How to use housing apps and impress friends

Experiencing home away from home has never been more cost-efficient for Chinese travelers.

China's booming shared accommodation services, which offer short-term low-cost lodging, reflect domestic tourists' disenchantment with traditional holidays.

Hotels, it seems, are passe. Curiosity, adventure, unique experiences that cost a fraction of conventional holidays are in.

I can vouch for that. During the International Labor Day holiday in May, I decided against trodding the beaten path. Who wants to pay big money for the stress of booking the boring monotony of 30-square-meter hotel rooms?

So, instead, I booked a short-term stay in a relatively spacious－90 square meters－house listed on Tujia, a home-rental service provider.

The place was equipped with almost everything a modern home would have these days. It offered me a totally new experience.

During the vacation, conveniences like the well-stocked kitchen, washing machine and extra space for entertainment and leisure proved to be a huge blessing indeed.

My companion on the trip was my friend. This meant, instead of being cooped up in identical hotel rooms like we used to do in the past, we could drink some wine on the balcony, cook breakfast and chat, chat, chat. Oh yes, we had a bonus in the form of separate en-suite bedrooms.

That kind of suite in a big hotel would have cost us some 2,000 yuan ($289) per night. In contrast, the homestay costs us just 454 yuan per night.

Another contrast: just a few years ago, personalized trips and special accommodation like the one we had, were considered a privilege for the wealthy.

The scene has changed dramatically, thanks to a new wave of travelers comprising the millennials and the influential middle class. They yearn for something different.

Unlike their parents, the younger generation demand more personalized and wide-ranging experiences. They love offbeat destinations and memorable experiences they could treasure and cherish.

I'm a millennial, by the way. Like my tech-savvy peers, I share my travel experiences on social media. The homestay afforded me many conveniences that catered to my needs. And I happily shared the details with my friends. Now, in my social media groups, I'm seen as an icon, a person who boldly tries out fashionable things.

Emboldened, I tried to do something unprecedented for my birthday this summer. I rented a modern, well-laid-out loft for a party in a home setting. We had loads of fun and big-screen entertainment. The images of the shindig that I splashed on social media later won me hundreds of likes and dozens of appreciative comments. The sharing accommodation services helped reinforce my icon status among my groups.

Well, small pleasures like these somewhat take the sting out of the pain of getting priced out of the residential property markets. In big cities such as Beijing, young people often share small rooms with other tenants.

Meetings with friends, parties or networking activities are simply not possible at such small rented accommodations. Landlords and neighbors frown upon potential noise. This is where short-term lodging makes a huge difference.

According to a recent report by the State Information Center, the nation's main shared accommodation platforms offered around 3 million housing units in 2017. Their collective transactions reached about 14.5 billion yuan, up almost 71 percent year-on-year. The figure is expected to hit 50 billion yuan by 2020.

Choices and standards will likely increase and improve from now on. That should help me to protect my status as an icon among my social media groups. Just kidding.