Let every house showcase its uniqueness as Tujia strengthens its platform strategy

    On October 16, Tujia.com unveiled its platform strategy in Beijing, interpreting future trends in the vacation rental industry, rewarding star merchants, launching the “Path” app, and introducing platform cooperation policies that better support third-party merchants. Lujun, co-founder and CEO of Tujia.com, stated at the event that the platform is the company’s most crucial core business going forward, with commission income from merchants maintaining double-digit quarterly growth, and Tujia will continue to increase support for partner merchants.

(Lujun, Co-founder and CEO of Tujia.com, shares insights on-site)

    Lujun, co-founder and CEO of Tujia.com, believes that the vacation rental industry is now at a pivotal stage. It is reported that in 2011, 37% of revenue in the European and North American accommodation sectors came from non-traditional hotel vacation rentals, totaling up to $85 billion, approximately 600 billion RMB. In China, this market is just getting started, with huge potential.

    There is a common consensus in the tourism industry that service apartments, serviced apartments, and vacation apartments—these non-traditional hotel accommodations located in cities and travel destinations—are aligned with current major trends in the tourism market. An increasing number of travelers are seeking personalized experiences, with rapid growth in family trips, self-drive tours, and nearby travel, and they tend to prefer vacation rental accommodations that offer better value, a homely atmosphere, and personalized features.

(Lujun, Co-founder and CEO of Tujia.com, interacts with Chen Yuying, General Manager of Tujia.com’s Platform Operations Department, on-site)

    For independent merchants, channels to attract guests are largely limited to OTA platforms and vertical platforms like Tujia.com. However, through comparison, reporters found that vacation apartments and serviced apartments on OTAs are listed under the same category as traditional hotels, usually rated according to traditional hotel star systems, with merchant apartments commonly rated as two-star, making it impossible to showcase their unique features. As a result, compared to traditional hotels on OTAs, the chances of these merchants attracting potential guests are significantly reduced.

    As a professional platform, Tujia continues to increase its support for partner merchants. At this launch event, Tujia introduced the “Path” app, a mobile workspace specifically designed for Tujia merchants. Merchants can access it simply by logging in with their Tujia account. The app is simple and user-friendly, with powerful and practical functions, including essential daily management sections such as order management, property management, and message management. Based on merchant needs research, Tujia’s development team also created two particularly thoughtful features—support for adjusting room status and inventory across multiple products under one property, and support for managing multiple stores within group merchants.

    Another key component of Tujia.com’s platform strategy is further highlighting the “uniqueness” of each property. Therefore, Tujia.com has optimized search and personalized tags on both its PC website platform and mobile client, such as “foodie-friendly,” “great for girlfriends,” and “free WIFI,” while continuously improving the booking and payment process. After logging in, travelers can select properties and make quick bookings using these user-friendly settings. A report from a third-party research institution confirms Tujia.com’s efforts to enhance the user experience. According to iResearch’s “2013 China Serviced Apartment User Research Report,” Tujia.com is the preferred platform in the vacation rental field, leading other service providers in user satisfaction, mobile app downloads and activations, accuracy of property information, and fulfillment of personalized needs.

(Melissa Yang, Co-founder and CTO of Tujia.com, presents an award to the winning merchant of the Best Quality Award)

    At the launch event, Tujia also awarded invited high-quality merchants, recognizing their outstanding performance in service and operations. These star merchants also shared their business insights through interview videos and on-site discussions. One merchant mentioned in an interview that after opening their apartment and partnering with Tujia, they maintained high-quality service, and now 40% of their orders come from Tujia.com, which is their largest order channel. Through the Tujia.com vertical platform, merchants also gain more credibility, allowing more guests to share their personalized accommodation experiences through reviews.

“The vacation rental market is just getting started. Only by growing the market together with our partner merchants can this industry have a brighter future,” said Lujun, co-founder and CEO of Tujia.com.