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Dec. 6 (NBD) -- China is to become our largest origin market by 2020, Airbnb co-founder and chief strategy officer Nathan Blecharczyk said Tuesday at the Fortune Brainstorm TECH International Conference in Guangzhou, China.

Airbnb entered the Chinese market in 2015, creating a platform for people to lease or rent short-term lodging. Nathan noted that the number of Chinese Airbnb users has amounted to 8.6 million, and there are 120,000 homes in China listed on the platform, with an annual growth rate of 250%.

Given the thriving sharing economy there, Airbnb is betting big in China. So far, Airbnb has established a presence in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, and Shanghai, and the list is still growing. To ease localization challenges, Airbnb has also set up a local team in Beijing, added Nathan.

The year 2017 has witnessed the rapid development of short-term housing rentals in China. As of November, a total of 13 short-term rental companies have managed to get investments, according to statistics provided by VCSaaSS, a tech-driven venture capital.  

However, competition remains fierce. Short-term home rental platform Xiaozhu adopted the same C2C model as Airbnb, claiming to have 200,000 lodgings in 322 Chinese cities and 100 cities abroad. In addition, China's online travel agents such as Ctrip and Qunaer.com are also starting to provide homestay services.

Nathan says that Airbnb is more willing to grow businesses through customer referrals instead of capital investments. In addition, the company has set up a customer services department in China, facilitating users to quickly solve problems arisen during their stays. To provide better services, it has also made Alipay as one of its payment options.

However, it's worth noting that the short-term housing rental industry in China is still in its primary stage, and there is no giant dominating the whole industry. Wei Changren, CEO of Jinlv Consulting, a travel research agency, told NBD that despite this, it is not easy to grab a greater share of the niche sector at one stroke, as local homestay accommodation providers have made great headway in services over the development in the past few years. To Airbnb, it would be vital to build customer habits and improve overall services and management.  

Email: tanyuhan@nbd.com.cn