On June 15, Japan's new homestay law officially took effect.
On June 21, tech media The Information reported, citing sources, that Xiaozhu (Little Pig) was seeking a new round of funding worth $100 million.
On June 26, Ctrip-backed homestay brand Youjia raised tens of millions to develop self-operated (managed) homestays.
On July 6, Airbnb invested $5 million in Chengsu, entering the property management field.
Homestay booking platforms and property management players are competing fiercely, with the management sector currently highly fragmented—though it may shine differently under capital pursuit.
One Home Inn official website
High barriers make homestay booking platforms hard to crack
In recent years, many homestay booking platforms have gradually shifted their models. Xiaozhu and One Home Inn have consistently stuck to the C2C model, enabling direct online chats with hosts, and online confirmation and booking. Tujia focuses mainly on B2C, though after acquiring Mayi Homestay, it added C2C, so Tujia now covers both. Earlier players like Zizaike and Dayu focused on Taiwanese homestay bookings, but Zizaike now mainly supplies listings to Booking, having shifted to a B2B focus.
"I'm optimistic about the two-sided market of homestay platforms. It's difficult, but once established, the barriers are very high, allowing you to build your own homestay ecosystem," said Yang Lianghai, CEO of One Home Inn. "The challenge with homestay platforms lies in the two-sided nature: on one hand, you need solid destination listings, which demands strong offline operational capabilities. On the other, you must capture travel traffic, which is even harder—it can't rely on ads or burning cash indefinitely. Plus, the travel industry is low-frequency and non-essential, making precise traffic extremely expensive."
"Many internet products started with Sina Weibo. When One Home Inn was launching its product, we found students to search for users typing 'visa' on Sina Weibo, talked to them one by one, and gave out travel coupons."
We also caught some traffic during the Toutiao video boom. At the time, our small team made videos daily, inserting a 3-second One Home Inn intro ad, gaining 20 million impressions from Toutiao. A single video reached over 2 million views at its peak."
During the Alipay AR red packet craze, we placed a million red packets at universities and tourist spots nationwide, using the One Home Inn logo as the scan target."
"From analyzing the upstream and downstream of homestays, we also developed a traffic-driving tool, a global travel map, which allowed Google Maps to be used without a VPN. This app continuously directed traffic to One Home Inn, and later many companies copied the idea."
"Currently, on the One Home Inn platform, hosts from around the world upload over 200 listings daily—we just need to review them. It was very tough at the beginning."
Platform + management in parallel, focusing on overseas homestays
"Currently, homestay management companies are very fragmented, with many taking a heavier approach, getting involved from renovations to multi-platform sales. Some even package this model as a financial product, but that’s not what One Home Inn wants to do," said Yang Lianghai.
"We’re mainly focusing overseas. We already manage quite a few homestays in Tokyo and Osaka, and we’ve also obtained legal platform and homestay management qualifications in Japan."
Pure homestay management is indeed a profitable business, but operating in countries or cities where homestays are in a gray area carries significant risks. With the enforcement of Japan’s new homestay law, many properties managed by management companies no longer qualify as homestays under the new rules, resulting in heavy losses.