(SCMP) Airbnb has finally appointed its head of mainland business, two years after the US home-sharing giant entered the mainland market, as its latest move to ramp up business in a market dominated by local rivals.
The company has promoted Ge Hong, formerly the product and engineering head of Airbnb China, to be the global vice president overseeing business development in the mainland, it said in statement on Thursday.
"We believe Ge's expertise and experience will inject strong momentum for Airbnb's China business," the statement said.
Ge, who graduated from Yale University with a Masters degree in Computer Science, joined Airbnb China in 2016 and is now the highest ranking executive of the company.
Ge, who had previously work for Facebook and Google, will report to Airbnb's chief executive officer Brian Chesky directly.
Entering the mainland in 2015, Airbnb has been inching its expansion in the country, where local players, which offer Airbnb-like services have well established their businesses due to first mover advantages.
Finding a chief executive officer for Airbnb China was seen as "the top priority" by the company as the role was previously shouldered by its chief financial officer Laurence Tosi.
Tosi in an interview told Bloomberg News in December 2016 that they were "moving extremely slowly, carefully and deliberately" with all the things related to China.
"By finding a dedicated China head, Airbnb is expected to have a team that has 100 per cent focus in growing the business in China," said Lu Zhenwang, founder and CEO of the Shanghai-based Wangqing Consulting.
"But whether or not he could pull it off in China is too early to tell. After all, there are very rare cases for foreign internet companies succeeding in China," he added.
The appointment is the latest effort by Airbnb to gear up its expansion in the mainland. In March, it adopted the name "Aibiying" which translates as "welcome each other with love," in a unusually high-profile event in Shanghai, as it pledged to double its investment in the country and triples its local workforce to serve the world's largest population of travellers.
"There's a whole new generation of Chinese travellers who want to see the world in a different way," said Chesky, CEO of Airbnb,in March in Shanghai, adding Airbnb's total mainland guests jumped 146 per cent last year from 2015.
Despite its passion, many of Airbnb's local rivals believe the company does not understand mainland travellers sufficiently.
"Yes, it is true that more Chinese want to explore solo travel, they want to live in homes rather than hotels, they want to eat local food ... But does it mean that they want to compromise and swallow the inconvenience of being a solo traveller? No," said Guo Xiao, vice president of the Beijing-based Zhubaijia.
Guo's Zhubaijia, a lodge-rental platform that is dedicated to serving China's outbound travellers, has already raised its game by not only having house keepers to serve customers when they travel abroad but also train the service providers so that they can fold a towel just like those in five-star hotels.
Source: South China Morning Post by Meng Jing
from China Travel & Tourism News http://ift.tt/1iB6EFm | 
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