This is an article from China Travel Daily.It appears as part of the tnooz sponsored content initiative.
Locals has raised almost $16 million in funding in a round backed by Shuwei Capital.
The home rental and B&B brand had previously announced funding of approximately $24 million in January.
The investment will go towards expanding property listings, enhancing technical support and developing new divisions on home furnishing retail and urban travel.
Locals currently has more than 10,000 listings across 55 cities. It plans to expand to 50,000 properties and cater for 20 million guests in 2018. The team will also receive a boost with plans to increase it four-fold.
Locals founder and CEO Tongmin Su says the company will maintain its brand advantage to become the Hilton of the B&B industry by expanding its scale and upgrading service quality.
Su has previously revealed that the target of Locals was to lead the development of the smart homestay industry with first-class user experience and scalable operation, and also to take a leading share in home furnishing retail leveraging its massive traffic volume.
The main goal of Locals’ smart homestay is to enhance user experience. Su says:
"Our smart accommodation features comprehensive interactions with all smart home designs.”
Locals has already installed smart devices in its properties, such as smart air systems and locks.
In addition, Locals' new home furnishing retail business will accelerate in 2018.
In response to user demand, the platform has introduced high-end brands such as JNBYHOME, EXNIHILO, Xiaomi, ZAOZUO and ZENS as strategic partners in 2017.
It will also introduce quality bedding, boutique homeware, bathing, tableware and other products in 2018, enabling users to buy products after trying them out during their stays.
The urban travel business is another new business for Locals in 2018. Unlike the Experience program of Airbnb, the urban travel business mainly aims to better understand the needs of guests and to provide value-added services with local characteristics through its friendly assistant hosts.
Su hopes to connect the two additional divisions through product experience and creating demand. The two newly added divisions are expected to generate about $315.6 million for Locals this year.
This is an article from China Travel Daily.It appears as part of the tnooz sponsored content initiative.