New | Dear business traveller, China’s Airbnb has a room for you
Xiaozhu, the Chinese startup that’s often called China’s Airbnb, will carve out a new segment of homes that are aimed specifically at attracting and meeting the needs of business travellers.
Home-sharing start-up Xiaozhu, often dubbed “China’s Airbnb” due to its similar business model, is looking at business travellers to boost the company’s growth in China’s short-term home-rental market.
On Wednesday, Xiaozhu chief executive Kelvin Chen Chi said that the company would be carving out a new segment of homes that are specifically targeted at fulfilling the needs of employees on business trips.
“Sometimes employees need to stay in a city for two to three months to work on a project, and it’s not [cost-effective] to stay at a hotel ... we want to fill this gap in the market that hotels cannot meet,” he said.
Homes that wish to be eligible as an enterprise offering need to be within 10 minutes by foot to public transport, offer 24-hour check-in, provide official invoices, guarantee a refund in case of a hygiene-related complaint as well as come equipped with office facilities such as a projector and a broadband internet connection, enabling employees to work from their temporary home.
Xiaozhu (小豬) has just started rolling out its homes targeted at business travellers in about 20 cities including Shenzhen, Chen said, although the company expects to expand to more than 50 cities in China offering about 80,000 apartments for such travellers by the end of the year – a number similar to the total number of listings that Airbnb currently has in China.
