Home sharing sector soars 70%

Booming shared accommodation market is expected to reach 50 billion yuan by 2020

China's shared accommodation market surged 70 percent year-on-year in 2017 to reach a transaction volume of 14.5 billion yuan ($2.28 billion), according to an industry report.

Released by the Sharing Economy Research Center of the State Information Center, the report shows that last year a total of 78 million people were involved in China's apartment-sharing sector, among which 76 million were tenants. There were roughly 3 million domestic housing resources offered by major apartment-sharing platforms, and the market attracted $540 million in financing, surging 180 percent year-on-year.

The report predicted the trade volume of China's shared accommodation market will reach 50 billion yuan by 2020, with over 6 million housing resources offered, serving more than 100 million tenants.

Xu Changming, deputy director of the SIC, said: "As the nation's sharing economy matures, the cultural and travel market is witnessing a consumption upgrade and abundant capital is flowing into the market.

"However, many problems have emerged, such as the need to establish standardized services, to clarify participants' legal status and to innovate the industry supervision model."

The Sharing Economy Research Center, together with home-sharing platforms such as Airbnb Inc and Xiaozhu.com, initiated the Home Sharing Professional Committee to tackle these problems. The move joins efforts made by the government, companies and experts to build a better shared accommodation market environment.

The Home Sharing Professional Committee calls for all companies involved in the home-sharing sector to work closely with the government, and to shoulder their corporate social responsibility toward building a Digital China.

"We should reinforce the construction of the credit system to protect users' personal and property safety, while creating a fair and benign competitive environment," said Gao Taishan, deputy secretary general of the Sharing Economy Research Center.

The committee will work on industry standards for the domestic shared accommodation market, which will be created this year, according to its members.

"The industry standards will be guidelines for all participants involved in the apartment-sharing sector. The document will be the first of its kind in the world. We hope this will serve as a reference for the rest of the world," said Gu Huimin, deputy director of the committee.

Chen Chi, CEO of Xiaozhu, noted that the past six years had witnessed the hundredfold growth of China's home-sharing industry.

"Standardized accommodation has transformed into a house-sharing model with individuality and creativity. However, many problems remain. The industry needs innovation."

An Li, vice-president of Airbnb China, said, "Airbnb will work with the Chinese government and the business community to explore a system of standards that suits China's situation, to support the healthy development of the industry."