Professionalisation and performance of Airbnb hosts in rural regions

Abstract

This paper explores the professionalisation and performance aspects of Airbnb hosts in rural regions in Denmark, Iceland, and Norway. More specifically, based upon the professionalisation of hosts, which represents a proxy for the scale of their entrepreneurial engagement, the host landscape in the rural regions is investigated, resulting in different host profiles, including individual single- and multiple-listing hosts, and small and large tourism companies. The paper subsequently estimates the service quality performance of Airbnb hosts in relation to their professionalisation in rural regions through a u-shaped relationship, with the professionalisation influencing the performance evaluation of the hosts by the users. This twofold empirical analysis amends the extant literature, as it provides both a more nuanced and more comprehensive description of the nature and scale of Airbnb host engagement in rural regions, and points to the vast entrepreneurial opportunities for private households and companies on the platform.