Editorial

Citation

Volo, S. (2020), "Editorial", International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 1-1. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCTHR-03-2020-231

Airbnb: state of the art, cutting-edge research and controversial issues

The thematic issue “Ten years of Airbnb: state of the art, cutting-edge research and controversial issues” launched by the International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research in 2018 has attracted the attention of authors from different continents and backgrounds leading to 15 articles, mostly published in the previous issue of 2019 and a few coming out in 2020.

As a disruptive innovation in our field, Airbnb – successful startup of the sharing economy – has reshaped the hospitality landscape of many destinations offering peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodations ranging from a shared airbed to an entire luxury villa. Strongly based on trust, this smartly designed traditional lodging substitute has been acknowledged as a bliss for many homeowners in search for an alternative source of income and as a curse by cities and their residents for its effect on the housing market that lists higher rents and drives up real estate prices.

The contributions of this thematic issue, in the form of full papers or research notes, address the call for state-of-the-art, cutting-edge research and controversial viewpoints addressing the various facets of the Airbnb phenomenon. The main objective of these contributions is to deepen and broaden our understanding of the impact and relevance of Airbnb in tourism and hospitality with attention to various aspects of marketing, management, planning and economics and with consideration of the cultural and behavioral factors related to this peculiar “business of homesharing”.

The published papers explore different geographical areas and use a variety of methodologies to examine various topics, from both the demand and the supply side, namely, P2P platform users’ profile and online behavior, impact and regulatory issues, advertising effectiveness in the P2P environment, perceived value and perceived risk in P2P accommodations, customers’ feedback expressed on Airbnb experiences, purchase intention of Airbnb vs traditional hospitality, intention to participate in the sharing economy, multi-dimensional structure of customer experience, social interaction between host and guests, impact of Airbnb on hotel performance metrics, reviews and analyses of Airbnb and P2P accommodations research and behavioral nudging in the context of Airbnb.

The multi-faced nature of this type of accommodations leaves room for more issues to be investigated, and, certainly, this thematic issue provides a contribution to the ongoing debate on Airbnb and P2P accommodations, and for this, the editors thank the authors for their stimulating research ideas and the reviewers for their valuable commitment.