Tujia, the leader in China's vacation rental market, on Tuesday signed agreements with eight real estate developers from Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuxi, Suzhou and Weihai as part of its nationwide expansion strategy for the hotel management business.

The company now runs 10,000 sets of rental apartments in 29 cities, which are expected to reach 25,000 sets in 60 cities by the end of this year, said Luo Jun, chief executive officer of tujia.com.

"We will apply the vacation rental system to the country's tourism market to provide quality serviced apartments at competitive prices for tourists," said Luo.

Industry insiders said the system is a rising business model in China to create a new way of spending the holidays by combining the property business with tourism.

Luo said that the business has a great potential in China, as more people now prefer the do-it-yourself tourism model rather than going with travel agencies.

In 2010, US companies generated $85 billion from 6 million sets of rental apartments.

Tujia is talking with property developers about 500 projects in 45 cities, which can provide 400,000 sets of apartments, said Luo.

chenqide@chinadaily.com.cn