Guangzhou Tops Bookings for Homestays During Spring Festival Holiday

This Spring Festival holiday, homestay bookings by Chinese tourists might have more than doubled from a year ago, according to industry projections.

Release time : 2019-02-18 11:15:20

source : ECNS

booked their accommodation online in advance. The popular online bookings app is partly enabled by technologies like big data, artificial intelligence (in the form of smart e-recommendations) and virtual reality (that helps create 3-D or immersive content portraying the accommodation facilities). This helps the users to make informed choices and makes decision-making efficient, said Li.

Compared to hotel rooms, shared accommodation with facilities for cooking, laundry and local characteristics is a better choice for family travels, thus improving the standard of living, she said.

According to travel predictions for 2019 by Booking, a website for travelers, travel with experiences at its core was one of the major travel trends last year. And 2019 will extend the trend. For 60 percent of travelers, experiences are now valued higher than material possessions.

"In the past few years, China's home-sharing industry has developed rapidly and healthily, and more and more high-quality accommodations are available with special characteristics," said Peng.

He also said the improving quality of interactions between landlords and short-term tenants is an important attraction for travelers who are increasingly steering clear of traditional hotels.

China's home-share market sales reached 14.5 billion yuan ($2.15 billion) in 2017, up 71 percent year-on-year. This figure is expected to reach toward 50 billion yuan by 2020, said a report published by the State Information Center, a public institution affiliated to the National Development and Reform Commission.

About 50 million units of homes across China are available, which can meet the requirements of travelers' online booking for short-term stays, said Li.

Airbnb's inbound tourism contributes more than half of its total China business, and it expects its China division business to nearly triple in the second half of 2018, according to Peng.

"China is a large market full of opportunities