For Vietnamese consumers, especially young people, Luxstay is a well known name. It is an online room booking platform developed by Vietnamese founders.

Making its debut in late 2016, Luxstay developed as a home sharing platform. It has a luxtay.com website and Luxstay app for mobile phones. Operating in the same field, the startup is called the Vietnamese version of Airbnb.

However, unlike Airbnb which operates internationally, Luxstay focuses on the domestic market. The platform targets niche markets in famous tourism attractions and cities and provinces, where foreign platforms have not reached.

Luxstay made an impressive start when successfully persuading the ‘sharks’ of Shark Tank TV Show to invest $6 million in it. However, the startup was unlucky as the tourism sector was seriously affected by Covid-19 one year later.

The tourism industry has warmed up again but Luxstay’s comeback has not been as smooth as its rivals.

In late May and early June, Luxstay’s website unexpectedly halted operation. There was a rumor that another Vietnamese startup had left the market.

Recently, Luxstay’s fanpage on Facebook had a new name – LuxWorld. The identity logo of the fanpage has also changed. In the description, the administrators of LuxWorld say that this is a high-end tourism platform in Vietnam and Asia.

Luxstay.com and Luxstay app are operating as usual. With this move, it appears that the Vietnamese version of Airbnb is preparing for its comeback.

When VietNamNet reporters contacted Luxstay’s representative, he said that the startup has not shut down.

Asked about recent changes, the representative said Luxstay is rebranding into LuxWorld. This is a plan that the startup prepared during the Covid-19 pandemic. It will also renovate the business model to suit the new circumstances and apply more technology. 

When asked about detailed plans, he said there will be a communication roadmap and more information updated in the time to come.

The founder of Luxstay, Nguyen Van Dung (Steve Nguyen), was one of the first persons joining the online ad market.

Steve Nguyen was also a co-founder of Metub, one of the largest MCNs in Vietnam which is managing thousands of YouTube channels.

After many successes, the founder decided to give up everything and sold his shares in many companies to focus on the Luxstay project with the ambition of turning the company into a unicorn technology startup.

Steve Nguyen told VietNamNet that Luxstay was created with three major keywords – tourism, real estate and technology.

Trong Dat