3,500 yuan a month, and you can’t get off work until 12pm...The reality of the world “behind” Beijing Universal Studios

Behind the traffic are real people. They are scenic spot tourists, scenic spot staff, and nearby hotel staff... During the busiest National Day holiday at Universal Studios Beijing, they together form the "backside" of Universal Studios - which is completely different from the "fairy tale paradise" of human reality.

Staff with a monthly salary of 3,500

Can’t get off work until 12pm

“Ha, finally there are fewer people!” At 9:30 pm, Zhang Fen (pseudonym) I couldn't hide my excitement and sighed to my colleagues around me, "I'm exhausted."

During the National Day, Universal Studios Beijing extended its operating hours from 9 pm to 10 pm. Correspondingly, the business hours of restaurants in the park have also been extended.

Zhang Fen works at the most popular "Three Broomsticks" restaurant in the park. This restaurant is located in the Harry Potter Park, which is also the most popular park in the entire Universal Studios. . During the National Day holiday, the queue time for a single item once exceeded two hours.

As the "most popular restaurant" in the "most popular park", when other park restaurants are not full, there is always a long queue at the door of the "Three Broomsticks" restaurant, in order to facilitate the queueing of tourists. , the restaurant even set up more than three layers of isolation barriers at the door. It can be said that the "Three Broomsticks" restaurant is always bustling from lunch time to dinner time. For many tourists, coming to this restaurant to enjoy an expensive "British delicacy" is also a "check-in" for Universal Studios. part of.

"My children are all asleep when I get home. My home is not very far away, so I come to work here to be close to home and have job security." Zhang Fen said that she was one of the first batch to come. People who work at Universal Studios used to work in restaurants themselves. “In a private hotel, it’s easier than here, but there are no guarantees and the boss is not very good.”

Now in this job at Universal Studios, Zhang Fen feels that "although it's tiring, it's still okay" because she feels that as a mother of two children, it's good to be able to "work close to home, and it's nice to hear Universal Studios tell people about it."

What makes her most dissatisfied may be the salary that does not match the workload. At the beginning of the opening of Universal Studios Beijing, a salary standard for employees of Universal Beijing Resort was circulated on the Internet: At Universal Studios Beijing, the salary of the most common front-line operations staff is 4,500 yuan per month before tax. After deducting five insurances and one housing fund, I got about 3,500 yuan. In addition, Universal Studios will provide dormitories. If you need to live in a staff dormitory, the accommodation fee of 600 yuan will be deducted from your salary, which is actually less than 3,000 yuan per month.

According to previous media reports, front-line employees at Universal Studios generally receive only about 3,500 yuan. These people are restaurant waiters, entertainment escorts, activity guides, various regional operators, retail operation sales assistants, etc., which are the 50 people that tourists encounter most often in the park. If you need to live in a staff dormitory, the accommodation fee of 600 yuan will be automatically deducted, and you will receive 2,900 yuan per month.

Zhang Fen lives at home and doesn’t have to pay for accommodation, but the money she gets is too little. “I used to earn almost 5,000 a month from working in a hotel with perfect attendance bonuses and so on.” However, she also admitted that in the hotel before, "we were not provided with five insurances, and there was no guarantee."

"That's definitely not the case, it's too expensive." Zhang Fen said decisively, "Have a meal Half a month’s salary is gone.”

Hotel front desk: Is it fun in there?

Price of a hotel near Universal Studios

Because parking in the park also costs 150 yuan, many people simply stay nearby to make it easier to enter the park the next day.

During the chat, Mengmeng said that she is from Tongzhou, she is 21 years old, and she has been working as a front desk person in this hotel for a year. "I'm usually not too tired, but I have to be on duty at night, so it's hard to sleep on my stomach. I even get dark circles under my eyes."

Regarding work, I often encounter unreasonable customers, and I also thought about it. I changed jobs, but because my home was in Tongzhou, my parents didn’t let me go too far away. When Universal Studios Beijing opened, I wanted to apply for a job, but later I heard that "it was very tiring at Universal Studios and the salary was very low, so I didn't go." Mengmeng can now earn about 4,200 yuan a month, which is good. You don’t have to spend money on meals. The hotel has a small canteen and you can save money. However, girls also like to buy things. Mengmeng thinks this salary is “not enough.”

Since Beijing Universal Studios officially opened for business on September 20, Mengmeng has continued to receive guests going to Universal Studios. From their different descriptions, we can basically piece together what Universal Studios looks like: the Harry Potter area is very fun, the things are very expensive, the "Decepticon" roller coaster is particularly exciting, and one item requires a long queue.

Tourist:

One day spent 2,300 yuan for one person

The magic wand and robe cost 1,198 yuan in total

Not only In this way, the various advertising placements in the park are also very "drama-y", making the entire park more "commercial". For example, in Kung Fu Panda: The World of Legends, you can see hidden Yuanfudao advertisements while queuing; in "Transformers: Battle for All Fire", Mengniu branded and implanted it, and the Decepticon roller coaster had the words "China" printed on it. Life”. The implantation of various brands’ voices, pictures, naming, etc. is simply “pervasive”.

Behind such high consumption is a high economic debt burdened by this movie theme park. According to the Pacific Securities Research Report, Beijing Universal Studios consists of three phases. The first phase investment reached 50 billion yuan, and the total investment plan for the third phase is in the range of 70 billion to 100 billion yuan. Universal Studios Beijing consists of two theme parks and a water park. Its total scale will exceed that of Orlando Theme Park and become the largest Universal theme park in the world. There have been media reports, "Theme parks are extremely heavy investments. The investment in large-scale domestic theme parks is more than 1 billion, and the overall payback period is generally at least 10 years. Every year, the number of tourists must be continuously guaranteed and the unit price per customer can be achieved. This account Only then can we calculate it.”

Peripheral toys are expensive

However, based on the current flow of people at Universal Studios, this “economic account” is obviously very optimistic: before the National Day holiday, Calculated based on the daily traffic of 50,000 people, Universal Studios’ one-day ticket revenue from September 20 to October 1 was close to 32 million yuan. From October 2 to October 6, the daily ticket revenue was as high as 37.4 million yuan. Based on the calculation of 600 yuan per ticket, Universal Studios’ monthly ticket revenue can be close to 1 billion yuan.