A contributed article by Tujia Overseas, the short-term rental arm of Trip.com Group, written for Australian Property Forum. Lightly edited for APF style. Figures below are company-reported unless otherwise stated.
Tujia Overseas opens direct host onboarding in Sydney, Melbourne, the Gold Coast and Brisbane from November 2026. This piece sets out how the model works, what the company's numbers say, and what the fine print actually requires.
Why this matters to Australian owners
Most Australian short-stay operators have spent the last three years optimising for one audience: the domestic traveller. That market is now well understood — pricing calendars, school-holiday peaks, the long-weekend pattern, the two-night Sydney escape.
The audience that remains largely untapped is inbound. Chinese travellers are the single largest source of outbound holiday demand in the world, and their accommodation preferences often differ from the hotel default: they travel in groups, stay longer, want a kitchen, and expect to be served in Chinese from the first enquiry to check-out.
For an Australian owner, that is less a marketing problem than a distribution problem. The demand exists on platforms most Australian hosts have never listed on — and those platforms are now recruiting supply in Australia.
From November 2026, Tujia Overseas (the overseas division of Tujia, the short-term rental platform owned by Trip.com Group) opens host recruitment in four Australian cities: Sydney, Melbourne, the Gold Coast and Brisbane. This article sets out what that involves, based on the company's own published figures and host materials.
What Tujia is
Tujia has operated in China's vacation rental market for 15 years and is the short-term rental platform of Trip.com Group. The company says its platform carries more than one million listings and serves over 50 million homestay users. Its overseas division covers every destination outside mainland China — including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan — and currently works with more than 3,000 overseas hosts, concentrated in Japan and Thailand.
The overseas business is not a new experiment. It restarted in 2023 with Japan as the first market, and direct host onboarding in Japan and Thailand opened in 2026.
The numbers, as published
Company-reported figures for the 2026 year to 24 August:
- GMV: RMB 100.8 million
- Bookings: 83,190
- Room nights: 185,245
Tujia attributes that growth to two things running in parallel: a deeper focus on a small number of cities, and the opening of new distribution channels.
The city example is Kuala Lumpur. The company says that in June 2026, one week into a dedicated Kuala Lumpur city programme, paid room nights in the city overtook Osaka — until then the overseas business's strongest single city — with weekly room nights up by more than 100. Kuala Lumpur is now described internally as the number-two city in the world by booking volume for the platform.
The channel story is distribution. In September 2026, Tujia's overseas Trip.com distribution channel went live, with the first 440 direct-supply listings available for sale and further inventory added continuously, according to the company. For a host, that means the same property is exposed to outbound Chinese demand and to Trip.com's international traffic at the same time.
Where the demand sits today
By booking volume, Tujia says the current priority markets are:
- Japan — Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto
- Thailand — Bangkok, Phuket, Pattaya, Chiang Mai
- Korea — Seoul, Jeju
- Malaysia — Kuala Lumpur
- Hong Kong and Macao
These are the markets where Chinese travellers already book in volume. Australia is the newer bet — hence the four-city recruitment rather than a national launch.
Who the Chinese guest actually is
Tujia's own guest profiling describes three overlapping segments:
- Quality family travellers. Families with children, preferring whole two-bedroom-plus apartments or comfortable standalone houses. Clean linen and a full kitchen are, in this account, the reason the booking happens, not optional extras.
- Experience-seeking couples. Design-led, well-located one-bedroom apartments, booked by travellers who want to live like locals rather than tick off sights.
- Efficiency-minded business travellers. Reliable wifi and practical local guidance, often travelling in groups and staying multiple nights.
Two operational consequences follow, according to the company. First, Chinese-language service runs end to end, from booking messages to check-in instructions — that is the platform's stated promise, not an optional extra. Second, a single listing is exposed on three apps at once: Tujia, Trip.com and Qunar, plus supplementary channels.
Two supply tracks — and why "direct" is the offer
Tujia's overseas inventory comes from two sources.
C-connect (platform access). Supply sourced through Trip.com business development and international OTA contracts, with Hecheng accounting for more than 90% of C-connect inventory, alongside partners such as Agoda, according to the company. The stated strength here is breadth: a large catalogue built on standardised technical integration and a single operating standard.
Direct (self-operated). Supply developed directly by Tujia's own business development teams, with Chinese-speaking hosts in Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong. The stated strength here is depth: hosts who understand what Chinese guests expect, served in their own language, with tighter quality control and operating support.
For an Australian owner, the direct track is the relevant one. The company argues the difference is not price, but language, service expectation and quality control: the host who can answer a WeChat message at 11pm in Mandarin, explain the parking situation, and understand why a family of five needs a second bedroom rather than a sofa bed.
What hosting actually pays, and what protects it
The commercial terms, as presented to prospective hosts:
- Monthly settlement, multiple currencies. Payouts are made monthly, in local currency or RMB via Payoneer, with exportable statements for line-by-line reconciliation.
- A 15% commission. Rates, cleaning fees and extra-guest charges are itemised separately, so hosts can see how the total price is built and what the commission applies to.
- Verified guests and damage protection. All guests are identity-verified, deposits can be collected offline, and damage claims run through a platform appeal channel.
- 24/7 Chinese-language support. Around-the-clock Chinese-language support, plus a dedicated operations advisor covering pricing, availability and promotional strategy.
- Tools. The Tujia Host app handles orders and availability, a visual calendar that can be opened and closed date by date, payout statements that can be exported, and real-time order alerts — the last of which matters most to owners who are not permanently on site.
These are the terms as described in the company's host materials. The merchant agreement, not the marketing copy, is what governs them.
Three host cases, with a caveat
Tujia's website publishes host case studies. Three examples:
- Mr Tao, Tokyo — three whole-unit listings, direct onboarding, average monthly income RMB 8,800. His comment: uploading a listing takes minutes, operations send availability sheets, and orders and payouts are visible at a glance in the app.
- Mr Chen, Osaka — two units, RMB 4,600 a month, citing strong guest quality and near-full occupancy in peak season.
- Ms Lin, Bangkok — two units, RMB 5,400 a month, citing advisor support on listing optimisation and market-aligned pricing.
These are individual cases, not a guarantee. The company states explicitly that income figures are illustrative and that actual returns depend on the property and how it is operated. Any owner modelling this should treat the numbers as a ceiling to test against, not a forecast.
What is new for Australia
The November 2026 recruitment in Sydney, Melbourne, the Gold Coast and Brisbane comes with four stated conditions:
- Self-managed, not managed. Owners keep control of the property and operations; this is not a full property-management arrangement.
- Dual-platform calendar sync. The listing must avoid double bookings across platforms — calendar synchronisation is treated as a requirement, not a feature.
- Payoneer payouts. Settlement runs through Payoneer.
- Short-term rental compliance guidance. The company provides short-term rental compliance reference material. It does not certify compliance — that remains the owner's obligation, and rules differ by state, council and, in some cases, building.
Two further points matter for Australian owners already listed elsewhere:
- No exclusivity is required. Properties already live on Airbnb or Booking.com can be added; Tujia positions itself as incremental Chinese demand plus calendar sync, not a replacement channel.
- Listings outside Japan and Thailand can also be onboarded through Trip.com's listing platform, opened from July 2026.
Separately, Tujia has opened an inbound route: the global site global.tujia.com, and a "Stays in China" entry on its domestic site, allowing Chinese listings to host inbound visitors (June 2026). For Australian owners this is not directly relevant yet, but it indicates how the platform is knitting together outbound and inbound inventory.
How onboarding works
Three steps, as described by the company:
- Submit the listing at tujia.com/overseas, with property details and contact information.
- An operations advisor makes contact within three working days for a free review of the property.
- The listing can go live in as little as seven days, once documentation is complete, and start taking bookings.
The fine print worth checking before you commit
Three things any owner should verify independently:
- Commission and settlement terms are governed by the current merchant agreement, not by marketing material. Read the agreement for the actual settlement cycle, currency conversion treatment and deduction rules.
- Short-stay regulation varies by state and council — registration, fire safety, noise, maximum nights, and strata or building restrictions all apply. "Compliance reference guidance" is guidance, not approval.
- Case figures are illustrative. Treat RMB 8,800, 4,600 and 5,400 a month as reported individual outcomes, and model your own returns against your mortgage, cleaning costs and vacancy assumptions.
Where this fits
For Australian owners, the strategic question is not whether Chinese outbound demand exists — it plainly does — but whether a given property can be described, priced and serviced in a way that captures it. That means a listing written for a guest who has never been to Australia, a check-in process that works without English, and a calendar that does not double-book against existing channels.
The four-city recruitment is a test of that thesis on a small scale. Whether it holds will be visible in the first two quarters of Australian bookings — and in whether hosts who join stay.
About Tujia Overseas
Tujia Overseas is the overseas division of Tujia, the short-term rental platform of Trip.com Group. It serves Chinese-speaking outbound travellers with homestays, apartments and villas in destinations outside mainland China, and works with hosts in Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong and, from November 2026, four Australian cities.
Website: tujia.com/overseas
Figures cited are company-reported and, unless stated otherwise, as of 24 August 2026. Host income examples are individual cases published by the company and do not constitute a forecast or guarantee. This is a contributed article, lightly edited by Australian Property Forum for style and clarity. APF has not independently verified Tujia's operating figures.