Abstract
Hosts list their accommodations on Airbnb aspiring to attract guests. Extant research on the drivers of guests’ booking behaviour has solely considered structured information on the Airbnb platform, thereby omitting the rich information provided in the unstructured textual listing description. This work adds to the stream of research on Airbnb demand determinants by identifying the latent topics used in these unstructured descriptions as drivers of listing demand. Both our empirical model and follow-up experimental study indicate that Airbnb guests value unique accommodation aspects of which hosts can convince their potential guests by using the textual description. Guests especially value enthusiastic home experiences and a unique local city guide accompanying the listing. However, when hotel-like properties are conveyed in the description, prospective guests are dissuaded.
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