Chinese entrepreneur Tao Peng is joining Airbnb to become its president in China.
Peng has founded a number of companies in the travel space including Breadtrip, a social application for recording and sharing trips, back in 2012, and more recently CityHome, a service for short-terms rentals across China.
According to reports, the accommodation platform invested $5 million in CityHome in recent weeks, with Nathan Blecharczyk, Airbnb co-founder and chief strategy officer quoted as saying CityHome would improve Airbnb’s “operational efficiency.”
In a statement, Peng says that an innovative business model needs “to rely on a platform of sufficient scale to fulfill its long-term potential.”
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He adds that he’s bringing deep knowledge and experience of the Chinese travel industry to help Airbnb grow in the region.
Blecharczyk, who is also chairman of Airbnb China, says he will stay on in this role.
While Airbnb has been vocal about its ambitions in China, Blecharczyk says the business is “still in the very early days” in the country but needs someone who knows the destination in order to move quickly.
Airbnb says listings in China have grown more than 125% in the past year, while more than five million Chinese travelers have stayed in an Airbnb in the same period.