UPDATED 01:24 EDT / MARCH 22 2017

APPS

Airbnb rebrands as Aibiying to go after the Chinese market

The controversial hospitality firm Airbnb Inc. is gunning for China’s rapidly growing growing travel market with a rebranding, more investment and more staff hires in the country.

The biggest news is the name change. Airbnb will henceforth be known as “Aibiying” (爱彼迎) in China, which translates as “welcome each other with love,” the company said in a statement. In addition to the rebranding, the company also said it will double its capital investment in Aibiying, and triple its Chinese workforce from its current 60-person roster.

Airbnb, which raised $1 billion in a late-stage funding round earlier this month, has been fighting for a slice of China’s travel market for several years already. The company’s service has been active in the country for several years, although it has mainly focused on outbound travelers coming from China to other countries. But today’s rebranding suggests it wants to muscle in on the domestic travel industry too.

“There’s a whole new generation of Chinese travelers who want to see the world in a different way,” Airbnb Chief Executive Brian Chesky said in a statement. “I’m really excited about our future here.”

Airbnb has grown to operate in more than 190 countries since its launch in 2008, with more than 3 million listings across the world. The company has faced some tough battles to achieve this success, however, angering regulators, hotel groups and housing advocates who say the service has contributed to a drying up of supply in rental markets in dozens of cities it operates in. If anything, China, with its reputation for harsh regulations and censorship, will be an even tougher nut to crack.

That much we know from the past experiences of U.S. firms like Google Inc., Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc., which have seen services blocked and offices raided by local authorities on numerous occasions.

The second problem is the local competition Airbnb will face. Uber famously quit the country last August after losing out to Chinese ride-sharing firm Didi Chuxing Technology Co., and Airbnb will face fierce opposition of its own in the shape of local firms such as Tujia.com and Xiaozhu.com.

Still, Airbnb has been planning its Chinese expansion for some time, it seems. The company first mentioned its plans when it added the Alipay service as a payment option for Chinese customers in 2014, and has spent the last couple of years opening up different offices and building relationships with Chinese authorities. The company added that the number of outbound Chinese travelers staying at its accommodations rose by 142 percent in 2016.

Airbnb currently has about 80,000 listings in China itself, and the rebranded Aibiying is sure to work hard to grow that number considerably.

Image: Airbnb

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU