Home-sharing Platforms Research Articles

Innovative component as a necessary factor for providing enterprises` development

The article examines negative trends and issues of the tourism industry in the world, and in Europe in particular and studies the impact of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 virus on the functioning of tourism and hospitality agencies and firms. Travel and tourism's direct contribution to GDP in the World was approximately 2.9 trillion U.S. dollars in 2019. It was found that United States’ travel and tourism industry contributed the largest sum at 580.7 billion U.S. dollars in 2019. The impact of COVID-19 on tourism in Q1 2020 was 67 million fewer international tourist arrivals, 80 US$ billion lost in exports, 100% destinations with travel restrictions. All parts of the industry have been affected, from hotels, motels and resorts, to bed and breakfasts and home-sharing platforms like Airbnb. It was found that rural tourism is one of the factors that can be a fundament for economic recovery and development not only in EU, but in Ukraine as well. Ukrainian tourism and hospitality faced losses from quarantine and pandemics at $ 3-5 billion. Approximately 80% of hospitality establishments in Ukraine were small businesses, sole proprietors, that didn`t survive the quarantine. The number of nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments in rural areas for 2014-2019 in European Union and some most popular tourist destinations showed a slightly increase from 2014 till 2016 and from 2017 till 2019. In 2019, over 3,5 million domestic tourists and almost 900 thousand international tourists stayed in rural accommodations in Spain. Preventive measures and suggestions for the application of crisis management were submitted in this investigation aimed at increasing innovative flexibility within the enterprise, developing preparatory plans to avoid crisis situations and precautionary measures for their implementation were proposed in the article.

Agglomeration Among Competitors: Evidence of Heterogeneous Peer Entry Effect in Sharing Economy

Business agglomeration is a striking feature in the sharing economy due to location advantages, especially in home-sharing platforms. Listing agglomeration brings both agglomeration and localized competition effects, but it is still unclear which effect is stronger and how such effect varies with time and list heterogeneity. To answer these questions, we apply a natural experiment design to investigate the impact of peer listing entry as well as its heterogeneity using a panel dataset from a leading home-sharing platform in China. Results suggest that both agglomeration and localized competition effects exist. The impact of peer listing entry increases focal listing demand at the beginning, and the localized competitive effect dominates over time. Furthermore, listings with detailed descriptions and high reputation could keep their predominance in localized competition. Our research contributes to both agglomeration theory and sharing economy literature, and has substantial implications for listing operation and platform management.

The effects of consumer animosity on demand for sharing-based accommodations: Evidence from Airbnb

Online home-sharing platforms, such as Airbnb, have recently become increasingly popular among travelers, including outbound travelers. This study investigates the impact of consumer animosity, a determinant of consumers' purchase decisions in international businesses, on outbound travelers' demand for sharing-based accommodations. In particular, we examine the differential effects of two types of consumer animosity: economic animosity and war animosity. Utilizing a unique geopolitical environment where Chinese consumers bear economic animosity (towards South Korea) and war animosity (towards Japan), we collected a comprehensive panel data set including listings and reviews from Airbnb, together with a list of events inducing animosity. Utilizing the events as exogenous shocks, we applied difference-in-differences (DID) approach to infer the causal effect of consumer animosity on Chinese outbound travelers' demand for sharing-based accommodations. Contrary to the extant studies which mostly show a negative effect of consumer animosity on purchase intentions, we find that consumer's economic animosity is likely to have a positive effect on outbound travelers' decisions in the context of sharing-based accommodations. However, war animosity has limited effect on outbound travelers' decisions. Further, such effects of consumer animosity are negatively moderated by the intensity level of events inducing animosity. As the intensity increases, both war animosity and economic animosity will ultimately have a negative effect on consumers' Airbnb booking decisions. This study contributes to the fast-growing literature focusing on various factors affecting consumers' booking decisions on online home-sharing platforms. Our results also provide important practical implications for online home-sharing platforms.

Perceived host-guest sociability similarity and participants’ satisfaction: Perspectives of airbnb guests and hosts

This article explores the relationship between perceived host-guest sociability similarity (PHSS) and participants' satisfaction in the context of home-sharing, taking into account of the level of participants' sociability, participants' roles and types of accommodation. A survey was designed to collect data and hypotheses were tested using hierarchical multiple regression analyses. Results indicate that PHSS contributes significantly to guest and host satisfaction, regardless of types of accommodation. Moreover, guest sociability moderates positively the relationship between PHSS and guest satisfaction for the guests who choose rooms, but not for the ones staying in “entire home”. However, for the hosts, the moderating effect of host sociability on the relationship between PHSS and host satisfaction is significant both in room-sharing service and “entire home”-sharing service. The findings extend the understanding of participants' satisfaction influenced by their sociability in home-sharing context, providing practical implications for home-sharing platforms and hosts to increase host and/or guest satisfaction.

Fairness, legitimacy and the regulation of home-sharing platforms

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to contribute to current hospitality and tourism research on the sharing economy by studying the under-researched aspects of regulatory desirability, moral legitimacy and fairness in the context of home-sharing platforms (e.g. Airbnb).Design/methodology/approachThree separate 2×1 between-subjects experimental vignette surveys are used to test the effects of three types of fairness (procedural, interpersonal and informational) on two outcomes: moral legitimacy and regulatory desirability.FindingsThe results of the research show that high perceived fairness across all three types increases moral legitimacy and reduces regulatory desirability. Respondents who perceive a fictional home-sharing platform to be fair consider it to be more legitimate and want it to be less regulated.Research limitations/implicationsFollowing established practices and reducing external validity, the study uses a fictional scenario and a fictional company for the experimental vignette. The data collection took place in the UK, prohibiting cultural comparisons.Practical implicationsThe research is useful for home-sharing platform managers by showing how they can boost moral legitimacy and decrease regulatory desirability through a strong focus on fairness. It can also help policymakers and consumer protection advocates by providing evidence about regulatory desirability and how it is affected by fairness perceptions.Originality/valueThe study adds to hospitality and tourism research by offering theoretically meaningful and practically relevant conclusions about the importance of fairness in driving stakeholder opinions about home-sharing platforms.

“It’s not worth the effort”! Examining service recovery in Airbnb and other homesharing platforms

PurposeThis paper aims to use equity theory to develop and test a model of the dynamics of service recovery in the homesharing context.Design/methodology/approachUsing a sample of those who have experienced a service failure with a homesharing company and have voiced complaints to the company directly, the study adopted alternative model comparison procedures to test three competing models of service recovery and examined the effects of five moderating variables.FindingsThe results indicated that the model based on equity theory provides a theoretically and empirically superior explanation of the dynamics of service recovery in the homesharing context than the alternative explanation based on the tenets of justice theory. The two key inputs into the service recovery interaction – consumer complaining and recovery effort and trust in brand – have significant direct effects on post-failure loyalty outcomes, and also significant indirect effects via the mediating mechanism of perceived justice. All five moderators have significant effects for at least one of the post-failure loyalty outcomes.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings emphasize the company’s role in service recovery in the homesharing context. Managers of homesharing platforms need to establish customer service infrastructure that minimizes the amount of time-related, procedural and cognitive effort that customers need to expend in the recovery process, and effect communication that enhances trust in the homesharing brand. Future research is needed on the dynamics of service recovery in alternative hotel-homesharing business models, and on the role of value co-creation in the homesharing context.Originality/valueThis study is the first to create a holistic theory-based model of the dynamics of service recovery in the homesharing context, using the novel construct of customer complaining and recovery effort. Also, and contrary to typical conceptualization, it demonstrates the role of trust in brand as an antecedent input into the recovery interaction that can generate loyalty outcomes.

The Impact of Home Sharing on Residential Real Estate Markets

This paper explores the effects of home-sharing platforms in general and Airbnb in particular on rental rates at a neighbourhood level. Using consumer-facing Airbnb data from ten neighbourhoods located within large metropolitan areas in the U.S. between 2013–2017, as well as rental data from the American online real estate database company, Zillow, this paper examines the relationship between Airbnb penetration and rental rates. The results indicate that the relationship is not as unanimous as once thought. Viewing the relationship at an aggregate level, an approach used by many researchers in the past, hides the complexities of the underlying effects. Instead, Airbnb’s impact on rental rates depends on a neighbourhood’s individual characteristics. This study also urges policy makers to create tailor-made solutions that help curb the negative impacts associated with the platform whilst still harnessing its economic benefits.

Short-term rental and its regulations on the home-sharing platform

Home-sharing platforms, such as Airbnb, Inc., serve as a peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplace for users to rent out empty lodging spaces to others for a short-term period. The concerns over the disruptive nature of such home-sharing platforms, particularly on the traditional industries and the neighborhood in which the lodgings are provided, have resulted in lawmakers imposing or considering to impose short-term rental (STR) regulations. This research, which anchors on the public interest theory and the prospect theory, examines the overall effect of STR regulation and identifies effective individual regulatory passages on the supply side of P2P home-sharing platforms. Our subsequent empirical analysis results suggest that the regulatory intervention is less likely to restrain the growth of the home-sharing economy in the long-run even though there is a short-term deterrent effect of STR regulation on new entrants to the market. Different regulatory passages exert varying effects on the new entrants and the exit of the incumbent hosts. In specific, three regulatory passages, namely, cap, standards, and eviction restrictions, have a parsimonious effect on containing both the new listing and the delisting. This study not only advances our understanding of the emergent sharing economy in the space of STR services but also provides insights into the effectiveness of STR regulatory passages in containing STR activities.

Examining the determinants of the count of customer reviews in peer-to-peer home-sharing platforms using clustering and count regression techniques

The sharing economy has experienced massive growth in the short-term shared-home rental industry. However, few studies have investigated the determinants of the number of customer reviews received by these shared-homes. To fill this gap, we were motivated to propose an analytical framework that identified these determinants, both explicit and implicit. We applied Poisson, Quasi-Poisson, and Negative Binomial regressions with a dataset consisting of Airbnb properties from ten different cities worldwide, while successful bookings were proxied by the count of customer reviews posted by guests. We performed a cluster analysis based on the properties to generate homogeneous “cluster cities” and performed the regressions separately for each cluster. Among host-generated features, superhost, host duration, bedrooms, and amenities became significant. Among user-generated features, overall review scores and negative sentiments were significant. We also found that the “superhost” badge moderated the effects of host-generated content on the count of customer reviews. Consequently, guests paid a higher “price per night” for “superhost” properties, while they overlooked crucial attributes such as “website features.” Through these novel “cluster-specific” recommendations, our study extends the existing theories and contributes to the literature of decision analytics and tourism management. Finally, we performed a sensitivity analysis to check for the timeliness and robustness of these determinants.

Exploring guest response towards service failure in home-sharing: service presence and consumption motivation

Abstract The present study leverages the tenets of social presence theory (SPT) and attribution theory to demonstrate a service presence effect on guests’ behavioral responses toward home-sharing platforms following a service failure. Results indicate that in the case of a typical, controllable service failure, guests with a hedonic motivation have a higher tendency to complain and switch out of the home-sharing platform when the service contact is a hotel representative (vs. a private host), and this effect is mediated by levels of fault attributed to the home-sharing platform. However, guests with a utilitarian motivation respond to service failure equally across types of service contacts. For uncontrollable service failures, the service presence effect holds true across consumption motivations and is explained by fault attribution. The study is the first comprehensive inquiry into service failure in the home-sharing context and has important implications for theory and businesses competing in this space.

Sleeping With Strangers: Estimating the Impact of Airbnb on the Local Economy

In this paper, we study the effect of Airbnb on restaurant revenue in the state of Texas. Using a difference in difference strategy that exploits the geographical and temporal variation of Airbnb diffusion in Texas, we show that a 1% increase in Airbnb reviews in a zipcode is associated with a 0.011% increase in restaurant revenue in the same zipcode. Considering the median annual Airbnb growth in each zipcode, this result implies that Airbnb can explain about 12% of the median annual restaurant revenue growth. Moreover, we show that this increase in revenue is driven by an increase in restaurant demand that stems from additional tourism demand generated by Airbnb. Finally, we show that the positive effect of Airbnb is more pronounced for independent restaurants and in less commercial—and therefore with less economic activity—zipcodes. Overall, our results provide evidence that home-sharing platforms like Airbnb can increase economic activity for businesses and in neighborhoods that are more likely to need it the most.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Housing

In this chapter, I discuss innovation and entrepreneurship in residential real estate and construction (housing). Based on R&D spending and patent statistics, housing does not appear to be a very innovative sector. But in the last two decades, there has been a significant increase in the amount of investment going to real estate technology companies. I discuss the companies and technologies which have drawn the most attention from investors. I then review the literature on two major innovation trends in housing: the growth of the internet as a tool for housing search, and the development of home-sharing platforms which allow homeowners to use their homes as short-term rentals. These innovations have likely increased the efficiency of housing markets, leading to higher quality matches between buyers and sellers, and more efficient utilization of space. However, the effects are hard to measure due to the difficulty of separating quality changes from price changes. In comparison to residential real estate, there appears to have been less recent innovation in residential construction. In many areas, residential construction is artificially constrained by local land use policies, and estimates from the literature suggest that relaxing these constraints could increase economic growth significantly. Finally, I discuss anti-competitive practices in real estate which may hinder entrepreneurship and the adoption of new innovations, and I discuss how innovation and entrepreneurship in other sectors may affect the housing market.

The Impact of Home Sharing on Residential Real Estate Markets

This paper explores the effects of home-sharing platforms in general and Airbnb in particular on long-term rents at a neighborhood level. Using consumer-facing Airbnb data from ten neighborhoods located within large metropolitan areas in the U.S. between 2013-2017, as well as rental data from the American online real estate database company, Zillow, this paper examines the relationship between Airbnb penetration and long-term rents. The results indicate that the relationship is not as unanimous as once thought. Viewing the relationship at an aggregate level, an approach used by many researchers in the past, hides the complexities of the underlying effects. Rather, Airbnb’s impact on rental rates depends on a neighborhood's individual characteristics. This study also urges policy makers to create tailor-made solutions that help curb the negative impacts associated with the platform whilst still harnessing its economic benefits.

Innovations in Tourism Marketing: Sharing Economy Platform

This research summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on the issue of potential tax evasions and increased rental rates that one of innovative home-sharing platforms might causes. The study aims to find possible tax evasion that each property and each host can cause by considering creative activities in tourism marketing and a sharing economy platform, Airbnb in Prague. Besides, the authors identified the potential problems in the rental accommodation market. Systematization literary sources and approaches for solving the problem of sharing economy platforms indicate that although these platforms benefit for some economic, social and environmental issues, they pose some troubles in various markets. Regarding methodological tools of the research method, this paper used a web scraping technique to gain data from the Airbnb website. The authors analysed 13918 accommodations that were rented by 6768 Airbnb users between April 2016 and March 2017. In the study, the authors used the Microsoft Excel 2016 program and a model created by researchers to make calculations. The paper presented the results of an empirical analysis showing that in case the sensitive regulation of the number of nights will apply the potential tax incomes will lower only on 0.98% when considering accommodations and on 6.40% when considering users. In this case, 16832 rental units will appear in the long-term housing market. Moreover, tax evasion becomes more when considering each dwelling instead of each host because some users rented more than one rental accommodation. The research also empirically confirms and theoretically proves that that extended limits for overnight stays yield benefits for costs, supply and demand of rental housing. Those findings can be useful for governments, academicians that are interested in tourism marketing, firms in the accommodation industry that look for new marketing innovations and short or long-term housing market participants such as lessor and lessees. Keywords: accommodation, tourism, marketing, Airbnb, innovation, home-sharing, Prague, sharing economy, taxation.

My home on the platform: Exploring the physical privacy concerns of home-sharing providers

The success of home-sharing platforms like Airbnb has introduced the role of sharing providers, i.e. those users who list their properties on the website and share them in exchange for an income. Different from micro-entrepreneurs within other types of peer-to-peer platforms such as e-marketplaces, the experience of home-sharing often presumes face-to-face interactions and physical sharing of private spaces and goods. For providers, this can give rise to concerns about the integrity of the personal possessions they share (“physical privacy”; Lutz, Hoffmann, Bucher, & Fieseler, 2018). Employing Belk’s theory of the Extended Self, which postulates that individuals’ owned objects and spaces become part of their identity (1988), and based on a sample of European home-sharing providers, we investigate strategic self-presentation, reputational concerns, and attachment to shared properties as predictors of their physical privacy concerns.

Regulating Professional Players in Peer-to-Peer Markets: Evidence from Airbnb

We study professional players and their roles in peer-to-peer (P2P) markets. Most notably, P2P home-sharing platforms (e.g., Airbnb) consist of both professional hosts and nonprofessional individual hosts. What are the roles of the professionals? Should home-sharing platforms regulate their participation? Professional hosts may primarily offer properties that nonprofessional hosts would not supply and attract more guests—the differentiation effect. Or they may mostly supply similar properties and compete with the nonprofessionals—the competition effect. Using a unique dataset of Airbnb listings, we first find that professional hosts’ properties are more expensive and have superior characteristics than nonprofessionals’. Second, we capitalize on a quasi-experiment in which Airbnb capped the number of properties a host can manage in several U.S. cities to determine the roles of professional hosts. With contrasting predictions (on the policy impacts) under the differentiation versus competition effects, we find evidence suggesting the dominance of the latter. In particular, the policy increased the supply from nonprofessional hosts, and the price level of nonprofessional properties as a group went up after the policy. However, our findings of heterogeneity in policy impacts suggest that the dominance of competition is less prominent in certain markets. Lastly, we find that the platform was not worse off in attracting reservations or securing revenue after the policy. Our findings contribute to both theory and practice as they reveal the roles of professional players and how P2P platforms can manage their participation.

공유경제에 기반을 둔 관광경제시스템에 대한 성찰적 고찰 - 숙박공유플랫폼과 관련된 사회문제를 중심으로 -

공유경제에 기반을 둔 관광경제시스템에 대한 성찰적 고찰 - 숙박공유플랫폼과 관련된 사회문제를 중심으로 -

The Impact of Airbnb on Residential Property Values and Rents: Evidence from Portugal

Short-term rentals have facilitated the upraise trend in tourism growth in several cities around the world. However, concerns for the negative effects that such home-sharing platforms may have on the housing market and traditional markets have driven community groups and housing advocates to intensely react against them. Whether or not short-term rentals increase housing prices and rents for local residents is an empirical question. We quantify the causal effects of Airbnb's short-term rentals on urban housing affordability in Portugal by estimating quarterly housing rents and prices as a function of Airbnb concentration. We take advantage of the 2014 regulatory reform and employ a difference-in-differences (DiD) empirical strategy. We estimate an overall increase in property values of 34% and 10.9% for rents due to the short-term lease regulatory reform. We also find that these effects are particularly localized to the historical centers and areas attractive to tourists in the cities of Lisbon and Porto. A better understanding of the effects of short-term home rentals on housing markets and of the magnitude of its impact on residential property prices and rents are crucial information to determine whether it needs to be regulated and how proper regulation should be designed.

Adoption of homesharing platforms: a cross-cultural study

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors that affect consumer adoption of new ways of sharing accommodation services. Moreover, the authors study the influence of culture, more specifically the uncertainty avoidance (UA) dimension, on relationships between variables in a proposed adoption model.Design/methodology/approachThe structural equation analysis method is used to verify the proposed model. The data were collected from a panel of Spanish and Vietnamese internet users. The survey yielded a total of 418 responses for the data analysis.FindingsThe findings indicate that subjective norms and ease of use exert an effect on perceived usefulness and that intention to use affects actual use in all the groups analyzed. Furthermore, UA has a moderating effect on the adoption of homesharing platforms (HSPs).Research limitations/implicationsA larger sample and a random sampling would facilitate a more accurate generalization of the results obtained for each country. The practical implications identified in this research, along with its limitations and future research opportunities, are interesting both for scholars, service providers and designers of HSPs.Originality/valueThis study bridges a gap in the current research by increasing understanding of the role of the cultural dimensions in a technological innovation adoption model for an HSP. It also takes into account the effect of perceived risk, a dimension that has not been included in previous studies.

When Tourists Move In: How Should Urban Planners Respond to Airbnb?

Problem, research strategy, and findings: The online accommodation platform Airbnb has expanded globally, raising substantial planning and regulatory concerns. We ask whether Airbnb rentals generate significant neighborhood impacts like noise, congestion, and competition for parking; reduce the permanent rental housing supply and increase rental prices; or provide income opportunities that help “hosts” afford their own housing. We focus on Sydney, the largest region in Australia with 4.4 million people in 28 individual municipalities, which has experienced both rapidly rising housing costs and exponential growth in Airbnb listings since 2011. Airbnb’s growth has raised concerns serious enough to result in a formal Parliamentary Inquiry by the state of New South Wales. We analyze stakeholder submissions to this inquiry and review local planning regulations, Airbnb listings data, and housing market and census statistics. We find that online homesharing platforms for visitor accommodations blur traditional boundaries between residential and tourist areas so Airbnb listings may fall outside of existing land use regulations or evade detection until neighbors complain. Our findings are constrained by the difficulties of monitoring online operations and the rapid changes in the industry.Takeaway for practice: Planners and policymakers in cities with increasing numbers of Airbnb rentals need to review how well local planning controls manage the neighborhood nuisances, traffic, and parking problems that may be associated with them while acting to protect the permanent rental housing supply. Local planners need to ensure that zoning and residential development controls distinguish between different forms of short-term Airbnb accommodation listings and their potential impacts on neighborhoods and housing markets.