Alternative accommodation marketplace Airbnb has started to move swiftly in the Indian market and is now looking to offer more authentic Indian experiences on the platform. As the travellers are now exploring beyond the obvious tourist attractions, Airbnb is trying to offer accommodation in the new regions that are attracting these travellers and in order to boost the number of options available to them, the rental platform has signed a MoU with Self-Employed Women’s Association of India (SEWA).

With this association, Airbnb will work with the members of SEWA to help them share their homes and host domestic and international guests. This will not only help them get more quality listings on the platform but will also create economic opportunities for the women in rural India and boost tourism in the region.

The initiative has been piloted in Gujarat and will soon move to other states as well. Together they will also explore partnership opportunities with various state governments, academic institutions, media and other civil society organisations.

“By partnering with SEWA members to offer homestays on Airbnb, we hope to offer an authentic experience of rural India for travellers while ensuring that the benefits of tourism flow back to the rural community,” said Amanpreet Bajaj, Airbnb India country manager.

Airbnb will offer training to SEWA members on home sharing and responsible hosting practices. Currently Airbnb claims to have around 18,000 listings in India with half of the hosts being female. This association should translate into better experience for the guests while also inspiring more confidence to book.

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China based short term rental platform Tujia.com International has agreed to acquire homestay businesses of Ctrip and Qunar as part of a strategic agreement. With this acquisition, the homestay channels of Ctrip and Qunar along with their operation teams and entire business will be merged into Tujia. Earlier this year, Tujia also acquired rival Mayi from 58.com Inc. in June. This acquisition will further strengthen its position in the alternative accommodation market in China. This also indicates that the market has grown past the startup stage.

Upon the completion of the deal Tujia will receive a wide range of benefits from Ctrip and Qunar, including inventory, traffic, branding and operations support. The purpose of the deal is to ensure that all users, guests and hosts can gain sustainable benefits. Meanwhile, Tujia will further strengthen its dominant position in China’s accommodation sharing market.

Justin Luo, co-founder and CEO of Tujia said that with combined inventory and a larger customer base, the brand will be able to offer a better experience for both guests and hosts. The guests will get a wide array of options in one place while property owners won’t have to manage listings on multiple platforms as the guests will be coming from one source.

Maria Sun, the Executive Vice President of Ctrip.com and CEO of Accommodation Division, said, “in the segmented vertical sector of the homestay and accommodation business, Tujia has built itself into a great brand and established a high reputation. Therefore, we are very pleased to integrate the favorable advantages by handing the homestay business of Ctrip over to Tujia, infusing more energy into the latter so as to create greater value for apartment owners and customers.”

Following this deal, Tujia will release a series of new products and services. The five strategies Tujia announced at its launch event in March have all been implemented, especially the RBA program (run by agents), which pilot-runs well in several key regions in China. Tujia has also expanded its overseas business. With offices operating in Japan, South Korea, Singapore and the Taiwan region, Tujia is committed to building a platform for Chinese customers to travel all over the world.

The momentum Tujia has picked up indicates that one of the largest travel markets has opened up to the idea of alternative accommodation. History tells us that homegrown Chinese tech companies take stronger position against their international rivals and maybe Tujia could be to Airbnb what Weibo is to Google.

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The New York state legislature passed a bill on Friday that would make it illegal for owners to advertise apartments for rental of less than 30 days. According to the bill sent to the governor for signing on Friday, the violators will be fined up to USD 1000 on first offence and up to USD 7500 for offences following that.

This bill would make it illegal for home owners to post short term listings for entire apartments on platforms like Airbnb. The multiple dwelling law went into effect in 2010 to target landlords operating apartments as illegal hotels and this bill is said to ensure that the law isn’t violated. According to a data released by Airbnb earlier, almost half of its listings in New York are complete apartments and they will be affected.

Arguments keep coming from both sides. According to the regulators this bill highlights that affordable housing is a priority for them and short term rentals of entire apartments were driving up the costs of long term rentals for residents. The hoteliers in the region are certainly happy with and are in support of the new bill as a drop in number of Airbnb listings will bring a significant share of business back to them. They see this as a move that will also protect the interests of hotel industry.

On the other side, Josh Meltzer, Airbnb Head of New York Public Policy said that it is disappointing but they saw it coming. He targeted the politicians and hotel industry saying that their last minute deal would be cutting down on a source of income for large number of citizens. The tech community isn’t happy with the bill either. Many big names in the industry decided to speak up against the bill on social media.

Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator said that NY can’t be a startup hub if it gives laws that ban them. Ashton Kutcher said that it might throw away the future with this anti tech bill and it might result in people losing their homes.

You can't have it both ways, @NYSenate. You can't both be a startup hub and give incumbents laws banning startups. https://t.co/8r57LvYeEE

— Paul Graham (@paulg) June 17, 2016

Tech is the future of the NY economy, but @NYSA_Majority & @NYSenate might throw it all away with terrible anti-tech bill A8704C/S6340A

— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) June 17, 2016

People are going to lose their homes because of this ignorant bill! https://t.co/BlX8K7fycP

— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) June 17, 2016

Reid Hoffman called it anti innovation and Fred Wilson shared a link to NYS Senate website for those who want to express opposition to the bill.

if you want to oppose Senate Bill S6340A (aka the NYC Airbnb bill), you can do so on the NYS Senate website here https://t.co/DJEMYGYbkn

— Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) June 17, 2016

Classic anti-innovation, stop the future and enshrine the past move by the New York Legislature. https://t.co/jgsoRnqB6X

— Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman) June 17, 2016

The bill won’t directly be able to implement control on Airbnb as a platform because the listings are created by hosts. However, the battle between regulators and the tech community isn’t going to fade away anytime soon.

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Sharing economy is catching up fast and many industry experts have suggested that it is the way forward for travel industry. People are choosing homestays over hotels, renting out their vehicles and turning into local guides and the trend is just starting to pick up. We learned about a new Kickstarter project called RoomsForever that plans to change vacation rentals for the frequent travellers.

The idea is to enable people to pool their money which can be used to purchase apartments at popular tourist cities all over the world.

Raffaele Lovine says, “We love traveling and we love using AirBnB, but it has its limits. You are still in another person’s home and are sharing that space with them. The same is true some of the others that enable people to trade flats or rooms. We wanted to tap into what works for timeshares, but make it more of a true ownership, as well as, expand it. You’re buying into more than one location when you use this service. That means for your money you can now go use a flat in London, Tokyo or wherever suits.”

The apartments will be equipped with digital locks that can be unlocked using the mobile phones of the travellers. The people who invest can use the apartment(s) for limited number of days of stay depending on the amount they invest. The Kickstarter listing is looking at a target of USD 280,000 which will be used to start off with four studio apartments across locations chosen through a poll.

While the concept is new, we aren’t very sure about the feasibility. The list of popular travel destinations isn’t short and building up a presence across wide geographies will take a very long time. This is like paying for AirBnB rentals you may or may not use for next 10 years for destinations that you may not even travel to. Not only that but it will require plenty of funds which means a large number of backers. This would translate to availability issues at popular tourist destinations, especially in peak tourist seasons which defeats the purpose. We think you are still better off renting an AirBnB on your next international trip. If you think otherwise, you can find more details on Kickstarter.

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Airbnb is considered to be one of the biggest disrupters in the hospitality industry. With more and more travellers looking for authentic experiences during their travel, the sharing economy is booming and Airbnb is leading the change. As Airbnb has gained popularity, many small businesses are building up on the alternative stay model. YourWelcome is one such startup that offers innovative services for Airbnb hosts.

This app enables Airbnb hosts of these properties to offer local services to both domestic and international travellers. The exclusive services that can be availed by a click of the button include ordering take-aways, taxis and gym passes. YourWelcome has partnered with the best businesses to deliver premium services. For the convenience of the hosts, YourWelcome app will send frequent notifications to them informing the regular details of the travellers such as their arrival time at the premise. This will keep both the hosts and travellers satisfied with the service.

To get more familiar with their service, we spoke with Mr. Henry Bennett – the co-founder of YourWelcome. He is a highly experienced professional in product development and has worked on several projects of BBC, 20th Century Fox, Ford and NBC Universal. Here are some takeaways from the conversation:

What is YourWelcome?

YourWelcome enables Airbnb guests to buy local services, such as booking a taxi or ordering a take-away, at a touch of a button. Up to 40% of all hotel revenue is from guest services and we are bringing this revenue stream to Airbnb homes and sharing this revenue with the hosts.

Henry Bennett, Co-Founder, YourWelcome

Turning host recommendations into guest experiences is core to our proposition and YourWelcome is solving the problem of purchasing local services whilst in the Airbnb home.

How did it all start?

It started with a hack. When renting my own Airbnb property I left out a little app I created for my own home. It included some videos, local information and a search engine. When we saw the usage the app got during their stay we realised that there was a gap in the market in providing hosts the ability to offer home info and ‘hotel’ guest services in their Airbnb property via an app left out for guests.

Who is using YourWelcome?

Airbnb hosts, Airbnb Property Management companies, Landlords of short-term let properties.

How is the early response?

We are in 100 Airbnb homes and will have 1,000+ guests using our app by the end of the year. The average total usage of the app per 3-day stay is 1.2 hours which is pretty off the scale! We are seeing 7 clicks on guest services per guest stay, with the most popular being booking take-aways. We have had over 600 enquiries for Airbnb hosts to use the service pre-launch.

How is YourWelcome different from other businesses offering services to Airbnb hosts?

There are many companies trying to improve the Airbnb eco-system, most are focused on streamlining the hassle of hosting. We are focused on introducing a new revenue stream into the Airbnb ecosystem and matching relevant services and companies to Airbnb guests.

How do you plan to scale further?

We plan to launch in Paris, Amsterdam, New York, LA and San Francisco in the next 6 months. We are currently raising our seed round and hope to close this in December to aggressively grow the business.

You can learn more about them on their website yourwelcome.com. While we are at the topic of Airbnb, you should also check out 10 amazingly less known facts about Airbnb.

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In a bid to cash on the fast growing alternative accommodation space, Expedia has agreed to acquire HomeAway including all its brands. The USD 3.9 billion deal is expected to close by first quarter of 2016 and the transaction will go through in cash and Expedia common stock.

“We have long had our eyes on the fast growing ~$100 billion alternative accommodations space and have been building on our partnership with HomeAway, a global leader in vacation rentals, for two years. Bringing HomeAway into the Expedia, Inc. family and adding its leading brands to our portfolio of the most trusted brands in travel is a logical next step,” said Dara Khosrowshahi, Chief Executive Officer, Expedia, Inc.

Founded in 2005, HomeAway went public in 2011 after raising five rounds of funding adding up to around USD 505M. HomeAway touts itself as the leader in vacation rentals and has more than 1 million paid listings of various forms of vacation homes across 190 countries. Their portfolio includes multiple vacation rental websites including local platforms offering alternative accommodation across Japan, China, Indonesia, Korea and other markets.

The alternative accommodation segment has grown very fast in many parts of the world and is picking up momentum in Asia as well. Markets like China have been contributing heavily to the growth of alternative accommodation platforms like Airbnb. Observing this trend, Expedia started a pilot program last year listing 115,000 HomeAway properties.

The two brands – Expedia and HomeAway – have come together to connect with the wider audience. Expedia has given more importance on primary urban vacation destination. On the other hand, HomeAway has focused on beach, ski and other resort locations. With the two businesses merging the brands look forward to helping each other in every professional way possible. The shares of Expedia had already grown by 2.5 percent after the finalization of the deal.

How does this business acquisition of HomeAway by the popular brand Expedia affects the travel market is yet to be seen.

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Gurgaon based vacation rental startup Guesthouser is looking to raise a Series A round of funding soon. They are looking for funds worth USD 5-7 million to expand the team, add new technology and promote the brand. The company started over a year ago and received its initial seed funding of USD 5 million by Milestone Ventures.

Guesthouser offers alternative stays on its platform and the offerings range from treehouses to villas. According to the report by The Hindu Business Line, Homestays account for over 55 percent of the listings on the platform. They plan to increase their focus on the North East as they go forward. According to the Founder & CEO, Dhruv Dutt Sharma, the region hasn’t got infrastructure for large hotels which adds to the potential of alternative stays in the region.

Many players have recently started making move in this space. Stayzilla announced that they will be increasing their focus in this space and also introduced a new app so that users can easily search. Yatra.com also made a move in this space and introduced their brand TG Stays to take a bite out of the pie when it is baked. Of course Airbnb is there but isn’t a very strong player in India yet. But according to Julian Persaud, Regional Director, APAC, Airbnb, the brand has a strong focus on India and the competition is good as it prepares the market. With the next round of funding, Guesthouser will be marketing aggressively to stay competitive in this growing segment.

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