Tourists to the Great Wall can now have their lunch delivered from the sky, thanks to a new drone delivery service from Meituan, a major Chinese food delivery company. Announced last week, the service will deliver food, drinks, and even essential items like medical supplies to visitors at a remote section of the ancient site on the outskirts of Beijing.
Tech giant Meituan has launched a drone delivery service to the famous Badaling section of the Great Wall, delivering food and medicine packages to tourists who are exploring the world's longest wall.
Tourists to the Great Wall can now get their lunch from the air
The new service does not offer direct drone drop-offs to customers. Instead, drones will fly a fixed route from the warehouse to a landing site on the Great Wall, where delivery personnel will then deliver the packages to customers.
Each drone can carry up to 2.3kg of cargo per trip and can operate in “light wind and rain”, according to Meituan. The company will offer the service for free during the trial period, after which the fee will be the same as regular delivery.
"Thanks to drones, we can deliver cooling items and emergency necessities to travelers in just five minutes instead of 50 minutes on foot," said Yan Yan, public relations director of Meituan's drone business.
The drone delivery fee is just 4 yuan, equivalent to Meituan's regular delivery fee. The service will accept orders from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., after which the drones will be tasked with transporting the trash to recycling stations.
However, the drones still require human assistance. When an order is received, a Meituan employee will pick up the goods from a nearby store and take them to the hotel rooftop, where they will be weighed and packaged. The operator will then attach the package to the drone, which will autonomously fly to a watchtower where another employee will wait to pick up the goods.
Several more companies are now using the service. Meituan has so far operated 30 drone delivery routes, handling more than 300,000 orders.
Drone delivery fee is only 4 yuan, equivalent to regular delivery fee
Shanghai has set up two drone delivery routes in Yangpu District in the past eight months to serve a busy commercial area and a public park. Cities such as Wuhu, Zhuzhou and Nantong will also introduce drone delivery services this year.
This is the capital Beijing's first drone delivery service, making Meituan the second Chinese company to enter the drone delivery market.
Drone delivery services in China have exploded in recent years. In 2016, e-commerce giant JD launched the first trial of a rural delivery drone, capable of carrying 15kg of goods up to 20km, cutting delivery times from four hours by car on winding mountain roads to just under 20 minutes.
