Shared Accommodation Research Articles

Overcoming the pitfalls of economies-of-scale in shared accommodation: How can effective multi-listing management enhance the sustainability of homestay businesses?

Economies-of-scale have always been a significant concern, but previous theoretical studies have primarily focused on the traditional manufacturing industry. Consequently, their findings are not directly applicable to the tertiary sector, particularly the hospitality service industry. The hospitality service operates in a high-risk environment and is susceptible to market exits. Therefore, it becomes even more crucial to effectively leverage economies of scale for improving survival rates and long-term operations. This study aims to explore the effectiveness of economies of scale theory in the hospitality industry by examining how sharing accommodation’s economies-of-scale impact personalized and professionalized homestay businesses’ survival. To achieve this objective, we analyze a panel dataset comprising 551,605 properties located in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Austin using panel survival analysis techniques such as the Cox model and the exponential model. The findings indicate that economies-of-scale can confer short-term survival advantages to professional homestay businesses in comparison with personalized ones. However, in the long run, the social benefits of personalized homestay businesses surpass the impacts of economies-of-scale, thereby enabling them to achieve better sustainability than professional homestay businesses. The likelihood of survival for professional homestay businesses increases with a greater number of listings in operation, referred to as the advantage of economies-of-scale on professionalization; conversely, this is not true for personalized homestay businesses. Moreover, effective host–guest communication both facilitates the attainment of benefits for personalized businesses and amplifies its impact on professionalized enterprises; high-quality products offered by personalized hosts can derive more advantages from scales compared to low-quality products, while superhost-certified professionalized hosts experience less business benefit than uncertificated hosts. This study is one of the pioneering efforts to investigate how economies-of-scale can contribute to the professionalization and personalization of homestay properties, thereby enhancing their business survival. It significantly contributes to the existing literature on hospitality business survival and expands upon the economies-of-scale theory by elucidating its advantages and potential pitfalls in relation to homestay businesses.

First impressions on sharing accommodation market platforms: The association between cover image type and property listing price

Shared accommodation platforms, including Airbnb, encourage hosts to post images of rentals. In this study, a hedonic pricing model was developed to test the effects of different cover image scenes (indoor or outdoor) on Airbnb listing prices and to test how strongly the effects were moderated by images’ visual aesthetics or room type. The model was estimated using a dataset of 24,162 Airbnb listings in Beijing, China, from October 2020. Empirical results revealed that 1) compared with Airbnb properties whose cover images showed indoor scenes, properties whose cover images showed outdoor scenes tended to have higher prices; and 2) cover images’ visual aesthetics and room type each significantly moderated the association between cover images and property listing prices. This study is one of the earliest to assess the roles of properties’ cover images in the shared accommodation market. The interaction effects of image scenes and other factors related to cover images were also explored for the first time.

Examining the spatial dependency between shared accommodations and points of interest

This study proposes a three-step analytical framework to examine the proximity between Airbnb listings and points of interest (POIs), and to evaluate the spatial dependence between them across dimensions. Grounded in Tobler's first law (TFL) of geography, this framework integrates standard deviational ellipse, average nearest neighbor, and geographically weighted regression methods. The framework is validated using data from 14 U.S. cities of varying sizes, encompassing 122,005 Airbnb listings and 113,169 POIs. Although the results reveal a notable proximity of Airbnb listings to POIs, the degree of spatial dependency varies across cities and property types. Notably, several frequently overlooked POIs, such as schools, post boxes, bakeries, and bicycle rental stations, demonstrate significant relationships with Airbnb listings. This research advances the literature on shared accommodations by elucidating the spatial relationship between Airbnb and POIs, introducing new location factors, and providing a robust analytical framework. The findings provide valuable practical implications for enhancing business and management strategies for Airbnb stakeholders, while balancing the growth of the shared accommodation sector against its effects on local communities.

Peak-Season Price Adjustments in Shared Accommodation: The Role of Platform-Certified Signals and User-Generated Signals

This study investigates the factors influencing landlords’ price adjustments during peak seasons on accommodation-sharing platforms, focusing on the role of platform-certified and user-generated signals. Utilizing a comprehensive dataset of 11,795 observations from a leading Chinese accommodation-sharing platform, we employ binary logit models to investigate how these signals affect landlords’ pricing strategies during “festival” and “weekend” peak times. Our analysis reveals that both platform-certified signals (such as “Preferred House” badges) and user-generated signals (such as customer satisfaction ratings) significantly increase the probability and magnitude of price adjustments during both festival and weekend peak seasons. Specifically, houses with a “Preferred” status are up to 28 times more likely to have price hikes during weekends compared to non-preferred ones. Further analysis reveals that higher levels of landlord professionalism, measured by the number of properties managed, amplifies the impact of user-generated signals on both the probability and magnitude of price adjustments. However, as the level of professionalism increases, this effect diminishes, indicating that highly professional landlords may have less flexibility to adjust prices due to already-high baseline rates. Interestingly, landlord professionalism did not significantly influence the impact of platform-certified signals on price adjustments, suggesting that the influence of such signals remains consistent across different levels of landlord professionalism. These results underscore the significant roles that both types of signals and landlord professionalism play in shaping pricing strategies, offering valuable insights for platform management and policy formulation aimed at enhancing consumer trust and competitive dynamics in the sharing economy.

The silent threat: investigating sleep disturbances in hospitalized patients.

Sleep disruptions in the hospital setting can have adverse effects on patient safety and well-being, leading to complications like delirium and prolonged recovery. This study aimed to comprehensively assess the factors influencing sleep disturbances in hospital wards, with a comparison of the sleep quality of patients staying in single rooms to those in shared rooms. A mixed-methods approach was used to examine patient-reported sleep quality and sleep disruption factors, in conjunction with objective noise measurements, across seven inpatient wards at an acute tertiary public hospital in Sydney, Australia. The most disruptive factor to sleep in the hospital was noise, ranked as 'very disruptive' by 20% of patients, followed by acute health conditions (11%) and nursing interventions (10%). Patients in shared rooms experienced the most disturbed sleep, with 51% reporting 'poor' or 'very poor' sleep quality. In contrast, only 17% of the patients in single rooms reported the same. Notably, sound levels in shared rooms surpassed 100dB, highlighting the potential for significant sleep disturbances in shared patient accommodation settings. The results of this study provide a comprehensive overview of the sleep-related challenges faced by patients in hospital, particularly those staying in shared rooms. The insights from this study offer guidance for targeted healthcare improvements to minimize disruptions and enhance the quality of sleep for hospitalized patients.

The Challenges and Opportunities in China’s Shared Accommodation Industry Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic

In this study, the research delves into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on China’s shared accommodation economy and the trends for post-pandemic development. Despite the significant challenges the pandemic posed to the shared accommodation market, recovery is gradually taking place with the widespread vaccination and lifting of travel restrictions. However, the pace of recovery varies across different platforms and regions. In the post-pandemic era, the shared accommodation economy faces new opportunities and challenges. The advancement of technology, particularly the application of big data and artificial intelligence, presents new possibilities for business models in shared accommodation. The pandemic has accelerated structural adjustments in the shared accommodation industry, with relevant enterprises beginning to adjust their property and service structures to meet changing consumer demands. Nevertheless, this study has its limitations; the depth and breadth of the research need further expansion. For future research directions, the study suggests focusing on the long-term development of the shared accommodation market, conducting in-depth studies on various factors influencing the market, and further investigating the impact of policies on the shared accommodation market and how to better adjust policies to promote the healthy development of the market.

Antecedents of behavioral intention and use of shared accommodation: Gender as a moderator

Purpose- As the recent global pandemic has brought international tourism to a halt for nearly two years, many countries have developed strategies to cope with the crisis by promoting domestic tourism. This study investigates the variables that contribute to customers’ behavioral intention to share accommodation The gender differences in using shared accommodation are explored. Design/methodology/approach - The authors used a survey instrument to collect data from 460 respondents from India. The respondents were consumers using shared housing. Partial least squares – structural equation modeling (Smart PLS-SEM) was conducted to test the structural model. Findings - The results reveal that (i) desire, frugality, and materialism are positively related to behavioral intention, and (ii) behavioral intention strongly predicts the use. The findings also suggest that gender plays a moderating role, such that the effect of desire and materialism on behavioral intention was stronger for women than for men. In addition, as frugality increases (from low to high), men show higher behavioral intention than women. The results also show that the negative effect of perceived risk is stronger for women than for men. Originality/value - The novelty of this study lies in the examination of gender as a moderator in the relationship between behavioral intention and use of shared accommodation. Implications for tourism and hospitality research are discussed.

The Impact of Climate Change on Shared Accommodation in Egypt as a New Trend in International Tourism

The Impact of Climate Change on Shared Accommodation in Egypt as a New Trend in International Tourism

Gendered disciplinary apparatuses and carceral domesticities in Singapore’s labour-migration regime

It is widely acknowledged that Singapore’s labour-migration regime is unequal and bifurcated, with migrants that are categorised as foreign professionals afforded many more rights than those categorised as migrant workers. While migrant construction, process, and shipyard workers are expected to reside in dormitories or other shared accommodation, migrant domestic workers are mandated to live in their employers’ homes, where their gendered bodies are confined and disciplined. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, in this article I demonstrate that Singapore’s labour-migration regime is underpinned with a carceral logic that imposes bodily controls on domestic workers through policy, legal regulations, and practices which, I argue, constitute gendered disciplinary apparatuses. Moreover, by examining migrant domestic workers’ everyday experiences, I suggest that different dwelling spaces – namely, employers’ homes and shelters – can be conceptualised as carceral domesticities. Utilised by the state as carceral infrastructure, I show the ways in which these dwelling spaces become geographies of detainment and punishment, in/through which different actors become involved in disciplining intimacy, morality, and maintaining socio-racial order in the nation. Simultaneously, the carceral nature of the labour-migration regime produces forms of domesticity which relies on the containment of migrant workers.

타인의 존재가 공유 숙박 서비스 예약 의도에 미치는 영향

As interest in the sharing economy continues to grow, shared accommodation services have become increasingly popular in the tourism industry. Hosts advertising on various platforms typically showcase photos that emphasize the distinct features and diversity of their accommodations. Simultaneously, the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic has led to a rise in feelings of social exclusion, with many people experiencing forced or voluntary disconnection from social interactions. This study aims to assess the impact of the presence of others in advertisements, as well as the role of social exclusion, on the intention to book shared accommodation services. We investigated how the inclusion or exclusion of other users in advertisements, against the backdrop of the same accommodation, affects potential customers' booking intentions. This investigation involved differentiating between socially excluded individuals and a control group, by manipulating the level of perceived social exclusion. We then analyzed how the presence of others in the advertisements influenced booking intentions for each group. The findings indicated that for the socially excluded group, the intention to book was significantly higher when advertisements included the presence of other people, compared to those that did not. These insights could be instrumental for hosts in the shared accommodation sector, aiding them in developing more effective advertising strategies to enhance booking intentions.

A meta‐analysis on peer‐to‐peer accommodation adoption

AbstractPeer‐to‐peer‐accommodation, a sharing economy‐based business model, enables using unutilized houses, apartments, and rooms of individuals to provide shared accommodation to tourists and travelers. On account of the importance of peer‐to‐peer accommodation, many studies have been conducted on factors/stimuli driving peer‐to‐peer accommodation adoption; however, findings remain inconsistent and fragmented. Accordingly, using the stimulus‐organism‐response model, this meta‐analysis provides generalized findings on determinants driving peer‐to‐peer accommodation adoption. Our meta‐analysis shows that stimuli (service characteristics, psychological aspects, social aspects, and technological aspects) drive the organism (perceived service quality) which in turn drives peer‐to‐peer accommodation adoption. Further, our moderation analysis shows that the relationship between these stimuli and the organism, and the relationship between the organism and peer‐to‐peer accommodation adoption, vary depending on four moderators: sample type, country of study, survey administration method, and sample size. Overall, this study contributes to the stimulus‐organism‐response theory by extending it to the meta‐analytical approach and suggesting a new organism for inclusion in the original stimulus‐organism‐response model. This meta‐analysis also contributes to the peer‐to‐peer accommodation and sharing economy literature and provides practical recommendations for accommodation platform providers and their listed houses to develop marketing strategy and policy.

Discounted housing? Understanding shared rental markets under platformisation

Low-income earners and others facing housing market barriers have long sought to save costs by sharing. Potentially a release valve in constrained markets, the share sector is poorly understood due to the difficulty of tracing informal negotiations between cohabiting households. However, the rise of online accommodation platforms opens new opportunities to view these hidden arrangements while also propelling new practices under the broader financialisation of housing and ‘platformisation’ of daily life. With reference to Sydney, Australia, one of the world’s most expensive housing markets, we use platform data to investigate the contemporary share housing sector, using listings placed by people both seeking and offering shared accommodation via Flatmates.com.au. Our study contributes to emerging literature at the intersection between informal housing markets and platformisation, revealing a complex rental sector where costs may be discounted but are not necessarily affordable for lower income earners unable to access more appropriate or secure alternatives.

공유숙박 소비가치가 이용만족, 재이용의도 및 관광지 이미지에 미치는 영향

This study has demonstrated the effect of shared accommodation consumption value on user satisfaction, intention to reuse, and image of the destination. For the empirical study, 233 questionnaires have been collected from recent users of shared housing. The following are the study's key findings. First, functional value and emotional value have positively affected user satisfaction, whereas economic value has had no significant impact. Second, it was discovered that the functional value, economic value, and emotional value of shared accommodation consumption value all had a significant positive (+) effect on the intention to reuse. The economic value dimension had the most significant effect on the intention to reuse. Only emotional value among the sub-dimensions of shared accommodation consumption value was found to have a significant positive (+) effect on the image of the tourist destination. Therefore, the greater the emotional value perceived by users of shared accommodation, the greater the likelihood that they will form a positive image of the tourist destination. Lastly, it was determined that satisfaction with shared accommodation had a significant positive (+) effect on the intention to return and the image of the tourist destination. Based on the findings of the study, it has been confirmed that the operation of high-quality shared accommodation in the region can result in a rise in the number of tourists as well as a rise in reuse, which is the result of local tourism businesses.

Consumer heterogeneity for shared accommodations at pre-and-post adoption stages: Insights from travelers in Shanghai, China.

As shared accommodation has become one of the most important market developments in the tourism industry, numerous contributions have emerged regarding travelers' motivations to choose shared accommodation. A debated question, however, resides in the heterogeneity of travelers based on motivations. This paper aims to reconcile opposing perspectives by comparing motivation segmentation at two distinct phases of the adoption of this accommodation option: (i) before the first travel-potential users showing interest (n = 420) and (ii) after the first travel-current users (n = 420). Factor analysis, combined with clustering, is applied to both samples to identify underlying motivations and traveler segments. Interestingly, we find that factors defining choice motivations are relatively stable throughout the adoption process, but the heterogeneity of motivations among travelers is higher in users, increasing from three to six clusters. This suggests that travelers' motivations are dynamic and dependent on the phase of adoption.

Clinical, humanistic and economic outcomes, including experiencing of patient safety events, associated with admitting patients to single rooms compared with shared accommodation for acute hospital admissions: a systematic review and narrative synthesis

ObjectivesAssess the impact of single rooms versus multioccupancy accommodation on inpatient healthcare outcomes and processes.DesignSystematic review and narrative synthesis.Data sourcesMedline, Embase, Google Scholar and the National Institute for Health and...

Demographic and risk characteristics of healthcare workers infected with SARS-CoV-2 from two tertiary care hospitals in the United Arab Emirates.

Understanding the transmission dynamics of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection among healthcare workers (HCWs) and their social contacts is crucial to plan appropriate risk-reduction measures. To analyze the socio-demographic risk factors and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 infection among HCWs in two tertiary care hospitals in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The demographic and clinical characteristics were available for all HCWs in both facilities from the human resources department. A cross-sectional survey was conducted from January-April 2022 among HCWs who tested positive through Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction of the nasopharyngeal swab for SARS-CoV-2 between March 2020 and August 2021 in two tertiary-level hospitals. The survey included questions on demographics, work profile, characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and infection among their household or co-workers. The survey also checked the knowledge and perception of participants on the infection prevention measures related to SARS-CoV-2. Out of a total of 346 HCWs infected with SARS-CoV-2, 286 (82.7%) HCWs consented to participate in this study. From the sample population, 150 (52.5%) of participants were female, and a majority (230, 80.4%) were frontline HCWs, including 121 nurses (121, 42.4%). Only 48 (16.8%) participants were fully vaccinated at the time of infection. Most infected HCWs (85%) were unaware of any unprotected exposure and were symptomatic at the time of testing (225, 78.7%). Nearly half of the participants (140, 49%) had co-infection among household, and nearly one-third (29.5%) had co-infection among three or more household. Another 108 (37.8%) participants reported cross-infection among co-workers. The frontline HCWs were significantly more infected (25.1% vs 8.6%, P < 0.001) compared to non-frontline HCWs. Another significant risk factor for a high infection rate was male sex (P < 0.001). Among the infected frontline HCWs, a significantly higher proportion were male and shared accommodation with family (P < 0.001). COVID-19 vaccination significantly reduced the infection rate (83.2% vs 16.8, P < 0.001) among HCWs. Most participants (99.3%) were aware about importance of appropriate use of personal protective equipment. However, only 70% agreed with the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccination in preventing an infection and severe disease. The risk profiling of the HCWs infected with SARS-CoV-2 found that working at frontline and being male increase the rate of infection. COVID-19 vaccination can effectively reduce the rate of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 among HCWs.

CHANGES IN FIRST-TIME TRAVELLERS' MOTIVATIONS FOR SHARED ACCOMMODATIONS: INSIGHTS FROM SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY

In recent years, more and more travellers have chosen shared accommodations as their tourism accommodations, and their initial motivations tend to be different from their motivations after participation. However, beyond anecdotal evidence, there is a dearth of understanding of changes in motivations for first-time travellers. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how first-time shared accommodation travellers change over time (hereafter referred to as first-time travellers) by employing Self-Determination theory (SDT) as the theoretical foundation. The data was collected with the purposive sampling approach from 30 first-time travellers’ interviews, before and after their first experience of shared accommodations. The results indicate that changes in first-time travellers’ basic needs are found to internalize or externalize their motivations in repeat participation. This study adds to the literature on the dynamic motivation process for first-time travellers, identifies the underlying reasons behind the motivational changes, and provides marketing strategies for shared accommodation practitioners to target and attract this group of travellers to use shared properties repeatedly.

Shared Accommodation Services in the Sharing Economy: Understanding the Effects of Psychological Distance on Booking Behavior

The sharing economy has risen rapidly in the past decade. The development of shared accommodation encourages more hotels and guesthouses to attract customers through online accommodation-sharing platforms, which has become a meaningful way to fight against the competition of the traditional hotel industry. In this condition, what the hosts are concerned about most is how to attract customers’ attention through the platform display to increase reservations. Based on construal level theory, this paper explores how hosts’ information displayed on online accommodation-sharing platforms determines consumers’ booking behavior by influencing their psychological distance. We use machine learning methods to mine the raw data and extract the representational factors of psychological distance. Based on the data-driven behavior decision-making approach, we collected valid large-scale fine-grained secondary actual consumption data from Airbnb, the world’s leading online accommodation-sharing platform, and scientifically and intelligently processed the data using machine learning methods, then tested the hypotheses using the regression analysis software STATA15. Our findings suggest that both social distance and temporal distance have a negative impact on booking behavior of guests. In detail, subject diversity, perspective taking, and facial attractiveness in the dimension of social distance positively influence guests’ booking behavior; instant bookable in the temporal distance dimension positively affects booking behavior, while response time has a negative effect. This study contributes to the literature by empirically examining psychological distance in the booking behavior of guests in shared accommodation through the processing and analysis of actual consumption data. The findings have important practical implications for how shared accommodation service providers and sharing economy platform managers can operate better.

Consequences of Housing Conditions on Maternal Health of Forced Migrant Women

Abstract Background Housing is a major social determinant and contextual factor of health. Forced migrants are restricted in their freedom of choosing and shaping their housing conditions. This qualitative study highlights the impact of housing restrictions on reproductive and maternal health from the lived experience of forced migrant women who recently gave birth to a child. Methods Qualitative problem-centered interviews were conducted with 33 refugee mothers (Mage = 31 years) 1-9 month postpartum. Interviewees came from 19 countries of origins, spoke 22 languages, and had lived in Germany for an average of three years. The mothers’ perspectives were complemented by 75 qualitative interviews with maternal health care professionals, (HCPs: midwives, gynecologists, social workers). Interview transcripts were analyzed via framework method regarding (1) type of housing: shared accommodation vs. private apartment, (2) region: rural vs. urban, (3) exhausting and supporting conditions as well as (4) consequences on maternal health. Results Interviewees living in shared accommodations reported exhausting conditions hindering self-determined upbringing of their newborn, e.g., confined living spaces, racism of staff, shared kitchen and bathrooms, lack of privacy, mobility, access to medical care, hygiene. Reported consequences on maternal health ranged from physical stress to social stress and mental stress (e.g., sleeping problems, depression, fear, worrying about health of the newborn). Interviewees living in private apartments showed higher autonomy and contentment. HCPs reported missing time and staff to provide adequate support. Conclusions Both refugee women and HCPs reported housing as main stressor during pregnancy and childbed, resulting in higher physical, social, and mental stress. Strategic social support for finding suitable private apartments for new families is needed as well as comprehensive visiting midwifery care in accommodations. Key messages • Living conditions in shared accommodations are unacceptable from a public health and human rights perspective, especially for women during pregnancy and childbed. • Negative effects on maternal health and self-determination of families were shown.

Analysis of airbnb’s green user emotional characteristics: How do human, geographical, housing, and environmental factors influence green consumption?

In the context of the sharing economy, green consumption is becoming a trend. Shared accommodation represented by Airbnb has been extensively studied. Analysis of the emotional characteristics of green users is the key to promoting the sustainable development of Airbnb. The article obtains the online reviews of Airbnb green users, fully considers the deviation caused by the weight of feature words to the sentiment calculation, and combines the sentiment value with the weight value to obtain the comprehensive sentiment value of green users. Then, a spatial comparative analysis of green users’ emotional characteristics in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong in China is carried out. The results show that in Airbnb, green users have a more obvious emotional tendency to human and geographical factors, followed by housing factors, and show lower tendency to environmental factors. The study provides a new perspective for optimizing the Airbnb scoring system and promoting the sustainable development of the shared accommodation market.