In recent years, the number of domestic tourists has increased greatly. Statistics show that the number of domestic tourists reached 4.44 billion last year, earning 3.94 trillion yuan, among which the number of tourists who choose to self-help is increasing, accounting for 93 percent of domestic tourists. Under the strong demand for tourism, the demand for tourism accommodation has become diversified.
Accommodation accounts for a large part of travel expenses, as those who have travel experience must know. In the past, tourists generally choose hotels, but the price of hotels with high cost performance is naturally high. If they choose express hotels, they need to face the disadvantages of unfavorable geographical location and accommodation experience, which greatly affects the travel planning of tourists. More importantly, unified accommodation products can no longer meet the diversified needs of consumers. Tourists no longer pursue affordable prices, but pay more attention to the quality of travel, individuality and comfort of living environment. Traditional accommodation products such as hotels can no longer meet the consumer needs under the upgrading of consumption.
Compared with hotels, the recent rise of short-term rental b&B is also a cost-effective choice. On the one hand, compared with hotels, b&B is closer to nature and market life of tourist destinations. On the other hand, short-term b&B is usually operated by individuals. After reading many literary works of “Yunnan Youjia Inn”, I believe that tourists are also interested in b&B hosts with different life experiences. Homestays run by owners with different lifestyles have different styles and are more social and humane than hotels. Moreover, many homestays offer services as good as star hotels, and also provide personalized services such as buying tickets for scenic spots and local guides, which makes them more desirable.
Statistics show that among 58% of respondents who know about the short-term accommodation service, half say they have used the service, while 30% of those who do not know are willing to try it. Short-term accommodation is becoming more and more popular among tourists.
Backed by the flow of giant, ant short rent to take advantage of the situation
The services of traditional accommodation products are stagnating, unable to meet the diversified accommodation needs of tourists, giving a growth opportunity to short-term homestay. However, the popularity of homestay in recent years is also fueled by various platforms. Ant is one of the more well-known platforms for short-term accommodation. In the list of online short-term rental brands in October, it ranked second only to Airbnb according to Maidian Research Institute. Among many platforms, Ant can have such influence, indicating that it is ahead of other platforms in the industry.
First of all, ant short-term rental has the advantage of superior flow entrance. Ant short Lease was born in Ganji.com and is supported by two O2O platforms, Ganji.com and 58.com. After the integration with Tujia, and obtained the financing of Ctrip, is equal to increase the flow entrance of the two platforms, in the flow may be compared with any other short-term rental platform have advantages.
Second, short rent a home stay facility trade based on credit, but rent industry due to the lack of industry standards, the industry appeared a lot of lack of credit, and the launch of the ant short rent the “high quality accommodation plan” and “the tenant security plan”, founded the short rent a home stay facility market service guarantee new industry standards and industry standards, to promote the standardization of the industry have a certain role in promoting. At the same time, Ant short-term rental also introduced Zhima Credit. Users with scores over 600 can move in without deposit, which to a large extent protects the interests of both parties and improves the service efficiency of short-term rental homestay.
Finally, to cater to the trend of smart home furnishing, Ant Launched the “scan face check-in” function in September, and launched AI homepay in cooperation with Xiaomi. In Beijing and Shanghai, Ant introduced more than 10 xiaomi smart home products such as Smart Mi, trying to solve the service and security problems of the industry by introducing forward-looking technology. Data show that the age range of consumers of homestay is mainly within 40 years old, among which the consumers under 25 years old account for 42%. The main audience of AI is also the young group with high interest in new technologies and emerging things, and the concept of intelligent homestay caters to the consumer interest of this part of the audience.
Its performance in setting service standards, keeping pace with The Times, and using forward-looking technologies to solve industry problems won ant the “Best Sharing Economy Platform of the Year” and “Annual Innovation Powerhouse Award” of 2017 Power Summit. But there is always a shadow under the sun, and while ant Platform is growing rapidly, there are also many problems.
The after-sale guarantee is not in place, and the rental experience of short-term rental platform is difficult to guarantee
Although the leaders of short-term home rental platforms such as Ant have made a lot of efforts in promoting industry services and standardizating management, there are still many areas to be improved in various mechanisms of the platform, which further reduce the short-term rental experience of landlords and consumers and become obstacles for the development of short-term rental platforms.
First, ant short-term rental and other platforms are not strict enough in the review of housing resources, and the review procedures are not perfect. Consumers know the situation of the accommodation place through the pictures and texts of the platform. However, if the platform fails to make on-the-spot investigation and confirm the real situation of the housing source through video authentication and other methods, it may give faithless people the opportunity to fish in troubled waters.
Many listings, for example, fall under the “picture for reference only” category. That is to say, the house on the picture looks neat and beautiful, but after moving in, consumers find the actual environment is inconsistent, such as furniture or layout, which will to some extent ruin the tenants’ living experience and cast a shadow on the transaction.
Second, ant short-term rental platforms such as the after-sales system is not perfect. On the one hand, Ant Short-term lease lacks insurance services for transactions. In case of property loss or household damage during transactions, the landlord can only contact the tenant to negotiate compensation. Platforms such as Ant Short-term Lease, as guarantors of transactions, seem not to play a relevant role.
Although Sesame Credit is also introduced into ant short-term lease, the guarantee function of Sesame credit in ant short-term lease is worth studying. If it does not have the same effect as cash deposit, the rights and interests of the landlord may not be guaranteed once the resident causes home damage or property loss in the transaction process.
Although installing a camera may be the best protection, it is not desirable because of the invasion of privacy. Under the circumstance that the platform after-sales guarantee is not in place, if the two parties do not agree through negotiation, the interests of both parties can not be guaranteed, but also will continue to intensify the conflict. For example, when a tenant destroys the landlord’s property, the landlord has to bear the loss because he cannot prove that he is exempt from compensation. And the landlord with ulterior motives can also use the damage of the original articles in the house to force users to compensate privately.
Thirdly, the management and operation level of landlords in short-term home stay platforms are uneven, and some of them have no experience in the accommodation industry or lack management ability. However, ant short-term home stay platforms only provide a trading platform, so there are areas to be improved in collaborative management. Of course, the reason may be that Ant short-term rental is not from the accommodation service industry such as hotels, and the enterprise itself lacks the ability of coordinated management. As a result, many landlords simply provide services on the basis of trust, with limited personal power and no ability to control risks, and their interests cannot be guaranteed.
The development is not balanced, and the operation of short-term home stay platform should be more refined
At present, the polarization of the domestic short-term home stay market is very serious, the well-known home stay is hard to find a room, while the general home stay is few people, it is understood that the occupancy rate of this part of the home stay is less than 50%, many home stay resources have not been developed in fact, serious imbalance between supply and demand. While providing convenient communication and transaction for both parties, the platform of short-term home stay should be committed to coordinating the allocation of home stay resources so as to balance market demand and help the operation and development of the whole market.
Although the Basic Requirements and Evaluation of Tourism Homestay issued by The National Tourism Administration has been officially implemented since October, and the homestay industry has unified industry standards, the self-management and service improvement of the short-term rental homestay industry is still an important guarantee for the industry to move on the right track.
Therefore, each short-term rental platform might as well start from the perspective of the landlord, on the one hand, cooperate with the insurance company to provide the corresponding insurance services for the landlord and the resident; On the other hand, it can help landlords improve short-term rental management ability and service ability through pre-and post-stage training. On this basis, various after-sales systems of the platform can be optimized to ensure the hardware quality and service quality of housing supply. Both parties can restrict each other through various systems of the platform to protect their own rights and interests, which is a benign development for the short-term rental platform.
At present, due to the uneven distribution of short-term homestay resources, each platform has gradually moved to the stage of integration and mutual assistance. Under this trend, a single platform may no longer have a competitive advantage in terms of traffic, and the competition of short-term home rental platforms will ultimately be focused on service. Only high-quality service can increase the buyback rate of consumers. Ants short rent although after years of development, introduced a lot of good for the development of the industry, but other home stay facility such as pig, wooden bird platform is through fine management and high quality service gradually short rent gap, gap with the ant ant short rent wants to continue to maintain the dominant position in the future development, still need more sophisticated operations to support.
In a word, the short-term home stay market is booming now, because short-term home stay can provide diversified services that traditional accommodation products do not have. However, the after-sales guarantee system of short-term home stay platforms such as Ant is not perfect, and the landlord’s insufficient service and management ability will affect the quality of short-term home stay. In addition, traditional accommodation products are slowly changing with the needs of users, and will also be the fierce rival of online short-term home stays in the future. Therefore, short-term home stays platforms should optimize their after-sales system, enhance their collaborative management capabilities, and improve the service capabilities of platforms and landlords with more refined operations, so as to gain market popularity.
Liu Kuang, meditation on the Internet, wechat official account: Liukuang110