Tech Check: Will Chinese Travel Accomodation Platform Tujia Put Airbnb Out of House and Home?

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Though Airbnb has proven to be wildly popular in the international travel industry, one market with massive potential is proving a little lukewarm to the home rental platform: China. That's because a domestic platform has been hogging all the buzz among Chinese travelers, accommodating their unique tastes and preferences.

Dubbed Tujia (roughly translated as “home while travelling"), the Chinese platform differs from Airbnb in many ways, and therein lies the secret of its success. At least that's the argument put forth by ACTNews, which recently published an article about Tujia that describes how the service offers properties managed by the company (featuring some services like provided towels) and properties managed by agents or the actual owners.

The former category is made up of 14,000 homes, or about three percent of the properties on Tujia. According to ACTNews, Chinese customers have taken a liking to this feature, which eradicates the need to interact with a private homeowener, saying that Chinese clientele often find it "hard to trust a property owner that they have not previously met, and prefer local home-rental platforms that caters to this need."

The prices have also been very attractive, with a home in the Beijing downtown core costing RMB 400 (USD 60) per night. Tujia Senior Vice President Zhuang Hai said that's much more reasonable than "a nearby five-star hotel" which costs RMB 1,400."

What's more, Tujia is making inroads outside of the China. Nikkei Asian Review recently reported that Tujia struck a deal with Singaporean platform Roomorama, which has a global catalog of 300,000 properties. It went on to say that Tujia had a record 56,000 bookings on its website on one day in August.

However, the most important number of all may very well be Tujia's 120 million app users, versus Airbnb's 80 million. Those totals might surprise onlookers, who are all but blitzed by constant business stories about Airbnb's successes as of late. However, Chinese customers have clearly decided which online homemaker better accommodates their amenity needs.

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Email: kylemullin@truerun.com
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Photo: ifengimg.comNikkei Asian Review