Zigong Lantern Industry in Peak Season While Pandemic
Zigong lanterns finally ushered in the peak season. It seems that the major lantern companies should be as busy as in previous years, but this year's lantern peak season has surprised the industry.
From just past October to the beginning of this month, epidemics occurred in Chengdu and Chongqing one after another, leading to escalation of prevention and control, and many places have become high-risk areas for epidemics. This is a bolt from the blue for the long-awaited Zigong lantern practitioners. The epidemic that lasted for two years has allowed the Zigong lantern industry to enter the industry's cold winter in history. The sudden outbreak of the Chengyu epidemic is undoubtedly worse for Zigong lanterns.
Zigong lanterns should be the season for receiving a large number of customers and placing orders every year. However, after the official release of the epidemic prevention and control measures in Sichuan Province, everyone in the lanterns can’t help but shake their hearts. The impact of the epidemic has caused the lantern market to continue to be sluggish in at least the following three aspects.
1. The investment enthusiasm of lantern investors has plummeted, and the number of orders has dropped drastically. Since the outbreak of the epidemic at the beginning of 2020, many lantern investors, especially customers whose main business is profitable lantern fair revenue, have suffered a complete loss. Under the current epidemic situation, most of them are in a wait-and-see and hesitant state, and they dare not venture to invest. Holding a lantern festival has led to a reduction in orders.
2. The epidemic has more or less prevented some customers who want to inspect Zigong lanterns from tribute. The recent Chengdu-Chongqing epidemic caused the suspension of some flights, trains, and automobile transportation from Zigong to Chengdu. The large amount of traffic inconvenience caused customers who originally planned to come from the joint investigation to temporarily cancel their itineraries, which undoubtedly reduced the number of Zigong lanterns. Opportunities for cooperation.
3. The construction of Zigong lanterns also invisibly increased labor costs. Part of the traffic outage caused some lantern companies with orders to go out for construction with high-priced chartered vehicles, and increased their accounting and inspection budgets, and the unpredictable risk budget led to a certain increase in product quotations, which would invisibly reduce the order rate of the lantern companies.
In summary, although Zigong lanterns ushered in the peak season of the industry, we still see the downturn of the lantern industry.
