Airbnb Users Research Articles

What influences Vietnamese Airbnb travelers’ positive electronic word-of-mouth intentions? An extension of the Mehrabian – Russell model

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the relationship between environmental stimuli of Airbnb experience, customers’ perceived enjoyment and positive electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) intentions through an extension of the Mehrabian–Russell model.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative methodology was adopted using a web-based survey. Data were collected from a sample of 162 Vietnamese Airbnb consumers who had stayed at the platform accommodations. A two-stage procedure with the partial least squares approach to structural equation modeling was conducted to evaluate the measurement model and structural model.FindingsThe results confirmed the significant positive effect of home benefits and social interaction on Airbnb customers’ perceived enjoyment, which subsequently inspires them to develop intentions to spread positive comments toward this platform. Moreover, these relationships remain unchanged among the different groups of customers, except Airbnb travelers with business purposes.Practical implicationsThe findings will provide Airbnb stakeholders in emerging markets with insights into identifying the important environmental factors that are more likely to stimulate consumers’ enjoyment and encourage them to spread positive WOM on social network outlets.Originality/valueThis research provides a deeper comprehension of Airbnb users’ emotional states and positive eWOM intentions by exploring the possible antecedents. Moreover, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to propose the moderating role of gender, purpose of the trip and type of accommodation in the hypothesized relationships. The contradictory findings of this study also highlight the cultural difference in Airbnb customers’ perception and behavioral intentions.

Trust spillovers in the sharing economy: Does international Airbnb experience foster cross‐national trust?

AbstractSharing economy platforms commonly claim to bring about positive social impacts, such as facilitating contact between individuals that would not have met otherwise. According to contact theory, such intergroup contact would change the stereotypes that individuals hold of outgroup members, such as people with a different nationality or ethnicity. We use a large‐scale online Investment Game experiment among Airbnb users to study the effect of Airbnb interactions on cross‐national trust. In contrast with common claims about the positive impact of the sharing economy, we did not find that individuals who had prior experience with a nationality as a host or a guest on Airbnb trusted persons of that nationality more. This may be because monetization, institutionalization and professionalization of Airbnb limits the intensity of contact, or because Airbnb mostly establishes contact between individuals with similar backgrounds.

What is holding customers back? Assessing the moderating roles of personal and social norms on CSR’S routes to Airbnb repurchase intention in the COVID-19 era

Despite Airbnb's disruption of the hotel industry, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation markets to a standstill. During the pandemic, Airbnb elevated their engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the quest to regain trust and develop an attractive brand identity. However, the effectiveness of CSR in engendering favorable behavioral outcomes in times of crisis remains inconclusive. Drawing upon the theoretical lens of the stakeholder theory, the norm activation model, and the theory of planned behavior, this study proposes a conceptual model to test the influence of Airbnb's CSR on repurchase/rebook intention through the mediation of customer trust and customer identification with the company (C-C identification). This study also examines the moderating effects of personal and social norms on the CSR–repurchase intention routes. Findings yielded by a survey of 528 Airbnb users in the US show that the strategic philanthropy component carries the most weight in determining customers' assessments of CSR. This is followed by the environmental, economic, and ethical components. Perceived CSR does not affect repurchase intention directly but does so indirectly through the mediation of C-C identification. Personal norms weaken the effects of perceived CSR and customer trust on repurchase intention. Theoretical and practical implications are provided.

Home-sharing as transnational moorings

Barcelona, one of the main destinations for Airbnb users, has turned into one of the main stages for the now global debate around short-term rentals and their impacts on resident communities. Criticism has mostly focused on the conversion of housing into conventional tourist apartments while less attention has been paid to the problematization of short-term rentals in primary residences. Important questions thus arise as to whether these allegedly genuine forms of home-sharing should be ‘formalised’ at all through a regulation, and which type of controls should be applied. Our research helps to excavate this issue, shedding further light on the different logics and practices behind the development of home-sharing, and discusses the limitations of a regulation which is being introduced. To this end, it offers an in-depth analysis of the home-sharing supply in Barcelona, tackling its social and spatial logics, which is framed in the broader debate on processes of social change affecting inner cities. It then focuses on el Raval, one of Barcelona's core neighbourhoods where home-sharing practices have become more diffused, revealing how these practices are strongly correlated with high residential mobility and the presence of a single-dweller childless European resident population. Finally, we argue that home-sharing becomes an equally problematic agency of conversion of housing into a mooring for mobile communities, further contributing to potential gentrification and the displacement of residents.

How self-gratification and social values shape revisit intention and customer loyalty of Airbnb customers

Although the interrelationships among customer perceived value, revisit intention and customer loyalty has been widely studied in various tourism and hospitality settings, it has yet to be comprehensively addressed in the Airbnb context. Based on the value-attitude-behavior hierarchy, our paper proposes a theoretical framework assessing the influence of self-gratification and social values on creating revisit intention and customer loyalty of Airbnb users. Analysis of empirical data stemmed from two focus group discussions, eight in-depth interviews, and a survey with 192 Airbnb users reveals that self-gratification value influences revisit intention and customer loyalty of Airbnb users. However, as the findings indicate, although the social value is influential in forming revisit intention, its effect in creating customer loyalty towards Airbnb is insignificant. • Exploring the self-gratification and social values in triggering Airbnb revisit intention. • Understanding of the nuances of value perceived by Airbnb users. • Investigating the impact of self-gratification and social values on visitors' intention loyalty Airbnb contexts. • Contributing to our understanding of sharing peer to peer accommodations.

Lord, please save me from my sins! Can CSR mitigate the negative impacts of sharing economy on consumer trust and corporate reputation?

The explosive growth of Airbnb not only provides travelers with novel accommodation experiences at prices that suit their budget, but also challenges the existing regulatory and market structures. While Airbnb with its distinct peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation business model is considered a disruptive innovation in the hospitality industry, little is known about its negative side. This gap in extant literature has motivated the present study, aiming to establish whether the negative aspects of Airbnb undermine consumers' overall trust in the company and its corporate reputation, and whether this link is moderated by corporate social responsibility (CSR). Data required to answer these questions was collected via a survey in which 348 potential Airbnb users in Taiwan, selected using a nonprobability purposive sampling technique, took part. Partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to analyze the data. The results indicate that consumers' overall trust in Airbnb is negatively affected by various factors, ranging from legal, regulatory, and taxation issues to fake reviews/listings. The moderation analysis findings further reveal that, while the overall trust−corporate reputation link is strengthened by the environmental and philanthropic CSR, it is weakened by economic CSR, which can lead to unfavorable consumer attitudes and behavioral intentions.

FEELING AT HOME WHILE TRAVELING: AN ANALYSIS OF THE EXPERIENCES OF AIRBNB USERS

Purpose – This study analyzes the experiences of Airbnb users in the city of Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil, through the reviews published on the platform, evealing the relevant issues experienced by users during their stays and the polarity associated with these issues. Design – Collection of 2,338 Airbnb website reviews from users who visited Fortaleza between January 2019 and October 2020, associated with 503 listings. Methodology/Approach – Data was collected between October 24 and October 28, 2020, using Parse Hub and Tableau Public for data extraction and validation, respectively. Content analysis was performed to examine the data, and NVivo was used to support the categorization and coding steps. Findings – The main analysis categories in the online reviews of Airbnb users in Fortaleza were “location”, “physical environment”, “interaction and communication with the host”, “hospitable, friendly host”, “cleanliness and organization”, “near other facilities”, “home appliances” and “view”. In turn, the least referenced categories were “experiencing the local culture”, “interaction with other guests” and “living like a place”. The analysis suggests a positivity bias in comments while negative sentiments are caused mainly by “physical environment” and “home appliances”. Originality of the research – This study identifies the themes pointed out by guests when using Airbnb, that influence the user experience.

Creating customer value in the sharing economy: an investigation of Airbnb users and their tripographic characteristics

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the roles of different types of customer value in influencing in customer evaluations of Airbnb. In particular, this study empirically tests the roles of four value dimensions in shaping existing Airbnb users’ attitudes and future behavioral intentions along with the effects of tripographic characteristics on users’ post-purchase evaluative judgments.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopted a multi-study approach to test the hypotheses. In Study 1, theoretical relationships between constructs were proposed and empirically analyzed; and in Study 2, a different sample was used to validate the hypothesized model and enhance the external validity of the findings. After completing both studies, the two samples were combined to test for the moderating effects of several key tripographic factors among Airbnb users.FindingsThis study found that price value, emotional value, quality value and social value were critical factors exerting differential effects on customers’ evaluations of Airbnb. Further analysis of group differences revealed that Airbnb customers’ value perceptions differed significantly depending on the length of stay, group size and number of previous trips. The number of previous trips also had a significant moderating effect on the relationship between social value and attitudes.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this study contribute to the literature on Airbnb by presenting a comprehensive assessment of the differential effects of value components in evaluating Airbnb experiences with the consideration of tripographic characteristics. While supporting the importance of emotional, social, quality and price value to Airbnb guests, the results also show that Airbnb seems to appeal particularly to visitors who stay longer, travel with large groups and have used the platform several times in the past.Originality/valueThe findings of this study provide important insight into which customer values contribute to users’ attitudes and consequent favorable behaviors. More importantly, this study emphasized the importance of understanding the moderating effects of tripographic characteristics in the relationships between customer values and existing users’ evaluative judgment of Airbnb experiences.

Moderating Effect of Trust on Customer Return Intention Formation in Peer-to-Peer Sharing Accommodation

The peer-to-peer sharing accommodation features a high level of asymmetric information and a series of uncertainties and risks. Therefore, trust plays a critical role in shaping consumer behavior. Previous studies have frequently emphasized the direct effect of trust during the prepurchasing stage while disregarding its role in shaping customer satisfaction/return intention at the postpurchasing stage. Based on the attribution theory, in this study, we model the formation of return intention by incorporating the moderating effects of trust. A sample of 500 peer-to-peer sharing accommodation participants in China was collected to test the extended model based on the moderated structural equation modeling. Furthermore, users of Airbnb and Chinese domestic platforms were compared. Results demonstrated the existence of the moderating role of trust for domestic platform users but not for Airbnb users.

Exploring Sources of Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction in Airbnb Accommodation Using Unsupervised and Supervised Topic Modeling.

This study aims to examine key attributes affecting Airbnb users' satisfaction and dissatisfaction through the analysis of online reviews. A corpus that comprises 59,766 Airbnb reviews form 27,980 listings located in 12 different cities is analyzed by using both Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and supervised LDA (sLDA) approach. Unlike previous LDA based Airbnb studies, this study examines positive and negative Airbnb reviews separately, and results reveal the heterogeneity of satisfaction and dissatisfaction attributes in Airbnb accommodation. In particular, the emergence of the topic “guest conflicts” in this study leads to a new direction in future sharing economy accommodation research, which is to study the interactions of different guests in a highly shared environment. The results of topic distribution analysis show that in different types of Airbnb properties, Airbnb users attach different importance to the same service attributes. The topic correlation analysis reveals that home like experience and help from the host are associated with Airbnb users' revisit intention. We determine attributes that have the strongest predictive power to Airbnb users' satisfaction and dissatisfaction through the sLDA analysis, which provides valuable managerial insights into priority setting when developing strategies to increase Airbnb users' satisfaction. Methodologically, this study contributes by illustrating how to employ novel approaches to transform social media data into useful knowledge about customer satisfaction, and the findings can provide valuable managerial implications for Airbnb practitioners.

A identidade do turista e o consumo colaborativo


 
 
 
 Por meio de plataformas digitais, o consumo colaborativo possibilita o acesso a diversos produtos e serviços, assumindo papel essencial na construção de identidades. Ao ampliar a participação dos indivíduos nas escolhas de suas viagens e permitir o contato direto entre os usuários, essa forma de consumo tem conseguido adesão de pessoas em busca de alternativas no mercado turístico, e dado espaço para o discurso anti-turista, direcionado para consumidores que procuram se distanciar do turismo tradicional, geralmente de massa. Compreendendo que os consumidores atuam na propagação de discursos e imagens sobre um serviço ou destino, bem como na construção de sua identidade de consumo, buscou-se entender como os usuários do Airbnb interpretam as mensagens apresentadas pela plataforma e as relacionam com a sua identidade de turista (tradicional) ou viajante (anti-turista). Os resultados deste estudo, de natureza qualitativa, obtidos a partir da análise dos dados gerados por entrevistas semiestruturadas, indicam que os respondentes se indetificam mais com a proposta dos serviços oferecidos pela plataforma do que com a ideia do ser turista ou viajante. Com interesses semelhantes, os usuários revelam possuir características de consumo comuns aos dois perfis de consumidores, variando conforme o tipo de viagem que cada um realiza.
 
 
 

Loyalty and word-of-mouth as outcomes of South African Airbnb customers' relationship quality

Airbnb, a worldwide giant in the sharing community, has shown tremendous growth in the past few years, especially in developing countries such as South Africa. The next big challenge for Airbnb is probably to understand how to develop long-lasting relationships with its customers. It is well-known that relationship quality not only aids in forming long-term relationships with customers, but also helps to strengthen the relationship between firms and customers. This paper fills a gap in literature by considering both composite and disaggregate approaches to study customer loyalty and positive word-of-mouth as outcomes of relationship quality. Snowball sampling was used to collect data from 250 South African Airbnb users. The findings show that although both approaches to relationship quality predict loyalty and positive word-of-mouth, a disaggregated approach better predicts these relationship quality outcomes.

An analysis of Airbnb online reviews: user experience in 16 U.S. cities

分析Airbnb网络评论：论美国16城市的用户体验研究目的本论文旨在深入了解Airbnb用户体验的复杂属性, 通过分析网络评论以及网络评分之间的关系来找寻规律和判断用户情感偏差。研究设计/方法/途径本论文采用大数据方式, 样本为美国16个城市的Airbnb用户网络评论; 本论文还对网络评分做出相关性分析。研究结果研究结果表明, Airbnb用户网络评论的关键主题为“清洁性”、“地理位置”、“居住体验”、“家”、“地点”、“招待主人”、“邻里”、以及“推荐”和用户总体来说对Airbnb有着积极体验。“清洁度”分数对“整体评论”有显著影响。研究理论限制/启示本论文属于开拓性研究作品; 未来项目可以采用混合方法来衡量用户体验与主题的关系。本论文的研究背景是美国, 未来研究可以做不同国家和区域的评论模式对比分析。此外, 未来研究还应该考虑Airbnb用户的统计数据指标、个性、以及住宿设施偏好。研究实际启示对于Airbnb住宿提供者来说, 保持设施的清洁和可使用性是非常重要的。对于Airbnb住宿主人和酒店经营者来说, 加强服务属性来提高网络好评是非常重要的。每个城市都应该基于“清洁度”和“整体评论”来开发不同的战略。研究原创性/价值本论文补充了现有Airbnb用户体验的文献, 通过Leximancer 4.0 软件来分析美国16个城市的网络评论

Exploring preferences and sustainable attitudes of Airbnb green users in the review comments and ratings: a text mining approach

The sharing economy platforms for accommodation have emerged as a disruptive model that has revolutionized the tourist lodging sector and modified tourist consumption patterns. Airbnb is the paradigm of this business model, with approximately 300 million users and more than 7 million listings worldwide. However, studies that have attempted to explore the consumer experiences of green Airbnb users are still scarce, especially those using big data approaches. The present study explores the preferences and attitudes of green Airbnb users by analyzing the online review published in Inside Airbnb using text mining and sentiment analysis. Findings reveal six latent aspects among which the “sustainability” predominates in the online opinions of green Airbnb users, situating sustainability in relation to the most positive emotion of the Plutchik model. Moreover, the results of the analysis suggest a positivity bias in the online reviews of green Airbnb users. Managerial implications for sustainability, consumer behavior management, and marketing fields are discussed.

Employing structural topic modelling to explore perceived service quality attributes in Airbnb accommodation

Abstract This study employs the structural topic model to extract service quality attributes from 242,020 Airbnb reviews in Malaysia. 22 service related topics were extracted from the corpus and four topics have not appeared in previous Airbnb studies. A widely used modified SERVQUAL questionnaire (MSQ) is cross-validated in this study by comparing its service quality attributes with the results of the topic modelling, which indicates that this MSQ can cover general Airbnb service quality attributes. This study also examines the different preferences of Malaysian and international Airbnb users and the changing patterns of the top six service quality attributes during a five-year period. The findings reveal that Malaysian Airbnb users care more about the appearance and location of the property, and international Airbnb users pay more attention to whether the property can accommodate a group of people. In addition, communication with the host is found to play an increasingly important role in Airbnb users’ lodging experiences.

Motives and barriers of Airbnb users: Findings from mixed-methods approach

Motives and barriers of Airbnb users: Findings from mixed-methods approach

Factors influencing trust and behavioral intention to use Airbnb service innovation in three ASEAN countries

Purpose The sharing economy is described as a community marketplace, particularly home sharing such as Airbnb, which is more prevalent. Airbnb changed the way renters and tourists find places to stay when they are traveling. The company introduced innovations in business models and technologies. So, Airbnb requires specific factors that will influence consumers’ trust because consumers intuitively seek out trusting factors to make judgments on innovative service providers. Thus, the purpose of this study is to understand the factors that influence travelers’ trust to use Airbnb within the three ASEAN nations. Design/methodology/approach The data were collected from both qualitative and quantitative methods. The questionnaire was the main data-gathering instrument used in this study and supplemented by informal interviews. A self-administered questionnaire was provided to 130 Airbnb users from the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore using Hayes’ Process Macro as the statistical tool. Findings The correlation test was carried out to determine the strength and relationships among the independent, mediating and dependent variables. All independent variables are positively correlated with the mediating variable. The results reveal that ease of use, convenience, information social influence, normative social influence and security have a significant impact on trust and behavioral intention to use Airbnb. Originality/value This study contributes to the field of sharing economy, particularly home sharing, by examining different factors that influence trust and behavioral intention. This study focused on the case of Southeast Asian consumers, so this study is useful for marketing practitioners to enhance their marketing strategies in catering to this segment of the market.

Peer-to-peer evaluations as narcissistic devices: fabricating an entrepreneurial community

PurposeThis paper investigates online evaluation processes on peer-to-peer platforms to highlight how online peer evaluation enacts neoliberal subjects and collectives.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses netnography (Kozinets, 2002) to study the online community of Airbnb. It is also based on 18 interviews, mostly with Airbnb users, and quantitative data about reviews.FindingsResults indicate that peer-to-peer platforms constitute biopolitical infrastructures. They enact and consolidate narcissistic entrepreneurs of the self through evaluation processes and consolidating a for-show community. Specifically, three features make evaluation a powerful neoliberal agent. The object of evaluation shifts from the service to the user's own worth (1). The public nature of the evaluation (2) and symetrical accountability between the evaluator and the evaluatee (3) contribute to excessively positive reviews and this keeps the market fluid.Social implicationsThis paper calls for problematization of the idea of sharing in the so-called “sharing economy”. What is shared on peer-to-peer platforms is the comfort of engaging with people like ourselves.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the literature on online accounting by extending consideration of evaluation beyond the review process. It also stresses that trust in the evaluative infrastructure is fostered by narcissistic relationships between users, who come to use the platform as a mirror. The peer-to-peer context refreshes the our knowledge on evaluation in a corporate context by highlighting phenomena of standardized spontaneity and euphemized evaluation language. This allows evaluation processes to incorporate a market logic without having to fuel competition.

THE REASONS OF FOREIGN TOURISTS CHOOSE OF AIRBNB WHEN THEY HAS VISITED İSTANBUL

In recent years, Airbnb has become a platform used by millions of tourists and growing rapidly. The purpose of this research is to reveal the reasons why tourists prefer Airbnb as a sharing economy platform. The data were collected from tourists who visited İstanbul between June and December 2019 through Airbnb hosts. 385 online questionnaires were obtained and reliability, frequency analysis and one-way Anova analyzes were done in SPSS program. Results; It was concluded that the reasons of choosing Airbnb such as interaction, loyalty, sharing economy, local authenticity and home benefits dimensions differ according to demographic variables. Future research may look at differences between Airbnb users and non-user groups.

The Effects of Perceived Risk, Brand Credibility and Past Experience on Purchase Intention in the Airbnb Context

This study investigated the main effects of perceived risks, brand credibility and past experience on intention to stay at Airbnb places and the interaction effects of past experience with perceived risks and brand credibility on intention to stay. A survey research method was utilized in South Korea. Our study is the first study to have applied and supported Jacoby and Kaplan’s six constructs in explaining consumers’ risk perceptions in the Airbnb context. One of the primary findings of this study was that past experience played a significant moderating role in the Airbnb context. Social risk and psychological risk had negative effects and performance risk had a positive effect on Airbnb users’ intention to stay. With regard to non-users, psychological risk had a negative effect on intention to stay. These findings indicate that Airbnb users consider more specific risks based on their prior experiences of Airbnb use. This study also revealed that brand credibility had the strongest influence on both Airbnb users’ and non-users’ intention to stay. Consistent with previous research, this finding indicates that brand credibility is a critical variable in consumer decision-making for the intangible and heterogeneous products like accommodation. Based on these findings, theoretical and managerial implications were provided, and limitations and future research were discussed.