At the New Oriental 2024 China College Students’ Postgraduate Entrance Examination White Paper release event held on April 16, New Oriental’s founder, Yu Minhong, revealed that the company is expanding into the cultural and tourism industry.
When discussing the logic behind entering the cultural and tourism industry, Yu Minhong smiled and said, “We’re getting into tourism because I want to have fun and I enjoy traveling. Who knows, while having fun, we might succeed in the cultural and tourism business.”
At a deeper level, he believes that New Oriental’s core competency lies in teaching. New Oriental’s teachers are beloved by parents for their lecturing skills. In other words, just as teachers can transfer their expressive abilities to becoming live-streaming e-commerce hosts, in the future, teachers can also transition into the role of knowledgeable tour guides who excel at explaining attractions.
“In the future, if our cultural and tourism business takes off, we will cultivate a group of tour guides who can deliver lectures,” Yu Minhong mentioned in his speech.
In fact, New Oriental has been preparing to enter the cultural and tourism industry for some time, and the company’s management has recently mentioned this matter on several occasions in public settings.
On February 27 of this year, Yu Minhong started a lecture series called “Lao Yu’s Chat Room” where he discussed the Beijing section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. “Previously, Lao Yu’s Chat Room was in a conversational format, but because New Oriental is venturing into cultural and tourism business, I personally have an interest in geography. So, Lao Yu’s Chat Room has started to cover topics related to cultural and tourism… In the future, I will take everyone on a live-streaming tour starting from the Beijing section of the Grand Canal, visiting important attractions along the way.”
Then, on March 1-2, Yu Minhong visited the Chongli Taowa Ski Resort and collaborated with the Oriental Selection’s TikTok account to live-stream and promote skiing tourism products.
In late March, as the director of the Central Committee of the Democratic League’s Education Committee, Yu Minhong attended the first Rural Revitalization and Development Forum organized by the Democratic League and delivered a keynote speech. Yu Minhong mentioned, “Finding an industry that is always supported by policies and continuously needed by people means that it can never fail.” He advised entrepreneurs, “A company needs to grow bigger and help more people without limitations. Currently, Oriental Selection is a live-commerce platform, and that has limitations. In the future, I will focus on the agricultural field. This year, I plan to invest in ten agricultural enterprises and grow together with them.” When discussing his next goal, Yu Minhong stated, “I have a mindset when it comes to doing things, which is that the endeavor must be meaningful and interesting. Another goal of mine is ‘beautiful scenery.’ I will expand into the cultural and tourism industry, and no matter how many challenges lie ahead, I will continue to move forward with New Oriental.”
