Abstract
Existing studies applying a motivation-based segmentation of Airbnb users are still limited and mainly concentrated in the US; even less are studies applied in the European context. This paper applies an exploratory mixed method approach in Italy, where no study has been published around this research area so far. A qualitative study based on 26 in-depth interviews was carried out to verify if Italians are driven by the same motivations that have been identified by existing literature. Qualitative findings were then used to inform, complemented with a review of the existing literature, to design a survey instrument to collect data. Hence, a factor-cluster analysis was run to profile a sample of 247 Italians based on their motivations to use Airbnb, and a series of chi-square tests was run to investigate whether significant differences exist among clusters based on socio-demographic characteristics (gender, age, marital status, level of education, employment status, and annual income). Three clusters were identified (“Enthusiastic Airbnb lovers”, “Pragmatic Airbnb users” e “Pragmatic authenticity seekers”) with significant differences only based on marital status, level of education and employment status. Contributions to the body of knowledge and managerial implications are discussed and suggestions for further research are given.
Highlights
In recent years, the advent of the sharing economy has emerged as a major destructive trend completely re-shaping the global tourism and hospitality industry (Aznar, Maspera and Quer, 2019; Dudás et al, 2019; Hsu et al, 2016)
Our qualitative findings largely confirm the motivation to use Airbnb as identified by existing studies, and as reviewed and summarized in the motivation-based segmentation study published by Guttentag et al, (2018)
They suggest that Italians tend to use Airbnb for getting economic benefits, interaction, novelty, home benefits and economy pathos
Summary
The advent of the sharing economy has emerged as a major destructive trend completely re-shaping the global tourism and hospitality industry (Aznar, Maspera and Quer, 2019; Dudás et al, 2019; Hsu et al, 2016) In such a scenario, “touristic consumers have resources and can organize among themselves or mingle with the closely related residential consumer species and act like producers” Different types of peer-to-peer accommodation platform can be acknowledged based on their business model In such context, offering completely free of charge hospitality experiences (e.g. CouchSurfing) represents one end of a continuum, whereas other platforms exist representing more of a commercial exchange between host and guest; Airbnb can be positioned in the middle of this continuum (Reinhold and Dolnicar, 2017). Peer-to-peer accommodation platforms can be categorised as free (e.g. CouchSurfing), reciprocal (e.g. HomeExchange) and rentals (e.g. Airbnb, 9flats) (Palgan, Zvolska and Mont, 2017)
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