Mehta said that China's domestic tourism is very big but its outbound opportunity is very exciting as well.
"We know that there are about 120 million to 140 million Chinese who will leave China to travel overseas. We know that one in three trips in APAC (Asia Pacific) on Airbnb ends up in Japan."
Currently, China is a tiny slice of the company's business today, with only 80,000 listings out of more than 3 million worldwide. In contrast, the leading Chinese home-sharing site, Tujia, has boasted more than 400,000 listings.
Around 122 million Chinese traveled outside their home country in 2016, spending around USD 109.8 billion, according to official China Tourism Academy data.
Japanese data showed that around 6.37 million Chinese visited that country in 2016, up 27.6%. The Japan Times reported Chinese tourists spent around 1.48 trillion yen (USD 13.12 billion) in Japan in 2016.
At the same time, Mehta was eyeing hosts in Japan.
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