Host Community Willingness and Perceived Constraints to Peer-to-Peer Accommodation in South West Nigeria

Abstract

Peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation is a form of sharing economy which incorporates the host community residents with the tourists. However, Idanre hills, Ikogosi warm spring and Olumirin waterfalls which were randomly chosen as destinations from Ondo, Ekiti and Osun State representing 50% of the South West, Nigeria. Both qualitative and quantitative research method were used to generate data.342 structured questionnaires were administered. SPSS was used to analyzed the data collected while inferential and descriptive statistical tools were adopted for the demographic data. Study revealed that 58.2% of the respondents were Male and 41.8% Female, 63.5% were Single while 24% were Married. Majority of the respondents are within the age range of 35-44(33.6%), 36.3% were farmers, 28.9% were Civil Servants and 48.8% had secondary school certificate. Majority of the respondents are willing to participate in P2P accommodation, IH (99.60%), IWS and OWS (100%) respectively as residents welcomed the idea of sharing their homes with tourists (mean=4.69). However, security challenge and lack of inter-personal trust between the hosts and guests (mean=4.70) were the major perceived constraints to P2P accommodation in the selected communities. The sociodemographic characteristics of respondents such as age, occupation, religion, education and income were significantly related to their perception of P2P accommodation. Meanwhile, gender, marital status and ethnicity are not significantly related. The study concluded that P2P accommodation is essential for collaborative consumption at ecotourism destinations of South West, Nigeria.