Transaction value of home sharing market in China 2015-2021

The Chinese short-term rental market has shrunk during the COVID-19 pandemic and the total annual revenue dropped to 15.2 billion yuan in 2021. Tujia.com, often named China's answer to Airbnb, was the leader in this competitive domestic market. Its success was based on its entirely different model to Airbnb, which better caters to Chinese travelers' cultural and consumption behavior.

The short-term rental market in China

Until 2019, the home-sharing market has thrived in China as the number of domestic tourists continued to grow. In 2019, China had more than 1.3 million short-term rentals listed online and nearly 6.85 million monthly active users. Short-term rental accommodations are popular among younger travelers in particular. This picture changed fundamentally with the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, and it is not foreseeable yet when the industry will switch back to growth.

Airbnb's predicament in China

Entering China in 2016, the global vacation rental leader Airbnb struggled to take more of the market share from local competitors. As of February 2020, Chinese short-term rental platform Mayi.com recorded around 384 thousand active app users, approximately 50 thousand more than Airbnb users in China. In recent years, Airbnb pushed forward its localization in China by building partnerships with local authorities and cultural institutes.