“Chinese Airbnb” sets new record for room nights
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Tujia, the company known as the “Airbnb of China”, has set a new record for the number of room nights sold.
On 5 August 2016, the company achieved single-day orders exceeding 56,000 room nights. This marks the first time Tujia has disclosed its single-day data, but it constitutes the highest level of single-day transactions recorded in the Chinese accommodation sharing sector to-date. Tujia said that the growth could indicate the start of a period of “explosive market growth” in China in the next six to 12 months.
Other data disclosed by the company showed that families and groups accounted for more than 70% of all Tujia users, and that orders for three or more nights comprised 60% of reservations.
“Multiple persons staying together or staying for multiple days has become a notable characteristic of Tujia users,” the company stated.
It also noted “rapid growth” in bookings at its international properties, with destinations in Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea recording the highest number of transactions. However no specific figures were released to support this assertion.
“After over five years of market cultivation, it is estimated that at least tens of millions Chinese consumers have familiarised and adopted the new house sharing model,” Tujia stated. “The potential market size for house sharing in China is far from being saturated. Meanwhile, major platforms like Tujia have insisted on quality management on a long-term basis, thus establishing trust from users for this new type of accommodation. This is also a significant basis for rapid market growth in the future.”
In August 2015 Tujia raised funding of US$300 million, which valued the overall business at more than US$1 billion. It now features an online inventory of 430,000 properties covering 312 destinations in mainland Chin, and has more than 1,000 properties overseas.
On 22 June 2016, Tujia acquired its domestic rival mayi.com, which it says was an “important strategy of Tujia in an effort to consolidate its leading position in the Chinese market”.
Since launching on 1 December 2011, Tujia’s annual transaction growth rate has exceeded 300% year-on-year. It still has a long way to go to beat Airbnb on a global scale however; the accommodation sharing site currently books approximately 37 million room nights per year, or a daily average of more than 101,000.
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