The over a billon, educated, aware and tech-savvy Chinese population has held massive significance for America’s tech behemoths. The same holds true for home rental company Airbnb, and hence its recent all-in efforts.
Realising the importance this far-east market holds for it, Airbnb announced on Tuesday that it is going more aggressive in the country, with a brand new identity under the name of ‘Aibiying’.
In a press statement, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said,
There’s a whole new generation of Chinese travelers who want to see the world in a different way, I’m really excited about our future here.
The name change holds a lot of significance, specially in context of how the Chinese market and regulations go along with American, or Foreign tech companies. [mks_pullquote align=”right” width=”300″ size=”24″ bg_color=”#dd3333″ txt_color=”#ffffff”]China has its own set of successful tech companies, built around cloning platforms of their US counterparts.[/mks_pullquote]
Starting from Google, Microsoft, Amazon to Uber, none have been able to replicate even a fraction of their global success in China. While there are multiple regulations within the country which block most of these companies’ services, China has its own set of successful tech companies, built around cloning platforms of their US counterparts. And while the world simply takes these companies as replicas of their US mainstays, they have been massively successful within the humongous Chinese markets and have even outclassed their US counterparts in numbers.
A more recent example of another defeated new-age US tech company is Uber, which despite pumping in massive amounts of cash into its Chinese operations and getting a partner as big as Baidu, was forced to bow down to combined competition from its Chinese rivals — Didi Chuxing (formed by the merger of Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache).
Airbnb’s nomenclature change for China will help the country counter both of these — it will help Airbnb build a loyal, local reputation with a Chinese name, and will also help it dodge around the strict internet regulations China holds for foreign tech companies.
And even though Airbnb’s larger China success will come up over time, the company already seems to have registered a decent presence there. The company, that over 5.3 million Chinese travellers have stayed at Airbnb rentals around the world so far, and outbound travel from Chinese residents grew 142 percent in 2016 alone. Additionally, home rentals are coming up in every corner of the country. Airbnb says it currently has about 80,000 listings and has seen nearly 1.6 million guest arrivals in China.
Chesky, while announcing Aibiying, added,
We hope that Aibiying… strikes a chord with [Chinese travelers] and inspires them to want to travel in a way that opens doors to new people, communities and neighborhoods across the world,
