My fishing raft will ask for help.

Chapter 179 Fish rafts need optimization and improvement

With the great white shark incident behind us, the fishing competition is just a few days away.

Although Zhou Miao wanted to continue developing the fish rafts, a few more days wouldn't make a difference; for now, he needed to focus on the competition.

If he were the main angler, he might easily win first place with his luck.

However, the main angler was Yu Muzhou, and he was also organizing the competition for himself, so Zhou Miao certainly wouldn't spoil his fun.

There is already a good fishing spot at the reef, but the fish attraction there is temporary, so he needs to find a few more good fishing spots.

On September 27th, Zhou Miao woke up in the early morning as usual.

Since the fish rafts started operating, Lu Xiaoxiao and Lu Xingyu have rarely slept in late, and they almost never stay up late at night.

So once he finished washing up and stepped out of the cabin, he could have a hot breakfast right away.

"Ah Miao, are we going out to sea today or staying on the fish raft?" Lu Xingyu asked after finishing the last mouthful of red bean porridge and putting down his chopsticks.

"I need to prepare for the upcoming fishing competition, so I need to go out to sea to scout locations again. Is there anything I can help you with?"

"I'd like to discuss some things with you about the fish rafts."

"Tell me about it."

Zhou Miao, who was drinking porridge, looked up and showed some interest.

During this period, Lu Xingyu would help out at the fish raft during the day and fish to prepare food for the sea turtles.

When the sea turtles appear in the evening, Lu Xingyu feeds them and washes them. However, he doesn't wash them often, so taking care of the sea turtles doesn't take up much of his time.

The main purpose is to maintain order, stop tourists from feeding the turtles indiscriminately, and prevent tourists from getting close to the sea turtles.

But taking care of the sea turtles was only to repay the debt of saving his life; Lu Xingyu's focus was still on the fish raft.

"We've been operating our fish raft for about ten days now, and during that time I've collected a lot of customer feedback. Shouldn't we consider making some improvements?"

Zhou Miao highly approved of Lu Xingyu's suggestion.

"We will definitely listen to reasonable suggestions. Please send me the customer's opinions and feedback."

"Okay, you take a look first."

Lu Xingyu took out his phone and sent him the document he had prepared.

Zhou Miao ate breakfast while opening the document and reading it.

He found that Lu Xingyu was quite meticulous, marking the areas that needed improvement with red underlines.

The most important point is to add two more toilets.

It was incredibly popular when it first opened, but many customers with sensitive stomachs couldn't handle the cold nature of seafood and needed to use the restroom shortly after eating the barbecue.

As a result, Zhou Miao only prepared one toilet, which caused many people to have to queue.

If children could relieve themselves directly in the sea, the situation would probably be even worse.

Zhou Miao strongly agreed with this point.

Out of desperation, he opened the cabin's toilet to customers, which solved the problem.

But the cabin was for the few of them to live in, and it wasn't right to let customers use it all the time.

Secondly, we are short of a chef.

Many customers have said that they come here to relax and don't want to go into the kitchen themselves.

Zhou Miao hesitated on this point. A decent chef would earn at least eight to ten thousand yuan a month.

Currently, the fish raft only receives about twenty customers a day. Although it is the off-season for tourism, this is the result of the popularity of sea turtles and the promotion of cultural tourism in Nanzhen.

Whether the business will be good or not is uncertain. It's a small business to begin with, but the chef's annual salary is over 100,000 yuan, which is quite a high cost.

After all, most of the fish farms in the area don't hire professional chefs; at most, the owners just cook some home-style dishes themselves.

"You and Xiaoxiao can take over the chef position for now! We won't hire one this year; we'll see how things go next year if business is good."

"Our current daily turnover is only around three thousand, and after deducting costs and taxes, the profit is probably not even nine hundred."

"One chef takes three hundred a day, and in the end, the two of us don't even earn as much as one chef?"

Lu Xingyu originally intended to hire a chef, not only to better serve customers, but also so that he and his entourage could eat well every day.

But after hearing Zhou Miao's analysis, he felt it made a lot of sense: "Okay, the chef will be decided for now."

Zhou Miao listened to his agreement and continued reading.

The third point is that there are too few activities to do. Apart from fishing, the only activity is watching sea turtles in the afternoon.

Some of the activities on the fish rafts are designed for children and are not suitable for young people.

Seeing this, Zhou Miao sighed softly: "Sigh, I've thought about that too. I've even considered hiring a diving instructor to teach customers how to dive and explore the underwater world."

"We've considered doing some jet ski activities, but the tourist base is too small, and projects that are too expensive are simply not feasible!"

Lu Xingyu nodded in agreement: "I don't think there's any rush for these things, but have we considered taking customers out to sea to fish or go angling? For example, we could set fish traps, one trap for 100 yuan. After paying, customers could pull in the traps themselves, and everything inside would be theirs?"

"Many customers have asked about this before, but we were too busy to discuss it and didn't mention it at the time."

Zhou Miao's eyes lit up: "That's a good idea. We can set the cages in the nearby waters. The fishing boats don't consume much diesel fuel, so the cost is negligible."

"If we're lucky, this one project alone could generate more revenue each day than the ticket sales."

"But we also need to find a good location, otherwise customers won't be willing to spend money if there's nothing to offer."

As they talked, Zhou Miao thought of the mangrove forest.

"Right, let's release them in the mangrove forest. The blue crabs don't come out much during the day, but we can catch a few if we release them for a few hours."

"We charge 100 yuan for the experience of collecting crabs from a cage. If a cage can catch two crabs for the customer to take home, the customer will feel like they've made a good deal, which will increase their interest in spending money, and we can generate revenue steadily."

Seeing that the new project was approved and that Zhou Miao had proposed specific and feasible methods, Lu Xingyu gradually became excited.

"Haha, it's settled then."

There were still many customer suggestions left, but after reviewing them, Zhou Miao realized that none of them could be implemented for the time being.

Either the cost is too high, or the fish rafts are too small to be expanded.

For example, many customers want to stay on a fish raft and experience the living environment of a wooden house on the sea.

Everyone knows that there's potential in the homestay business, but starting one without proper preparation can easily lead to losses!

Zhou Miao not only wants to run a bed and breakfast, but also a food stall!

After breakfast, Zhou Miao and Lu Xingyu identified the area that needed the most improvement: adding more toilets.

Secondly, a new activity has been added: for 100 yuan, you can experience collecting fish traps yourself.

This new project is a priority, and Zhou Miao immediately cancelled his original plan to go out to sea to collect sea urchins.

He asked Lu Xingyu to contact Master Sun and ask him to come and help build another toilet at the edge of the wooden house.

He then took all twenty-five fish traps out of the tool shed and placed them on the fishing boat.

Zhou Miao didn't rush to set up the traps, but waited for Lu Xiaoxiao to bring over the first batch of customers who were coming today.

The fish rafts open at 8 a.m., and customers can stay on the rafts as long as they want. Therefore, tourists who have made reservations in advance usually arrive at the pier at 8 a.m. sharp to wait for pick-up and drop-off.

Lu Xiaoxiao brought back thirteen customers in two consecutive trips.

Only two of them were seasoned anglers dressed in fishing gear; the rest were tourists experiencing the novelty of the fishing rafts.

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