Tujia hosted the 2017 Tujia Open World Summit in Beijing on March 23 and Co-founder and CEO Justin Luo took the stage to highlight the development strategy for 2017. He further explained the specific strategic actions from four perspectives, namely, consumers, hosts, property buyers as well as regionalisation. Yang Changle, Chief Operation Officer of Tujia Platform Operation Company and Ding Xiaoliang, President of Tujia Offline Operation Company, in their first public appearance, delivered the 2017 product launches one after another, and illustrated the specific planning of several businesses and key products both online and offline in more detail.
The key theme of the conference was increasing focus on user experience. Going forward, Tujia will target user profile more precisely, with features like “multiple people, extended period of stay and personalized lodging experience”, to meet the demands for more scenarios such as business travel, family gatherings, and transitional accommodation.
In order to make progress in this direction, first step will be to offer the homestays through eight platforms so that travellers can book easily and adhere to their preferable platform. Next will be to focus on more aspects of the entire trip, before, during and after the stay to address the specific needs. Most importantly, Tujia is upgrading user service guarantee by bringing together elements like house examination, Tujia premium hosts, two way evaluation among others to boost confidence.
Distributing the inventory through eight platforms including Tujia.com, Mayi.com, Ctrip.com, Elong.com, Qunar.com and 58.com, WeChat hotel booking and Zhima Credit would also have advantages for hosts. Justin Luo announced that Tujia has consolidated all of them and hosts can use the Tujia’s host side management app to control all the channels.
To get more people to share their homes, Tujia has piloted a program in 10 cities to provide room cleaning, towel and bed sheet laundry as well as smart lock service. In addition to this, Tujia will also provide other services like operational training, security consulting, income management and other service support to help the hosts become more professional.
Tujia has also been working with property developers to further ramp up supply side of the business and is looking to have deeper associations with regional governments and partners.
As Airbnb looks to strengthen its position in China as it recently announced with the new brand launch, Tujia is scaling up the challenge. With reach to an array of distribution channels and other offerings for the hosts, Tujia is trying to take control of one side of the chain and have stronger inventory which in turn will attract more guests. How the two major players compete on the Chinese soil is something time will tell.
