How can a large flower and seedling base of over 200 mu that has been continuously losing money achieve a gorgeous transformation into a "beautiful new consumption scenario"?
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Authors | Xia Dong, Yue Tao
Editor-in-chief | Yang Ming
Editor | Jing Xiangyuan
Source | Theme Park World
In Wenjiang, Chengdu, a large flower and seedling base covering more than 200 mu, although only 40 kilometers from the main urban area, less than an hour's drive, has been experiencing poor business performance and continuous losses in recent years.
▲Luer Garden
The gears of fate began to turn in 2023. Rou Shui Wenlv, in collaboration with the local state-owned enterprise Longke Group, based on the original site, adopted the development concept of "light investment, heavy operation," adhering to the principle of "operation-oriented and planning and creativity-led," to jointly create the Chengdu hit new tourism project "Luer Garden."
Phase one of the project covers approximately 100 mu and has an investment of approximately 25 million yuan. In its first year of operation, it attracted nearly 250,000 visitors, generating nearly 25 million yuan in operating income. The industrial base turned profitable that year, becoming a hot topic in Chengdu and one of Chengdu's "most beautiful new consumption scenarios," as well as a demonstration of the transformation and development of the flower and seedling industry and the joint revitalization of existing assets by state-owned and private enterprises.
Luer Garden is a young and warm brand. The theme is flowers and deer, because flowers and deer are beautiful things that everyone loves. Li Bai's poem says "When the forest is deep, you see deer." Mr. Cai Erfa, chairman of Rou Shui Wenlv and founder of Luer Garden, adds, "When the forest is deep, you see deer; when the flowers bloom, you see you. In Luer Garden, seeing flowers, deer, and you (er) is a beautiful and happy life."
Mr. Cai Erfa and his team poured their love for children and families into the brand. From the beginning of the park's planning, they positioned it as a gift "born for companionship," dedicated to children and women. Luer Garden is not only meant to appeal to children, but also to mothers and women, becoming a paradise for the whole family.
Hard work pays off. After Luer Garden opened, visitor feedback was enthusiastic. The exquisite and beautiful forest landscape was praised by visitors who love Luer Garden as the "ceiling of Chengdu's parent-child park"; dozens of elegant and lovely sika deer interact closely with children; more than 30 carefully designed recreational and interactive facilities allow children to release their nature in the forest and play freely, filled with laughter and singing; adults can also enjoy leisure camping, cooking tea around a stove, taking photos, playing mahjong, singing karaoke, playing billiards, playing frisbee, etc. There is something for everyone in the family, creating a harmonious atmosphere.
More than a year after its opening, Luer Garden's indicators such as paid entry, average order value, and repurchase rate are among the top in Chengdu in the same category. It has also received widespread praise on new media platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin, and has even earned a 4.9 rating from visitors on Meituan.
Seeing risks in the peak, transforming ahead of time
Mr. Cai Erfa, chairman of Rou Shui Wenlv and founder of Luer Garden, previously served as assistant to the chairman, director of the president's office, general manager of the business development center, and general manager of the West China regional operation center of Lingnan Ecological Tourism Co., Ltd., a main board listed company, and worked with leaders and colleagues to bring the company to an IPO listing.
Lingnan Ecological Tourism Co., Ltd. was established in 1998 and listed in 2014 (stock code: SZ.002717). It has five subsidiaries: landscaping, municipal engineering, water conservancy, design, and cultural tourism. At its peak in 2016, its market value was nearly 20 billion yuan. At that time, PPP projects were prevalent, and the industry was expanding wildly. Cai Erfa keenly predicted that the development of the entire industry was abnormal and harbored huge risks. Cai Erfa believed that the characteristic of the landscape engineering industry is that once a project is completed, it is gone. With the trend of urbanization development, it is difficult to sustain. In the PPP cooperation model with the government, enterprises also need a large amount of advance funding, which is extremely risky. In addition, the future maintenance cost of urban parks and green spaces is also very high, and there is a lack of business formats, which cannot better meet the needs of citizens and play a greater value. Therefore, in 2016, Cai Erfa proposed that it is necessary to transform into operation in order for the company and the industry to have a future. However, because the idea was too advanced, it did not receive the attention of the leadership.
▲Cai Erfa, chairman of Rou Shui Wenlv and founder of Luer Garden
In August 2018, Cai Erfa resolutely gave up his 3 million yuan annual salary at Lingnan and decided to start his own business. This courage and choice were incomprehensible to many people at the time, but it all stemmed from Cai Erfa's judgment of market trends and his passion for his dreams. At that time, the landscape industry was mainly driven by investment and construction, but Cai Erfa believed that the future would be "driven by operation." He always believed that "operation is king," thus embarking on his entrepreneurial journey.
Focusing on parent-child micro-vacation, creating a beautiful and happy life
The name "Rou Shui" (soft water) of Rou Shui Wenlv comes from the Tao Te Ching: "Nothing in the world is as soft and weak as water, yet in attacking the strong and unyielding, nothing can overcome it, because nothing can replace it." Cai Erfa hopes that the company team will have the philosophy of softness and the wisdom of water, because the vision of Rou Shui Wenlv is to "create a beautiful and happy life," and it is engaged in the service industry. Cai Erfa believes that in the future economic development of China, especially the private economy, there is great potential in the service industry. The service industry must be gentle, customer-centric, and make customers feel that your service is warm and tender, like water nourishing things silently.
Before Cai Erfa founded Rou Shui Wenlv, he had experience as a shareholder investing in Squirrel Tribe. Squirrel Tribe was the first non-powered amusement park in China. It opened in Chengdu in 2018 to great acclaim and caused a sensation in the industry. Later, it opened in Wuhan, Zhengzhou, and other places, and was later acquired by Sanfu Outdoor. During his participation in the investment of Squirrel Tribe, Cai Erfa learned about the entire process of parent-child tourism from design to operation, and deeply understood customer needs.
Based on Squirrel Tribe, Luer Garden has undergone a comprehensive upgrade in terms of brand IP, quality and taste, product formats, and business models, aiming to provide the target customer group with a more beautiful environment, more diverse choices, and a better experience, creating a one-stop micro-vacation destination and outdoor life aesthetics space that integrates parent-child entertainment, leisure camping, pet interaction, trendy cultural and creative products, wedding catering, natural research, team building activities, and resort hotels.
The total area of Chengdu Luer Garden project is about 210 mu, with the first phase covering about 108 mu. It is divided into five functional areas: "Zhulou Chang - Pet Paradise, Huanlu Pai - Parent-Child Amusement Area, Bailuyuan - Leisure Camping Area, Flower and Deer - Catering and Coffee Area, Xunlu Fang - Cultural and Creative Market Area."
Luer Garden places great emphasis on aesthetics. From small details like a corner landscape to large-scale amusement facilities, every aspect, from color coordination to design, reflects the founding team's commitment to beauty. In Luer Garden, beautiful and Instagrammable scenes are everywhere; some visitors even mistake it for an elaborately decorated outdoor wedding venue. The founding team hopes that every customer, especially children, will discover, perceive, and experience beauty in a relaxed and enjoyable play environment, providing children with an outdoor living aesthetics and art education space from a young age.
Treating visitors as friends and valuing customer feedback are key reasons for Luer Garden's sustained popularity and steady increase in visitor numbers. Since opening, the park has carefully collected and organized hundreds of valuable suggestions from customers, each one carefully discussed, studied, and implemented. Cai Erfa and his team believe that their biggest competitor is themselves; they must never be complacent or slack, always maintaining gratitude and respect, constantly reflecting, optimizing, and striving to create moving and surprising experiences for customers, providing higher-quality leisure experiences.
For example, the park team pays close attention to safe and healthy ingredients. Beef must be whole-cut; even if the cost is higher, they will never use reconstituted meat. In the first year of Chengdu Luer Garden, over 50,000+ guests enjoyed the camping barbecue. Research shows that in the first six months of operation, the highest repeat customer visited 9 times. And the "ticket + self-service barbecue" costs only 138 yuan. This pricing comes from Cai Erfa's philosophy: "For tickets or barbecue, we only make a profit on one aspect. We want to provide products and services that are reasonably priced and heartwarming."
For example, to help busy parents relax on weekends, the park offers a two-hour childcare service with STEAM courses in nature for only 58 yuan.
Luer Garden uses the concept of a "one-stop mini-vacation destination and outdoor living aesthetics space" to break down the boundaries between catering, entertainment, education (especially art education), exhibitions, and industrial development. The "camp" concept, a core attraction away from city life, draws people to continuously seek diverse life experiences.
Beneath the surface, deep inner strength
At Lingnan Holdings, Cai Erfa learned many things that benefited him throughout his life.
First, business should be benevolent and altruistic. Lingnan Holdings' vision is "to make the environment more beautiful and life better," to be a company that contributes value to society.
Second, the culture of striving. The entire company atmosphere is one of striving upward, striving for progress, ambition, and dreams. Either don't do it, or do it to the best of your ability. In the process of Lingnan Holdings' development from a small company to a national industry leader and then to an IPO, corporate culture building, personnel mechanisms, and business models all played a very important role.
These experiences and reflections provided Cai Erfa with excellent learning, growth, and development opportunities for his later entrepreneurial ventures. However, Cai Erfa also learned some negative lessons, such as the sustainability of business models, excessive investment and construction, aggressive expansion, lack of business focus, and talent management.
Cai Erfa keeps these experiences and lessons in mind, so he can at least avoid some fatal mistakes.
For a product like Luer Garden, how does Ruisui Cultural Tourism maintain lasting competitiveness?
When we asked, "Just looking at the project itself, your product seems replicable. Are you worried that teams with stronger state-owned resources and financial resources will quickly replicate your model, disrupting your development rhythm? "
Cai Erfa confidently pointed out two points:
First, complex soft power. If others can learn it at a glance, it's not Ruisui's competitive advantage. What is truly competitive is something that seems simple but is difficult to replicate. Equipment and scenes are easy to copy, but Luer Garden's brand IP, continuous innovation and R&D, resource integration, and corporate mechanisms and culture are not easily imitated.
Not to mention the profound lessons learned over the years. For example, many tourism projects often fail in the first stage of site selection. Ruisui Cultural Tourism, from site selection to planning, design, construction, equipment procurement and installation, marketing, operation, and innovation and R&D, is a comprehensive team. If any of these links are not done well, the project may fail. This is why the tourism industry seems lively, but it is difficult to make a real profit.
Second, Ruisui Cultural Tourism is a partnership. Through the partnership mechanism, the entire company creates and shares together, similar to Haidilao. The park director, deputy director, and the company's main backbones hold shares and dividends at the project, business, and company levels, respectively. In the company, everyone is self-driven and works for themselves. The tourism industry has stable cash flow, which can better realize everyone's dividends. In each Luer Garden project, 30% of the net profit is distributed to middle and senior managers and employees. In the future, Ruisui Cultural Tourism also plans to enter the capital market, and the company's founders and shareholders pursue long-term value. This approach balances short-term benefits with future equity and option appreciation.
Ruisui Cultural Tourism's entire value distribution and cultural mechanism is based on those who strive. Cai Erfa attaches great importance to corporate culture building. His many years of experience at Lingnan Ecological Holdings have taught him that corporate culture is crucial to a company's development. This plays a leading role in attracting talent, establishing the company's values, serving customers, and future development.
Working hand-in-hand with the government to revitalize existing assets
Cai Erfa's experience working with the government at Lingnan Ecological Holdings gave him a deep understanding of the government's pain points and needs.
Cai Erfa believes that over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, the massive accumulation of existing assets resulting from rapid urbanization presents a huge space and opportunity.
China's urbanization process has entered the "second half." This year, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued the "Notice on Preventing Large-Scale Demolition and Reconstruction in Urban Renewal Actions (Draft for Comments)", clearly prohibiting "large-scale demolition and reconstruction" urban development and encouraging "micro-renewal." Updating existing urban green spaces in the style of Luer Garden is undoubtedly a worthwhile attempt to activate inefficient urban spaces at low cost.
However, whether it is the government or private enterprises, revitalizing existing assets requires entering a pragmatic stage of "light investment and heavy operation." Market operators must learn to abandon the past model of heavy investment and construction, starting from market and user needs, reasonably controlling every investment, and spending money wisely. By creating new scenes and business models, we can promote consumption, drive employment, generate tax revenue, and activate assets to fully realize their value and benefits.
Currently, Lu'er Garden is continuously promoting new projects in the national market, all based on revitalizing existing assets. For example, the already opened Wenjiang Lu'er Garden, and the ones under construction in Neijiang, Sichuan and Handan, Hebei, are all based on in-depth cooperation with local state-owned platform companies. The cooperation model involves state-owned platform companies investing in and holding assets, while Roushui Wenlv undertakes OEPC brand implantation, operation, design, and integrated construction. This fully utilizes the local state-owned enterprises' resources and Roushui Wenlv's professional operation resources to quickly bring the Lu'er Garden concept and lifestyle to more cities.
It is understood that while replicating the advantages of the Chengdu project, the Neijiang and Handan projects have also received support from the local cultural system in landscape creation and activity experience, providing unique experiences with local characteristics. Therefore, the core of the project is the authentic Lu'er Garden culture, yet with unique local flavor.
In its future development plan, Roushui Wenlv does not consider Lu'er Garden merely as a park or camp, but rather as the creation of a healthy, relaxed, joyful, beautiful, and happy lifestyle that embraces nature. This aligns with Roushui Wenlv's corporate mission and vision of "creating a beautiful and happy life".
