Online home-rental marketplace Airbnb is gearing up for a deeper push into the booming market of Chinese travellers.

Airbnb has forged partnerships with investment firms Sequoia China and China Broadband Capital, to expand into the Chinese market and find a chief executive officer for its operations in the country.

The company was recently reported to have completed a $1.5 billion private funding round. Chinese travellers have been the world’s top spenders in international tourism since 2012, according to the United Nations’ World Tourism Organization.

The number of Chinese guests renting rooms through Airbnb rose 700 percent in 2014, making China the fastest growing outbound market for the company.

While Airbnb remains focused on Chinese tourists traveling abroad, people in the country are signing up to host international tourists and domestic travellers.

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