(Chinese Version)

Global house rental service provider Airbnb released a new house rating Airbnb Plus, and unveiled its Airbnb Host Academy in China on March 29th.

The unicorn launched its global strategy and set up its goal one month ago to accommodate over one billion guests on the platform per year by 2028.

At the press release, Nathan Blecharczyk, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Airbnb, introduced his Chinese name "Bo Siqi". He also introduced the four parts of Airbnb's strategies, such as four brand-new housing types, a new house rating system, theme housing & an upgrade of "Superhost", and a brand-new membership rewards program. According to Blecharczyk, these new strategic functions will soon be available in China to improve the travelling and accommodation experience of Chinese travelers.

Blecharczyk told TMTpost that Airbnb tenants are demanding for higher housing quality, while Airbnb hosts have kept improving their services and housing quality. Not only to attract more travelers to Airbnb, but also to fully recognize the effort of Airbnb hosts who treat tenants with hospitality and considerate services, therefore, Airbnb launched a brand-new house rating called Airbnb Plus. Only the houses that pass over 100 aspects of quality requirements, like passing the standards of cleanness, comfort, design style by manual check-up, can be listed as Airbnb Plus.

Blecharczyk said that Shanghai is one of the first 13 cities worldwide to release Airbnb Plus. So far, there are about 100 Airbnb Plus houses available in Shanghai for domestic and international travelers. And Airbnb plans to expand its Airbnb Plus program to more cities in China this year. As the number of Chinese Airbnb hosts grows, Airbnb will pick up excellent hosts to offer them the best housing promotion resources, including professional house decoration consulting, high-end photography services and exclusive customer service support.

"Our goal is to accommodate over one billion guests per year by 2028. However, we could not achieve it without the support of Airbnb China," Blecharczyk said.

Apart from the Airbnb Plus program, Airbnb also unveiled its Airbnb Host Academy at the press release. 

According to Sean Pan, Head of Operations of Airbnb China, Airbnb has a huge community of host in China, among whom nearly 10,000 Chinese hosts have been named as Superhosts. Airbnb plans to increase their support for the Chinese hosts, helping them provide better travelling experience for their guests. Airbnb established Airbnb Host Academy, integrating online and offline resources, to provide Chinese hosts with related training.

TMTpost learns that Airbnb had hold many offline activities in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou and other cities to communicate face to face with Chinese hosts from different communities. Additionally, Airbnb Host Academy provides Chinese hosts with offering offline design courses, sending WeChat official host account posts, communicating online, and a series of inspiring short videos of host guidelines and tips. Airbnb empowers all the hosts at different stages with suitable training resources.

Pan shared that Airbnb Host Academy provides a chance for the Chinese hosts to learn and share experience with each other. It is also a platform for the hosts to learn pratical skills, improve their own services and housing quality, and help the hosts to increase income.

According to Blecharczyk, China has already been one of the most rapidly-developing market for them. In 2017, Airbnb's housing resources growth rate in China market was over 100%. Last year, the guest number in China had reached 3.3 million. Airbnb will continue to increase investment in China tourism market. 

Airbnb says that its "experiential service" is continuing increasing. Since January 2017, the number of travelers who had participated in the Airbnb's local experience program has been increasing by 20 times per week. Till now, Airbnb has launched more than 300 local experience programs in China. However, there were only 10 local experience programs one year ago. This year, Airbnb will make more local experience programs in Beijing, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Suzhou and Nanjing.

"Bridging between Airbnb China community and travelers is crucial for us to realize Airbnb's vision, "home is everywhere". We predict that China will become the largest guest source country for Airbnb by 2020. We will continue to meet our commitment in China market to provide Chinese travelers with the most original and wonderful traveling experience," Blecharczyk told TMTpost.

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The article is edited by @Yi LIU (Email: yiliu@tmtpost.com;  Mobile/WeChat: +86 13911703028). The Chinese version article is published with authorization from the author @Gao Mengyang, please note source and hyperlink when reproduce.

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