Business Expansion: Challenges and Strategies for Airbnb in China

Running head: BUSINESS EXPANSION
Business Expansion
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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BUSINESS EXPANSION
Introduction:
The present global hospitality organisations are facing several challenges in the course of
their global operations. The challenges which hospitality companies are facing are stemming due
to influence of external impacts like legal factors, security reasons and challenges which are
endemic to specific markets. These market challenges are proving to be great impediments
before online hospitality organisations which work on commission basis in return of their
services. The report would explore the challenges Airbnd, an American online hospitality
provider is facing while operating in the market. The paper after introducing the firm would
proceed to explore its marketing and social media usage. The basis of the study would be a
identification of target market and SWOT analysis of the social media usage by Airbnb.
Profile of the chosen SME:
Airbnb is an American hospitality services providing company which was founded in
2007 by Brain Chesky and Joe Gebbia. The firm is a private company which functioned using its
official portal to offer hospitality services to both accommodation service providers and tourists.
This shows that the customer profile of the company consists of both business organisations and
individual customers. The company provides information to tourists about hotels and lodges
according to their needs. The customers could log into its official website to search for hotels
based on the requirements like dates, types of hotels and rates at which would like to book hotels
as per their financial capability. The market of Airbnb consists of North America, Europe, Asia
and Australia. The official website of the company consists of information about events, cuisine
and to-do lists which the tourists could to enhance their tourism experience. The website of the
company also provided the customers the facility to rate specific events and locations on the
grounds of their experiences. The firm also has a strong social media presence on social media

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platforms like Twitter and Facebook. This enabled the firm to communicate with its customers,
both existing and prospective on regular basis. It can be pointed out that the social media
platforms allows the firm to promote its services among customer bases around the world. This
enables creation of demand among people seeking accommodations and things of interests they
are seeking. Similarly, the firms operating in the tourism industry like providers of
accommodations and restaurants could sign up with the company on its official website. They
can thereafter advertise their services and attract customers. The net income of the firm was high
as $ 93 million in the year 2017 which proved its operating capability. Mr Brian Chesky, one of
its founders functions in the capacity of CEO.
Target Market Identification:
The target market of the Airbnb which the company seeks to enter is China. China is one
of the most visited countries in the world and attracts more than 50 million tourists a year.
Besides hosting this immense number of international tourists, the country has a immense
population. This provides the domestic tourism industry with an immense customer base.
Moreover, the country is also one of the top countries of origin of tourists heading towards other
tourism destinations like the United States and Australia. Thus, China is an appropriate market in
two ways which has necessitated Airbnb enter the market of the country. First, the country is one
of the top tourists destinations and also provider of large number of international tourists to other
tourist destinations countries. Thus, Airbnb would be able to generate immense revenue by
serving both emigrating tourists and immigrating tourists. Moreover, the company would be
able to generate immense revenue by serving domestic tourists in the country. It can also be
pointed out that this rise in the tourism market in China has encouraged development of a large
number of firms providing tourists services like accommodations and food facilities. This has

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also led to development of several event management companies which promote events in order
the tourists with entertainment and enhance their knowledge about their local traditions. These
local events enable the hospitality services providing firms create authentic local experiences to
enhance their tourism experiences and customer satisfaction. It can be inferred from the
discussion that Airbnb should form appropriate marketing strategy by using social media to enter
the market of China and generate huge profits.
Persona Planner:
A customer persona profile is a layout which gives information about the attributes of the
persona of the customers like their income and lifestyle. An et al. (2018) point out that the
business companies can use these customer persona to plan appropriate product offerings to
ensure their satisfaction. It can also be pointed out from this discussion that appropriate customer
persona planning can lead to revenue generation and business growth.
The above analysis of the business profile of Airbnb shows that the customer base of the
firm can broadly be divided into two categories namely, providers of services and tourists,. The
tourist base can again be divided into two categories namely, individual customers and corporate
customers. The following are the persona planner diagram which Airbnb can plan to recognise
the needs of the Chinese customers to enter China.
Customer persona for an individual Chinese customer: