A service specification for China's shared accommodation industry was issued on Thursday, as the country steps up efforts to address problems in the booming sector.

The service specification, the first of its kind in China, was introduced by the Sharing Economy Research Center with the State Information Center. It raised service standard to address the problems in the industry, which are also public concerns, such as check-in identity verification, housing information review mechanism, health service standard, user information protection system, blacklist sharing mechanism, as well as the use of smart security devices.

Statistics from the Sharing Economy Research Center showed that in 2017, the turnover of the country's shared accommodation accounted for 7.3% of the whole accommodation industry, growing at a rate of 65%, while the growth rate of the traditional accommodation industry was only 4.2%.

In addition, in 2017, the trade volume of China's shared accommodation industry was 14.5 billion yuan (USD 2 billion), surging 70.6% year-on-year. It is estimated that by 2020, the trade volume will reach 50 billion yuan.

Four leading enterprises in the sector, namely Xiaozhu, Airbnb, Tujia.com and Zhenguo.com, signed the commitment contract of the service specification, vowing to follow the rules to promote the sustainable development of the industry.