Lodging: Renting a home can make you fashionable

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 shortterm 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.