Residents near Shanghai Disneyland spot business opportunity by renting out vacant homes for short stays

▲ Short-term rental housing near Shanghai Disneyland. (Photo / News Morning Post)

Tourism Center / Comprehensive Report

With the imminent opening of Shanghai Disneyland, tourists who have already bought tickets are starting to book accommodations, butthe theme hotels inside the park are both expensive and hard to reserve, and hotels around the park are limited. Sensing a business opportunity, many nearby residents are clearing out their spare rooms to offer short-term rentals.

According to a report by Shanghai’s News Morning Post, Xiaomei, a college student studying in Nanjing, and her three roommates managed to snag two-day tickets for the first weekend of Disneyland’s opening. They had originally planned to book a hotel for two nights, but found that prices at nearby hotels were beyond their budget. After searching online, theyfinally found a two-bedroom house listed for a daily rate of just 350 yuan (RMB).

The report pointed out that recently,many rental listings have appeared online with slogans like “zero distance to Disneyland” and “direct access to Disneyland.” These are all short-term rentals, offering daily or 3 to 5 day stays, with rents calculated by the day, targeting Disney tourists specifically.

A representative from “Ant Short Stay,” the largest online short-term rental platform for apartments and homestays in China, said that “short-term rentals” refer to homeowners renting out their vacant properties to guests via the internet.Previously, there were only about 1,000 short-term rental listings in Shanghai on the platform, but recently that number has risen to over 3,000, with the fastest growth occurring around Disneyland,mainly along subway lines, with distances to the park ranging from as little as two or three stops to as many as four or five.

Since short-term rentals are conducted entirely through online platforms, and transactions between guests and hosts are mostly private, disputes can become troublesome. Regarding this issue, a representative from Ant Short Stay admitted that online short-term rentals still require further regulation in terms of institutional guarantees, standardization, and safety. Ant Short Stay’s approach is to partner with insurance companies — essentially paying out of pocket to insure both hosts and guests. In case of disputes, a third-party insurance company will be responsible for mediation and compensation.