According to a new report from several news outlets, the business ofAirbnb will cease operations in China. Chinese customers will still be able to use the service to rent rooms overseas after the company shuts down in the country. We have made the difficult decision to refocus our efforts in China on outbound travel and suspend our homes and Experiences of Hosts in China from July 30, 2022. According to the New York Times, roughly 150,000 property listings will be removed from the platform by the end of July. The company started operating in China. The decision to exit the Chinese market hasn't yet been formally announced, and when reached for comment late Monday, Christopher Nulty, the public affairs officer for Airbnb, declined to comment on the record.
According to the Wall Street Journal, stiff competition from local businesses and strict covid-19 lockdowns in the country are the reasons whyAirbnb is leaving China. China has a population of over one billion people and while the government's lockdowns have been harsh, they have been relatively short for most of the population.
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The more logical explanation is thatAirbnb couldn't compete with apps that offered a variety of services through one portal. One example is Beijing-based Meituan, which is a so-called super-app that does everything from food delivery to movie tickets. The lodging marketplace was rebranded in the year 2019. The name makes the competition clear.
One-stop shopping for virtually everything without visiting a separate app is provided by AliPay and WeChat, two other super-apps that are popular in China.
There are other American brands that have given up on the Chinese market recently. Consumers in China decided that Chinese-made competitors were just as good or even better than their American counterparts, and that's when Urban Outfitters and Everlane left China.
Other tech companies have retreated from China in the last few years, including Yahoo and LinkedIn, though it's likely that they had more to do with concerns over data-sharing with the Chinese government. The U.S. government claimed that China was using the social networking site to recruit spies.
While some American companies are leaving China, others are going ahead and opening new factories. Only time will tell if companies likeTesla can cut it in China, as the company's high profile CEO, billionaire Musk, continues to disgrace himself on the world stage.
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