Tujia, a Chinese home-sharing platform, does not want to be known as the “Airbnb of China”, even though it offers an identical service. The company has been criticised for its lack of transparency and for allowing users to rent out their homes without disclosing who is paying them. "Chinese travellers have high expectations of service levels - they wouldn't like it if hosts expected them to take out the trash," says the Beijing-based accommodation platform's co-founder and CTO. It is interesting to note that Tujia has taken a very different stance from Airbnb, and partners with local authorities as soon as it enters a new region, meaning that it has avoided many of the regulatory dramas that continually plague Airbnb. "We collaborated with government from the start," Yang says. "We signed 160 agreements, from cities to provinces, and in some regions we built home-rental associations to encourage taxpaying."
Tujia, a Chinese home-sharing platform, does not want to be known as the “Airbnb of China”, even though it offers an identical service. The company has been criticised for its lack of transparency and for allowing users to rent out their homes without disclosing who is paying them. It is interesting to note that Tujia has taken a very different stance from Airbnb, and partners with local authorities as soon as it enters a new region, meaning that it has avoided many of the regulatory dramas that continually plague Airbnb. "We collaborated with government from the start," Yang says. "We signed 160 agreements, from cities to provinces, and in some regions we built home-rental associations to encourage taxpaying."