Xiaozhu has also trained part-time cleaning ladies and linked them with hosts – a service that Airbnb does not provide.
Host Vicky Tang made use of the free advice that Xiaozhu provides, meeting a manager at her home in Shenzhen.
"Your place looks really good," the manager said while walking around her flat decorated with green ivy, colourful cushions, and IKEA paintings. "But your bed sheet looks a bit old," he stopped and said. "Will you consider buying a new one?"
"Having a good night's sleep is essential for bed-and-breakfast services," the manager explained.
"Even though guests can't see the difference in photos. They will feel it when they sleep here."
Tang, 23, is a first-time host and eager to attract guests to help ease the financial pressures of living in a city with soaring rents. "This training is really helpful," she said. "In the beginning, I didn't bother to write much [on the site] about myself , but now I know if I add more details – say, I learnt Korean in school – it will help people get to know me and attract like-minded guests."
Her training session lasted an hour, with discussions ranging from who should pay utility bills to how to politely turn down a booking request. Then Tang asked the same question almost every Xiaozhu user asks: "How do I know if this guy is trustworthy?"
To remove barriers to trust, Xiaozhu encourages users to connect their accounts with Sesame Credit, a social credit scoring system developed by an affiliate of China's Alibaba Group that rates an individual's credibility using big data. Alibaba is the owner of the
South China Morning Post.
Airbnb declined to comment on its Chinese copycats, but said it has been ramping up efforts to make its service appealing to users in China. Sean Pan, the head of operations for Airbnb China, said it had reached almost a million guest arrivals in China.
Airbnb guests can now pay via Alipay and sign up through WeChat. Yet it is unclear whether Airbnb, one of the world's biggest accommodation companies valued at US$30 billion, can compete with its copycats in China.
"Which company is doing better in China?" It's very hard to tell," said Jesper Palmqvist, the Asia Pacific director of STR, a market intelligence company which researches the global lodging industry.
"Some people have tried to do the parallel between how it's played out with Uber and Didi Chuxing, but personally I think it would seem [too] early to compare that in any way," he said.
Some argue Airbnb and its Chinese copycats don't have to enter a fierce competition, at least not for now. "China's home-sharing market is still in its infant stage. We should work together to compete with hotels, rather than fighting against each other," Xiaozhu's founder Chen said.
For Zhou, the Xiaozhu customer manager, Airbnb and Xiaozhu already share premium space on his smartphone.
The 25-year-old rents a four-bedroom apartment in Shenzhen, and lists three rooms on both Xiaozhu and Airbnb. Zhou said his room-letting covered his rent for the whole year and then some.
When asked which platform helped him most, he chose Xiaozhu. Airbnb's chief Chinese rival keeps his phone buzzing with orders.
"Xiaozhu brings me more business, while my last order from Airbnb was almost one month ago," Zhou said, pausing for a second before carrying on. "I'm not trying to bad-mouth our competitor," he added with a sheepish smile.
Source: South China Morning Post by Coco Liu
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