A quiet place to enhance knowledge

Study lounges were doing good business in the country until the pandemic rendered their future uncertain, writes Wang Yiqing

A placid, cozy environment fostering focused thinking and unwavering concentration－on books. That's what study lounges are. Ideal for students with limited options as after-school study spaces, because home is a hassle, libraries are full, coffee shops rather costly, 24-hour eateries full of distracting chatter. Ideal, too, for younger professionals preparing for higher-level exams to further their career or enhance their knowledge. And all for a relatively small fee.

Yet this innovative concept, which led to the mushrooming of study lounges in Beijing and other Chinese cities in the past couple of years, could become an "unlucky" sector of sharing economy, as the novel coronavirus outbreak pressed the pause button on startups.

Imported business model

Study lounge is an imported business model pioneered by the Republic of Korea and Japan. Quite a few study lounge operators in China have said they learned what a study lounge is from a Korean TV drama Reply 1988. In fact, several study lounges in Chinese cities have been named"1988".

The demand for study lounges rose in China, because students can hardly find a tranquil place to study after finishing college. It's hard for them to find a place in a university even if they manage to enter the campus. There are relatively few public libraries even in big cities. And even students on the campus need a peaceful place to focus on studies.

Before 2018, there were few study lounges in China, and that too mainly in some first-and second-tier cities such as Guangzhou, Suzhou and Tianjin. In Beijing, the first study lounge opened in 2018. Yet by 2019, study lounges had become popular nationwide thanks to the wave of sharing economy.

According to market survey organization iiMedia's report, in 2019 there were about 1,000 newly opened study lounges nationwide and the number of paid users soared from 850,000 in 2018 to 2.3 million in 2019. No wonder some media outlets called 2019 the "first year" of study lounge startups.

The sector's rapid growth last year could be attributed to the increasing pressure of employment and shortage of public facilities such as public libraries. According to the 2019 Statistical Bulletin of Culture and Tourism Development of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, there are 3,196 public libraries nationwide, meaning more than 438,000 people sharing one public library.

National Bureau of Statistics data show Beijing and Shanghai have 23 public libraries each－too few to meet user demand. And Beijing with a population of more than 21.53 million has only about 16,430 reading room seats, which means about 1,310 Beijing residents "competing" for one library seat. That the public libraries are far from many neighborhoods and have restrictions such as limited opening hours and complicated registration and membership procedure was also responsible for the study lounge's rapid growth.

The demand for higher, continuous studies is increasing day by day due to the intense competition in the job market. For instance, in 2018 the number of new college graduates was 8.20 million, with the figure increasing to 8.74 million in 2020. And while about 2.9 million students sat the postgraduate entrance exam in 2019, their number increased to a record high of 3.41 million this year.

It is not surprising therefore that the demand for study lounges was high, which helped the emerging sector to grow at a fast rate with many entrepreneurs rushing to invest in the sector because of its low access threshold. The "gymlike" business model is not difficult to understand or duplicate, especially because it doesn't require huge investment, and people don't need higher education degrees and special skills to operate them. In iiMedia's earlier estimate, the number of paid study lounge's users was expected to jump to 7.8 million nationwide in 2020.

But the pandemic has dealt a crushing blow to the emerging industry. Since personal contact in a closed environment is unavoidable, the pandemic forced all the study lounges to shut down for several months. And after the monthslong closure, the industry's future appears uncertain, especially due to the fear of a second wave of infections.