China's Largest Home Sharing Site Xiaozhu.com to Embrace a "Platform Plus" Model

BOAO, China, April 1, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Boao Forum for Asia 2019 was held in Hainan, China from March 26 to 29. Co-founder and CEO of Xiaozhu.com Kelvin Chen Chi was invited to "The Future of the Sharing Economy" session on March 28 and discussed hot topics in the industry together with founders of global sharing economy companies including Booking.com, Grab and VIPKID. During the session, Chen urged home-sharing companies to go beyond the platform model and embrace a "Platform Plus" model.

The sharing economy grew rapidly in 2018. According to the State Information Center, the gross merchandise volume (GMV) of the sharing economy in 2018 reached RMB 2.942 trillion yuan, up 41.6% year on year. More than 760 million people participated in China's sharing economy in 2018. 2018 was also a year of compliance for Chinese sharing economy. As a popular topic at Boao Forum for Asia in recent years, the sharing economy session focused on the future of China's sharing economy after laws and regulations kick in.

Chen said, the sharing economy now faces multiple challenges including model innovation, technology intelligentization, and service standardization in China and worldwide, and the pure platform model is no longer adequate for sharing economy companies to create disruptive effects. It is imperative for home-sharing companies such as Xiaozhu.com to evolve towards the "Platform Plus" model and leverage industry collaboration to drive further internetization of China's existing properties with new models and new technologies.

"Home-sharing companies should look beyond platform," Chen said. "As capital becomes rational, entrepreneurs should also have long-term vision, dive into the industry and truly solve the problems within." 

According to the company, Xiaozhu.com now has over 500,000 listings in 650 cities and destinations across the world. Since its initial launch, Xiaozhu.com has built a home-sharing service ecosystem that empowers individual users and lowers the threshold of sharing by completing the missing links in the whole industry chain.

Chen believes in light of new technologies like 5G and IoT, supporting service providers, including cleaners, designers, photographers, and property managers, will further form an open social collaborative network, unleash space and help more people participate in and benefit from the sharing economy.

"This is the core value of Xiaozhu," said Chen.

SOURCE Xiaozhu.com