Ask AI · Industry competition intensifies, how does Atour use experience moat to maintain its leading position?

01. Achieving hundreds of millions of followers through experience

“My first time staying at Atour, I was directly shocked. Not only was the toothbrush super easy to use, but the toilet was thoughtfully equipped with alcohol wipes, the paper cups in the room had lids and were heat-resistant, and with Atour’s tips, there were steam eye masks and earplugs, plus hot milk at night.” Qian Yu said, after staying at Atour, she realized that hotels are really different from each other.

After sharing her experience of staying at Atour online, it resonated with many people. “I really like staying at Atour, every time their service warms my heart, the cookies and tea drinks are very good.” “My favorite is Atour’s laundry service, which is delivered to the door early in the morning after washing late at night.” “I even took the slippers and toothbrushes with me, they’re no worse than what I buy outside.”

Some joked, “After staying at Atour, I can’t get used to five-star hotels anymore.” “My first stay at Atour, the front desk even served a cup of honey water during check-in, so thoughtful, I felt revived after drinking it.”

Before staying at Atour, Gao Lin had no expectations, but unexpectedly experienced the feeling of being carefully cared for, even warmer than a “warm-hearted guy.”

“I’ve passed by Atour many times, but never looked into it or stayed. Not long ago, by chance, I stayed at Atour for a night, and only then understood why everyone loves staying at Atour,” Gao Lin said. Before check-in, the front desk would call to ask whether he preferred the room air conditioning to be cooler or warmer. After check-in, because he asked for sanitary pads, the housekeeping staff proactively prepared ginger sugar tea and hot packs for him.

On social media platforms, consumers’ memories of Atour’s differentiated experience mainly revolve around three high-frequency words: Bamboo Residence, Deep Sleep, and Breakfast.

Atour Bamboo Residence is a 24-hour free reading space available in every Atour hotel, not only serving guests but also open to nearby communities. Many people regard it as their “spiritual station.”

“There are warm light wooden shelves, sunlight shining on the book spines, mixed with a faint tea aroma, chatting a few words at a reading club, feeling the warmth added to the journey.” One user borrowed 209 books from Atour Bamboo Residence over 8 years, finding a spiritual outlet through it. Others say: “On days when I don’t want to use my phone during business trips, I was healed by the scent of books in the lobby of Atour hotel.”

Regarding Deep Sleep, a white-collar worker has stayed at Atour for a total of 1,140 nights, equivalent to over three years. He emphasizes that it’s due to Atour’s Deep Sleep experience and standardized service, which allows him to maintain consistent rest quality during frequent business trips. Someone also revealed that his first stay at Atour was the “best sleep” he had in years.

So, why does Atour help people sleep soundly? It’s because Atour has perfected everything from pillows, mattresses to the entire sleep environment. All hotels under Atour also incorporate many relaxing elements into the space, aiming to help business travelers who are exhausted from work not only sleep well but also feel more relaxed.

For breakfast, Atour’s local specialty breakfast has become a signature. Beijing stores feature Zhajiang noodles, Nanjing stores serve duck blood vermicelli soup, Wuhan stores offer hot dry noodles. Some specifically stay at Atour in Chongqing just to enjoy a bowl of red soup dumplings. Others travel to Lanzhou and taste the local Lanzhou beef noodles. Atour allows consumers to enjoy local delicacies without leaving the hotel. If they have an early flight and can’t dine in the restaurant, they can also enjoy breakfast takeout.

Industry experts say that after staying at Atour for a long time, you’ll find that its true strength lies not in design tension but in product logic. In hotel industry terms, it’s about making the “experience closed loop” very stable, from serving tea, to book borrowing, late-night porridge, fitness and laundry, and Atour Tips. Every service product is meticulously refined and managed, creating a “just right” sense of care, allowing guests to truly feel “body and mind at ease,” making them want to stay again.

Thanks to this, many consumers like Qian Yu and Gao Lin, who fall in love with Atour after just one stay. The latest financial report shows that by the end of 2025, Atour’s registered members have reached 112 million, a year-on-year increase of over 25%. Over a hundred million followers have helped Atour deliver an unexpectedly strong performance in 2025, a year of industry stock competition and overall growth pressure.

02. Continually evolving growth flywheel

More and more people staying at Atour, its revenue in 2025 reached 9.79 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 35.1%. Looking at the longer timeline, Atour’s performance over the past five years has almost achieved geometric growth: revenue broke through 2 billion yuan in 2021, and approached 10 billion yuan by 2025.

How did Atour achieve this? It’s because Atour successfully built a continuously evolving growth flywheel.

Since opening its first hotel in 2013, Atour broke free from conventional thinking, capturing the pursuit of quality life at that time, and firmly chose to explore a mid-to-high-end hotel market outside of economy chains and international five-star hotels. Its goal was to win the experience and value recognition of consumers who pursue quality living.

Meanwhile, from check-in to check-out, Atour designed over a dozen high-perception service products. As a result, hotels are no longer just places to stay but scenes of quality life. By focusing on target groups, shaping scenarios, and refining experiences, Atour planted the first seed for the flywheel’s rotation.

In 2019, Atour had only a few hundred stores; by 2022, it grew to over 900; in 2023, it expanded to more than 1,200. At that time, Atour set a three-year strategic goal of achieving “2000 good stores,” and this promise was fulfilled as scheduled. Last year, Atour opened 488 new hotels, and by the end of 2025, the number of operating hotels reached 2,015, a year-on-year increase of 24.5%.

The second key to accelerating the growth flywheel is the scene-based breakthrough of retail business, using hotel scenarios as “natural experience scenes” for retail, creating a closed loop of “experience – recognition – purchase – repurchase,” efficiently converting hotel traffic into retail revenue, forming a positive cycle of “hotel empowering retail, retail feeding back to hotels.”

In 2025, through strategic focus, Atour successfully developed retail as its “second growth curve,” with revenue reaching 3.67 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 67%, accounting for nearly 40% of the group’s total revenue.

The success of Atour’s retail business owes much to founder Yelü Yin’s bold decision in 2022: drastically reducing retail SKUs, focusing solely on sleep scenarios. The reason is that the sleep market is large but fragmented, with no single brand holding more than 5% market share among the top three, and lacking star products—an opportunity for Atour.

Focusing on sleep, Atour began to obsess over pillows and quilts, deeply understanding user needs and tackling the most common sleep issues. Eventually, Atour’s “sleep products” emerged. By 2025, sales of the Deep Sleep Pillow Pro series exceeded 10 million units, ranking first in niche categories on major e-commerce platforms.

Yelü Yin said in an interview that the reason Atour’s pillows sell so well is because they solve real user pain points. Many people take a long time to fall asleep because of insufficient support; they wake up unrefreshed because of too much tossing and turning. Atour continuously optimizes materials and structure, making support more stable, reducing turning pressure, and decreasing the chances of waking up in the middle of the night. Over the years, Atour has iterated on its sleep products like Apple does with phones, refining to perfection. Many people first walk into Atour because of its pillows.

From a single hotel brand to a “hotel + retail” dual-driven lifestyle brand, Atour’s growth flywheel was not built overnight but through long-term strategic focus and mode refinement, forming a complete logic of “target group – scene – experience.” The scale growth and quality upgrade of hotel business provide stable scenes and traffic; scene-based breakthroughs in retail inject new growth momentum; deep membership operations amplify the flywheel’s energy; and continuous iteration of differentiated strategies based on resonance with consumers ensures the flywheel remains highly efficient amid industry changes.

03. Deepening experience, cultivating brand

Although Atour’s growth flywheel has driven rapid development in the past, today, with increasing industry competition and innovation becoming more difficult, ideas and creativity are quickly copied, making growth more challenging. Looking ahead, how will Atour build its own differentiated competitive advantage?

After surpassing the 2000-hotel mark and standing again at a critical industry juncture, Atour announced a new three-year strategy of “Chinese Experience, Brand Leadership,” and proposed the vision of “Centennial Atour, Warm Companionship.” This new strategy shifts focus from scale expansion to brand cultivation, strengthening brand value and deepening user connections.

Since its founding, Atour has not only operated hotels but also managed a community of people. Starting from accommodation, it aims to convey a humanistic, warm, and interesting lifestyle to consumers pursuing quality life, becoming a lifestyle brand group. This goal remains unchanged. Next, it plans to further upgrade “experience,” extending it into more scenarios.

In terms of branding, Atour covers high-end, mid-to-high-end, and mid-market segments through products like Sahe, Atour S, Atour Jianye, Atour Hotels, and Qingju. It will continue to improve its brand matrix layout. Yelü Yin revealed in an interview that in his positioning—Qingju is the future growth point, Sahe is the high-end flagship, and Atour is the foundation. Qingju aims to become the second thousand-store brand within the Atour system.

Yelü Yin said that Atour has always wanted to be a high-end brand that is influential among Chinese people. “We’ve been absent in this field for too long.” Sahe, launched in 2024, is Atour’s high-end hotel brand, incorporating local wellness culture as an experiential touchpoint. By the end of last year, Sahe had opened three stores in Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou, and in Q4 2025, its RevPAR (Revenue per Available Room) exceeded 950 yuan. However, “restraint” remains a prerequisite for Atour’s high-end hotel development. Sahe aims to be boutique, with quality as the core. Yelü Yin also set a goal for the team: to operate only 50 hotels in 10 years.

Earlier this year, the “Atour 4.0” operation, after more than two years, was officially upgraded to an independent brand, “Atour Jianye.” It incorporates Yunnan cultural elements into its space design, emphasizing relaxation and emotional value, strengthening the deep sleep scene. When the resort hotel atmosphere and relaxation are introduced into business hotels, the “vacation feeling” becomes part of daily travel.

As Yelü Yin said, Atour is not about explosive growth; what truly matters is the brand. The company adheres to long-termism—solid fundamentals, steady growth, gradual accumulation—ultimately gaining the ability to withstand cycles.

Today, Atour stands at a new starting point, determined to continue connecting users through experience and driving growth with brand. In the next three years, whether in hotels or retail, Atour will boldly explore more new possibilities.

(Names like Qian Yu and Gao Lin are pseudonyms)

(Author | Yang Yi, Editor | Wu Yue, Image Source | Visual China, Content from Caijing Tianxia WEEKLY)