Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "outfit"), and entered into the Tianjin International Cruise Port home duty free duty shop, with a shareholding ratio of 49%.

Share duty free shops made the Kaiser travel industry take the first step of layout, and then the establishment of Exempt Company, further cooperation between "binding" and "out of service", allowed the company to gallop on the tax-free "new track".

In November 3, 2019, Kaiser travel industry issued two announcements and renewed its efforts in the area of tax exemption. First of all, the company announced that it invested 200 million yuan to set up Hainan's Tong Sheng Jia duty-free Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Tong Sheng duty-free) in Haikou, Hainan Province, to enter the Islands duty-free industry in Hainan. Secondly, the newly established Tong Sheng tax exemption will be invested in the acquisition of 20% of the Jiangsu duty-free products Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jiangsu duty exemption), with a transaction price of 12 million yuan.

The largest shareholder of Jiangsu's duty-free service is 70% out of the total, while the latter is the only company that owns the qualification of the duty-free shops in the city and the port entry and exit duty-free licences.

This year, the cooperative relationship between Kaiser's tourism industry and China's clothing industry has been deepened again. In March 18th, Kaiser, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kaiser travel industry, won the bid for Beijing Jiabao run duty-free goods and Trade Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jiabao run Cheng) to increase capital and expand its shares, and signed the "capital increase agreement" with the Chinese government. The capital increase was 80 million yuan. After the change of ownership structure, Kaiser travel industry will hold 40% of the Beijing duty-free shop.

From Islands tax-free to duty-free shops in the city, Kaiser's travel industry has been "rush ahead" in the area of tax exemption. Xu Wei, vice chairman of Kaiser travel industry, said: "in October 2019, after the change of Kaiser's real control rights, the company's real owners and founders put forward a development idea of" one main three auxiliary ". The following companies will focus on tourism, taking into account food (aviation food, iron meal), tax exemption and financial services (easy to pay), which greatly enhanced the risk resisting ability of the company in this outbreak. "

In fact, "long coveted" tax-free travel companies are not Kaiser's travel industry.

In February of this year, Zhongxin tourism announced a strategic cooperation agreement with China duty-free commodities (Group) limited liability company (hereinafter referred to as the Sino free group) to jointly develop the domestic and foreign tourist retail market. In this regard, Zhongxin tourism said that through the cooperation with the group, the company officially entered the field of tax exemption and shopping.

Public information shows that the group is the largest duty-free operator in the country, and is a state monopoly company authorized by the State Council to carry out duty free business throughout the country. The company is owned by China 601888.SH (100%). By focusing on the tax-free main industry, China CITS performance express disclosed that in 2019, it expected to achieve 48 billion yuan revenue, and net profit rose to about 4 billion 700 million yuan.

In addition, the twenty-first Century economic report reporter found that the largest OTA company in China carried out cooperation with duty-free shops at home and abroad several years ago.

? ? ? ? In 2017, Ctrip announced that it would cooperate with Hainan duty-free and easy purchase to achieve two-way traffic complementarity and channel access. In 2018, Ctrip signed a cooperation agreement with Dubai duty-free shops to achieve value-added services such as exclusive discount of Ctrip users in Dubai duty-free shops. In the same year, Ctrip announced that it would further expand cooperation with duty-free shops in Xinluo, Singapore. The layout of cooperative businesses in Asian markets has been increased.

It is not easy for new inmate to break through.

Although there are many people in the area of tax exemption, some practical difficulties lie in front of Kaiser travel and UTS travel.

A tourism analyst who did not want to be named told the twenty-first Century business news reporter that tourism companies have the advantage of resources and experience in drainage and realisation, which helps to enter the tax-free field. However, the reality of domestic duty-free market space and the scarcity of tax-free licence resources will also bring resistance to later generations.

China's tax exemption industry started in 1979. After 40 years of development, the sales revenue of the industry reached 39 billion 500 million yuan in 2018, and grew rapidly. However, compared with the overseas tax exempt consumption, the domestic tax exemption consumption is very broad. According to the data released by the Ministry of Commerce, in 2018, the total scale of overseas duty-free commodities purchased by residents in China exceeded 180 billion yuan, accounting for 34.8% of the global tax exempt market sales and 4.5 times of the domestic tax exempt consumption.

Under the huge upgrading space, the domestic tax exempt market has not yet been released.

Because the tax-free retailing belongs to the franchise industry, the duty-free industry in China adopts the license authorization operation mechanism, and the license plate is scarce. In twenty-first Century, the economic report combing reporters found that there are only 7 licensed Exempt Company in China, namely, the China exemption group, the Hainan tax exemption group, the Zhuhai exemption group, the Chinese export service group, the Shenzhen free group, the day tax exemption and the Chinese overseas tax exemption. Among them, after the continuous integration, the group has become a leading enterprise in the domestic tax exempt industry with a market share of more than 80%. Affected by this, China national travel, a wholly owned group of China exempt group, ranks among the largest duty-free travel companies in China.

However, the high profit of the tax-free industry is worth "breaking through the head". The above analysts said, "compared to the traditional business of travel agencies, tax-free is a relatively profitable industry." Based on the financial data of Ctrip, which accounted for more than 90% of tax-free income, the gross margin of the commodity trading business of the company in the first half of 2019 was 51.76%.

Under existing policies, tourism enterprises can only rely on cooperation with Exempt Company with licences, so as to realize deep tillage in the area of tax exemption. The signing of strategic agreement between Kaiser travel industry and Zhongxing service joint venture company, Zhongxin tourism and China Insurance Group is the only way to fill the tax exemption licence vacancy in the "curve" of tourism enterprises. However, this binding cooperation reflects the huge dependence of the tourism industry on licensed Exempt Company, and it is difficult to form a real impact on leading enterprises.

Shortly before the signing of the strategic cooperation between Kaiser travel industry and Sanya, the 23 departments of the national development and Reform Commission jointly issued the "Implementation Opinions on promoting consumption expansion, upgrading quality and speeding up the formation of a strong domestic market" (hereinafter referred to as "opinion"), and increased support for the development of the tax exempt industry.

The policy document published in March 13th proposes to optimize domestic market supply, improve the supply of imported goods, and further improve the tax exemption policy. Among them, the "opinions" expressly expressed for the tax-free business: first, adhere to the equal emphasis on serving overseas persons and outgoing residents of China, build a batch of Chinese duty-free shops in the city with Chinese characteristics, set up departure points at the airport duty free shops for the city's duty-free shops; second, expand port duty free business and add port duty-free shops; third, timely study and adjust the tax-free quota and the types of duty-free products; fourth, Duty-free shops set up a certain area of domestic sales area.

Some analysts believe that the above policies fully affirm the function of the duty-free industry to promote consumption and stimulate domestic demand, and the relaxation of the policy of duty-free shops in the city is already in the firing line. The duty-free industry is expected to usher in a new round of development opportunities under the promotion of policies.

It is worth mentioning that tourism enterprises are expected to set up a "fierce battle" in Hainan in the area of tax exemption. According to the China News Service reported on March 25th, in order to further play the role of offshore duty-free policy in promoting tourism in Hainan, Hainan is striving for central support and further opening offshore duty-free policy under the framework of the Islands free trade port, including increasing the duty free business entity, expanding the duty-free shopping consumption quota and increasing the tax-free commodity variety.

"Considering the continuity of the policy, the limited competition of Hainan Islands tax-free licence will probably be released." According to the analysis of Dongxing securities, the tax exemption policy is affected by the development of the global epidemic. It is estimated that the Hainan Islands tax exemption policy is expected to give priority to landing.

The policy loosened the signal, the brigade enterprise enters the tax exemption domain or will usher in the new opportunity. But under the epidemic situation, the tempo of the tax exemption policy is affected. At the same time, the epidemic can not be ignored in the short term of the tax-free field, and Kaiser's travel industry and Uincent tourism are not easy to break through.

?