Making room beyond hotels

Chinese outbound travelers are looking for new types of accommodation. Traditional hotels are passe. Stays at private apartments are in.

That's creating huge opportunities for US lodging services. For instance, Airbnb Inc, which operates a peer-to-peer or P2P website for accommodation sharing, has more than 2 million listings and connects over 50 million users in more than 34,000 cities of 190 countries.

The San Francisco-based Airbnb, which was founded in 2008, said it has high hopes for the Chinese market. China is the fastest growing market for Airbnb because more and more younger Chinese travelers prefer a unique traveling experience, said Varsha Rao, vice-president of global operations at Airbnb.