Consequences of development of the sharing economy in tourism for cities – theory and examples

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to identify the impacts generated in the cities by the sharing economy in tourism and the presentation of solutions appearing due to sharing economy development and implementation in particular cities. Contemporary cities are functioning in extremely dynamic conditions that are difficult to predict. In view of the globalising economy, progressive urbanisation, rapid changes in information and communication technologies, as well as social demographic, geopolitical and economic changes, new problems appear and solutions to them have to be implemented by cities. One of these phenomena that are relatively new and fast growing, and influence development of cities, is sharing economy (SE) in tourism. The greatest concern of the city authorities is fast and unrestrained development of services through global platforms in the accommodation and passenger transport industry, and the powerful global leaders of these markets – Airbnb and Uber have become very important partners for local governments, but also difficult ones. On the bases of extended literature review embracing scientific sources and industry reports it can be visible, that actions taken by the local authorities tend to be reactive not systematic and concentrated only on solving isolated current problems. It is postulated though that development of SE should be perceived in a way described by Hall (1994) as a third-order change. Several suggestions for future scientific research are also presented.