Chinese Vacation Home Rental Service Tujia Receives Series A Investment

Readers may recall back in January when we looked at Chinese startup Tujia, a vacation home rental service which offers hotel-like online booking for your home if you’re on holiday. And now this evening there’s word from venture capital firm Lightspeed China Partners that it has made a series A investment in Tujia, along with CDH Investments and Ctrip International.

Interestingly, HomeAway, the American site which is supposedly the inspiration behind Tujia is joining those investors, purchasing a minority stake in Tujia.

According to the announcement, the new cash will be used to help the startup expand its operations to handle an “emerging online vacation rental market” in China. Brian Sharples, the CEO of HomeAway notes why Tujia was of interest to his company:

HomeAway seeks to make every vacation property in the world available to every traveler and so we’re excited to make this long term investment in Tujia.com as we believe they are best positioned to bring vacation rentals to China.

The opportunities in catering to China’s mid- to high-end travelers must surely be pretty staggering. Giving Chinese travelers the chance to stay in more high-end accommodations, in particular, will surely be a service that’s always going to be in high demand.