Chinese homestay booking provider Tujia has announced that it has signed a strategic agreement with SiteMinder, a global cloud platform for the hotel industry. The new partnership underlines an increasing focus for the company’s global expansion efforts.
The function is expected to become available to all hosts who use the service outside of China starting in mid-July. After the service goes online, Tujia will have an accurate real-time inventory of no less than 50,000 room-nights each day, according to a company statement.
More Chinese travelers, especially the younger generation, choose Airbnb-like lodging services over traditional hotels. Services like Tujia and Xiaozhu boomed along with the trend. At the same time, Chinese people’s enormous demand for outbound tours is pushing local homestay companies to improve their overseas supports in a bid capitalize on the new trend. Chinese tourists crossed China’s borders 131 million times in 2017, according to the UN’s World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).
The Ctrip-backed company has expanded its lodging-service network to over 345 domestic and 1,037 overseas destinations with over 1,200,000 online residential houses, including apartments, homestays, and villas as well as traveling services that can cater to various accommodation needs.