Which Marketer-generated-content is more effective? An experimental study in the context of a peer-to-peer accommodation platform

Abstract

Using the perspective of Marketer-generated content (MGC) from hosts, this study explored the effects of property textual description and host textual description on guests’ intention to book sharing accommodation on a peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation platform, and examined the role of travel types on the effectiveness of MGC. To test the hypothesis, an experimental design of 2 (Travel types) × 2 (Property description) × 3 (Host description) was employed. The results reveal that emotion-based property description leads to higher guest’s booking intention than information-based property description. Also, it is more effective to show honest or positive host description than to not show any. Furthermore, the results demonstrate heterogeneity in the effectiveness of MGC strategies for hedonic and utilitarian travel types. This study shows the importance of MGC on P2P accommodation platforms, which provide new ideas for P2P accommodation hosts to make their offerings more attractive to guests.