Hainan, China’s southernmost province has teamed up with Xiaozhu.com, China’s largest home sharing platform, to boost rural tourism via home sharing according to a strategic agreement signed by Hainan provincial tourism development commission and Xiaozhu.com on July 25th.
The two parties will jointly promote beautiful villages in Hainan, build village B&B (Bed and Breakfast) accommodation for poverty alleviation, and establish a B&B industry association according to the agreement. This is the first home sharing platform in strategic collaboration with Hainan after the Chinese central government announced its goal of further developing the infrastructure of Hainan to develop it into an international tourism island.
Ao Liyong, deputy director of Hainan Tourism Development Commission, Zhang Xinhong; chief information officer of the State Information Center, Li Na; a partner of Yunfeng Capital, Chen Chi; co–founder and CEO of Xiaozhu.com; and Wang Liantao, co–founder and COO of Xiaozhu.com, attended the press conference.
Ao Liyong, deputy director of Hainan Provincial Tourism Development Commission, said Hainan attaches great importance on the development of village tourism. There are about 516 rural tourist sites across the island, bringing about 1.75 billion yuan in revenue in the first half of this year, up 14.2 percent year on year according to Ao.
Zhang Xinhong, chief information officer of the State Information Center, said the sharing economy creates a historic opportunity for China’seconomic development and is a great example of China leading global innovation in the mobile Internet era. In 2018, Chinese sharing economy companies clearly increased their competitiveness globally, and both central and local policies provided unprecedented support to the sharing economy, playing a positive role in leading innovation and poverty alleviation. The expansion of house sharing in villages is driving the emergence of village B&Bs and tourism and is expected to become an important driver of village rejuvenation. Zhang Xinhong said the sharing economy model breaks geographical boundary and connects resources in villages and cities.
Hainan Tourism B&B Association was established at the press conference with Wang Liantao, co-founder and COO of Xiaozhu.com, acting aspresident and Hainan Tourism Development Commission acting as the supervisor. The association is committed to regulating the development of the B&B industry in Hainan, establishing a mechanism for police-citizen interaction, solving problems in B&B operations, improving the industry’s service level and driving competition.
Wang Liantao claimed that Xiaozhu participates in China’s village rejuvenation strategy by developing village B&B products. After six years of development, Xiaozhu has built a complete eco-chain and service system, connecting smart and IoT devices. Next, Xiaozhu will build a hand-on classroom for home-sharing entrepreneurship in Hainan’s villages, providing better solutions for B&B entrepreneurs and operators.
Xiaozhu.com has over 420,000 house listings in 652 cities across the world and over 35 million active users. In last November, Xiaozhu raised $120 million in a new round of financing led by Yunfeng Capital. In the first half of 2018, Xiaozhu reached strategic collaboration with Fliggy, the tourism brand of Alibaba Group, and agoda, the online booking platform under Booking Holdings. According to a data report the Xiaozhu released earlier this month, the platform now has over 30,000 village B&Bs. Each village B&B averagely creates 6 local jobs.
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