China’s leading vacation rental platform, Tujia, on Thursday announced that it had acquired the temporary home rental businesses of China’s major online travel agencies Ctrip and Qunar.
Tujia said on its Weibo, China’s leading social media, that the apartments for rent on the platforms of Ctrip and Qunar, their staff, and other related businesses will be all incorporated into Tujia.
“After this acquisition, Tujia has finished its integration of China’s major short-term home-rental platforms. Tujia will focus on fusing the brands, perfecting supply chain services, and promoting the standardization of the industry,” said Justin Luo, co-founder and CEO of Tujia, in Tujia’s Weibo.
Tujia claimed this acquisition is the largest in the temporary home-rental industry in China, but did not disclose the amount of this acquisition.
“Tujia has set up its brand and won its good reputation through word of mouth, built up over its five years of experience in the temporary home-rental industry. We would love to offer our related businesses to Tujia,” said Sun Maohua, CEO of Ctrip’s accommodation business, in Tujia’s Weibo.
Tujia will split its online and offline businesses in future, and aims to build a house-sharing ecosystem in China, according to its Weibo.
Tujia was founded in Beijing in 2011. Apartments and homes on its platform include not only those managed by the owners themselves, as in Airbnb, but also those by Tujia and its agents. The company has a total of over 420,000 houses registered on its platform, according to its official site.
However, this acquisition will hardly add to Tujia’s existing stock of houses, according to Huang Yue, the founder and CEO of short-term home-rental platform Muniao. He told AllChinaTech on Thursday that this is because there were simply not many houses registered on Ctrip or Qunar before the acquisition.
(Top photo from Flickr.com)
