Bed and Breakfasts in tourism hotspots are becoming especially popular in China. Staying in B & Bs gives guests the opportunity to experience local culture and hang out with locals, an authentic experience you probably can't get in hotels.

 

Statistics from Jinlü Consulting show that Chinese users' demand for traveling grows year on year, as consumer mindset shifts. In the first half of 2016, China registered 2.236 billion domestic travels, growing YOY by 10.47%, and 59 million offshore travels, YOY growth being 4.3%. Demand in the family travel market also grew constantly as the idea of traveling as a family gets more entrenched the Chinese psyche, and standardized travel products struggle to meet diverse and personalized demand, giving rise to the B & B industry, which is growing rapidly. Tujia.com was founded on December 1, 2011, as a premium holiday apartment booking platform, which both provides travelers with premium new holidaying experience and property owners with flexible custodian services for their unused assets.

 

 LUO JUN, CEO TUJIA.COM B & B is an umbrella term for non-specialized hotel operation models which is characteristic of being fragmented. The whole idea of B & B stresses not the accommodation part, but rather the combination of the travel experience with accommodation. This is more of an addition than a contrast from the conventional hotel industry. It is a service offered to cater to those consumers who have traded up.

 

The growth of the B & B industry reflects of the trading-up by consumers. This concept has offered consumers more options when traveling.

 

TOURIST We travelled together as a family on this trip. We chose B & B rather than hotels because we felt B & B would be more friendly and relaxing, more like a home. Both the décor and home-like services are rather comforting and really show that the operator has gone to some lengths in this respect. So I am very touched by this. 

 

The B & B market grew rapidly, an increasing number of people are entertaining the idea of getting into the market. However, as B & B does not require much expertise, the market players are invariably of fairly small scale. Survey by Home Inn Group indicates that around 80% of players in the B & B industry are not making a profit and only 20% do. Xueli is the owner of Cottage at Dusk, the B & B internet sensation in Hangzhou, and she shares with us her secrets to success.

 

XUE LI, OWNER B&B PROPERTY COTTAGE AT DUSK Good B & B properly showcases local humanity and culture. If you live here, you get a sense of the feeling and philosophy the property owner would like you to have. My intention of building B & B is that people who visit Hangzhou could get a sense of what it's like living by the West Lake through what we did with the property.

 

Data indicates that transactions in China's online traveling shared accommodation market reached RMB 8.94 billion in 2016, growing by 80.6% from 2015. The size of shared accommodation market continues to grow.

 

The B & B industry grew rapidly of late, but offerings in the industry come in varying shapes and standards. An industry insider indicates that although stressing personality, B & B needs to adopt industry standards and we need to set these standards based on best practice overseas to foster healthy growth in the industry.