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1 – 10 of over 1000Mohamed Ahmed Qotb Sakr, Mohamed H. Elsharnouby and Gamal Sayed AbdelAziz
This paper aims to address three research questions (1) Who is the main stakeholder that shapes Airbnb experience, (2) Does Airbnb offers an authentic travel experience? and (3…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to address three research questions (1) Who is the main stakeholder that shapes Airbnb experience, (2) Does Airbnb offers an authentic travel experience? and (3) What should be the future research trends in Airbnb?
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses the systematic literature review (SLR) with a well-defined protocol, research strategy and methods to answer the research questions.
Findings
The review revealed that while Airbnb plays a significant role as the platform provider, the stakeholders influencing the experiences are multifaceted. Hosts, guests, local communities and even regulatory bodies all contribute to shaping the overall Airbnb Experience ecosystem. Hosts, in particular, have a crucial role in curating and delivering unique experiences, which significantly impacts the quality and authenticity of the offerings. On the question of whether Airbnb offers an authentic travel experience, the review uncovered mixed findings. For examples, some studies emphasized the potential for Airbnb to provide authentic and local experiences, allowing travelers to engage with the community and cultural aspects of a destination. However, other studies raised concerns about the commodification and standardization of experiences, leading to a potential loss of authenticity.
Originality/value
This paper is different from previous SLR where previous research systematically reviewed; motivations to use and choose Airbnb, institutionalization of Airbnb, stakeholders of Airbnb. This paper addresses authentic experience as a factor that influences activity participation.
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Chris Gibbs, Daniel Guttentag, Ulrike Gretzel, Lan Yao and Jym Morton
The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive analysis of dynamic pricing by Airbnb hosts.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive analysis of dynamic pricing by Airbnb hosts.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses attribute and sales information from 39,837 Airbnb listings and hotel data from 1,025 hotels across five markets to test different hypotheses which explore the extent to which Airbnb hosts use dynamic pricing and how their pricing strategies compare to those of hotels.
Findings
Airbnb is a unique and complex platform in terms of dynamic pricing where hosts make limited use of dynamic pricing strategies, especially as compared to hotels. Notwithstanding their limited use, hosts who own listings in high-demand leisure markets, manage entire places, manage more listings and have more experience vary prices the most.
Practical implications
This study identified a great need for Airbnb to encourage dynamic pricing among its hosts, but also warned of the potential perils of dynamic pricing in the sharing economy context. The findings also demonstrated challenges for hotel managers interested in actionable information related to Airbnb as a competitor.
Originality/value
This is the first Airbnb study to use a comprehensive set of data over a continuous period in multiple markets to look at a number of listing and host factors and determine their relation with dynamic pricing strategies.
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Avijit Sarkar, Mehrdad Koohikamali and James B. Pick
In recent years, short-term sharing accommodation platforms such as Airbnb have made rapid forays in populous cities worldwide, impacting neighborhoods profoundly. Emerging work…
Abstract
Purpose
In recent years, short-term sharing accommodation platforms such as Airbnb have made rapid forays in populous cities worldwide, impacting neighborhoods profoundly. Emerging work has focused on demand-side motivations to engage in the sharing economy. The purpose of this paper is to analyze rarely examined supply-side motivations of providers.
Design/methodology/approach
To address this gap and to illuminate understanding of how Airbnb supply is configured and influenced, this study examines spatial patterns and socioeconomic influences on participation in the sharing accommodation economy by Airbnb hosts in New York City (NYC). An exploratory conceptual model of host participation is induced, which posits associations of demographic, economic, employment, social capital attributes, and attitudes toward trust and sustainability with host participation, measured by Airbnb property density in neighborhoods. Methods employed include ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, k-means cluster analysis and spatial analytics.
Findings
Spatially, clusters of high host densities are in Manhattan and northern Brooklyn and there is little proportionate change longitudinally. OLS regression findings reveal that gender ratio, black race/ethnicity, median household income, and professional, scientific, and technical occupation, and attitudes toward sustainability for property types are dominant correlates of property density, while host trust in customers is not supported.
Research limitations/implications
These results along with differences between Queens and Manhattan boroughs have implications for hosts sharing their homes and for city managers to formulate policies and regulate short-term rental markets in impacted neighborhoods.
Originality/value
The study is novel in conceptualizing and analyzing the supply-side provider motivations of the sharing accommodation economy. Geostatistical analysis of property densities to gauge host participation is novel. Value stems from new insights on NYC’s short-term homesharing market.
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Heejeong Han, Seunghun Shin, Namho Chung and Chulmo Koo
This paper aims to explain a guest’s purchase decision in Airbnb from the perspective of Aristotle’s appeals. In host-created information, the authors investigate which…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explain a guest’s purchase decision in Airbnb from the perspective of Aristotle’s appeals. In host-created information, the authors investigate which information appeals are significantly considered by guests.
Design/methodology/approach
It is hypothesized that a guest’s purchase would be affected by the host-created information’s ethos, pathos and logos.
Findings
For the ethos, the super host badge and host review have positive impacts on the purchase; for the pathos, the positive impact of the use of social words is significant. For the logos, the authors have determined that although the price, place picture and star-rating have positive impacts on the likelihood of a purchase, the occupancy has a negative impact on it.
Research limitations/implications
The dependent variable, the number of place reviews, cannot represent the exact number of purchases. Other possible influential factors, such as direct communications between hosts and guests, are not examined.
Practical implications
The findings suggest guidelines for Airbnb and its host users. Specifically, the management of normal host users is revealed as a necessary process for Airbnb’s development. For host users, several guidelines on how to attract more guests effectively are provided.
Originality/value
In contrast to other studies on Airbnb, various pieces of information are considered from holistic perspectives, and each piece’s impact on the sharing behavior is understood by means of a unique theoretical model that is based on Aristotle’s appeals.
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Sonia Ern Yi Lim and Frederic Bouchon
This concept paper aims to discuss the effects of network hospitality on women empowerment in the city of Kuala Lumpur.
Abstract
Purpose
This concept paper aims to discuss the effects of network hospitality on women empowerment in the city of Kuala Lumpur.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses a qualitative approach to analyse women engaged in Airbnb activity as hosts or guests.
Findings
Findings show new types of entrepreneurs, hospitality services, and socio-cultural expectations under this change.
Originality/value
The recent growth of Network Hospitality platforms such as Airbnb around the world has generated multiple impacts on urban destinations worldwide. Network hospitality is transforming the way tourism is produced and consumed. Several studies have analysed the impact of network hospitality on destinations’ accommodation and housing markets, the gentrification effects and users’ experience. However, studies on the social impacts of Airbnb in developing economies remain scarce. Network hospitality is creating entrepreneurship and mobility opportunities for women. In the case of Malaysia, there is a noticeable empowerment trend of women through network hospitality.
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With the prevalence of the sharing economy phenomenon, there are an increasing number of hosts on Airbnb who manage more than one listing. Managing more listings likely makes hosts…
Abstract
Purpose
With the prevalence of the sharing economy phenomenon, there are an increasing number of hosts on Airbnb who manage more than one listing. Managing more listings likely makes hosts more seasoned in terms of serving guests, but it may undermine host quality due to hosts’ constrained capability. This paper aims to examine the effects of host quality attributes and the number of listings per host on the reservation performance of these listings.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a large-scale but granular data set of 5,805 active listings of 4,608 Airbnb hosts in Austin, Texas, this study estimates the effects of host attributes (host quality and listing quantity) on the performance of the hosts’ Airbnb listings through a blend of regression models.
Findings
This study evidences that host quality attributes significantly influence listing performance through cue-based trust. In addition, this study finds a “trade-off” between host quality and the quantity of their listings. As the number of listings managed by a host increases, the performance effects of host quality diminish.
Research limitations/implications
The business implications of this study include the suggestion that sharing economy businesses such as Airbnb should sustain service quality through incentivizing hosts to improve host quality while balancing the quantity of listings managed.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature through its meaningful theoretical extension in the sharing economy context and unique data-driven insights enabled by an analytical approach. It addresses the critical but less researched topic of host quality and listing quantity and generates important practical business and policy implications.
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Simon Lind Fischer and Maartje Roelofsen
This paper explores how Airbnb hosts' experiences with and responses to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) health crisis may differ according to their motivations to host and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores how Airbnb hosts' experiences with and responses to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) health crisis may differ according to their motivations to host and to the type and spatial layout of their Airbnb accommodation. Based on these insights, the paper reflects on the lessons that are learned for the future of short-term rentals.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a qualitative multi-method small-scale case study, which relies on in-depth interviews and a focus group discussion carried out with a group of hosts affiliated to the Airbnb Host Community in Aarhus, Denmark. Informed by an interpretivist approach, the study aims to make sense of people's subjective experiences with hosting on the Airbnb platform, and how they have continued and adapted their hospitality practices during the pandemic.
Findings
Participants' adaptive practices vary according to their motivations to host and the type of accommodation that they rent out. Although all hosts in this study now implement more intensive cleaning practices, hosts who stay with their guests onsite tend to take stricter preventative measures to avoid contamination and transmission of the virus in their social interactions with guests. On the contrary, hosts who rent out their entire properties and have minimal contact with their guests found themselves less affected by the pandemic's impacts and have had a continued demand for their properties.
Social implications
The COVID-19 pandemic has unevenly affected Airbnb hosts. Hosts who share their homes with guests require different adaptations to their daily behaviour and cleaning practices at home than hosts who do not stay with their guests and rent out entire properties. However, unlike professional hosts who largely or solely rely on Airbnb for their income, occasional home-sharing hosts tend to be more flexible in coping with cancelled or fewer bookings.
Originality/value
This study provides novel insights into the uneven impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on participants in the platform economies of tourism. It contributes to existing literature on the impacts of the pandemic on Airbnb's operations by showing how hosts' adaptive practices are informed by their subjective living conditions and the type of accommodation they can offer their guests.
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Marek Endrich, Pieter-Paul Verhaeghe, Rafael Costa, Lena Imeraj and Sylvie Gadeyne
The purpose of this study is to compare the spatial distribution of different types of Airbnb hosts – based on a novel typology – and to investigate their association with…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to compare the spatial distribution of different types of Airbnb hosts – based on a novel typology – and to investigate their association with neighbourhood characteristics in Brussels.
Design/methodology/approach
This study describes the location of Airbnb dwellings across the types of hosts and use spatial tests to compare their distributions to the traditional hospitality industry. With regression models, this study examines the relationship between the provision of Airbnb listings and neighbourhood indicators.
Findings
While different types of hosts offer their listings in the same urban space, they also cover different areas and exhibit different clustering processes. Their locations are associated with structural, socio-economic and demographic neighbourhood characteristics that vary across the types and provide support for the new typology.
Research limitations/implications
This study focuses on the type of Airbnb hosts and their listings in one year, 2019. It would be worthwhile to apply the typology to other cities and to observe how the distributions change over time, including the period of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to suggest a finer typology of Airbnb hosts than the regular distinction into professional and non-professional types and reveals how hosts differ in the location of their Airbnbs.
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The purpose of this paper is to review the extant literature on Airbnb – one of the most significant recent innovations in the tourism sector – to assess the research progress…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review the extant literature on Airbnb – one of the most significant recent innovations in the tourism sector – to assess the research progress that has been accomplished to date.
Design/methodology/approach
Numerous journal databases were searched, and 132 peer-reviewed journal articles from various disciplines were reviewed. Key attributes of each paper were recorded, and a content analysis was undertaken.
Findings
A survey of the literature found that the majority of Airbnb research has been published quite recently, often in hospitality/tourism journals, and the research has been conducted primarily by researchers in the USA/Canada and Europe. Based on the content analysis, the papers were divided into six thematic categories – Airbnb guests, Airbnb hosts, Airbnb supply and its impacts on destinations, Airbnb regulation, Airbnb’s impacts on the tourism sector and the Airbnb company. Consistent findings have begun to emerge on several important topics, including guests’ motivations and the geographical dispersion of listings. However, many research gaps remain, so numerous suggestions for future research are provided.
Practical implications
By reviewing a large body of literature on a fairly novel and timely topic, this research provides a concise summary of Airbnb knowledge that will assist industry practitioners as they adapt to the recent rapid emergence of Airbnb.
Originality/value
This is the first paper to review the extant literature specifically about Airbnb.
研究目的
本论文旨在审视过去文献对Airbnb的研究-旅游业中最显著发明之一-以衡量迄今为止的研究发展历程。
研究设计/方法/途径
经过大量文献搜索,共132份同行评审型期刊文章,来自不同研究领域,被作者审阅。每个文章的关键词被摘抄出来,本论文采用内容分析方法来分析文本。
研究结果
经过文献综述,作者发现大多数Airbnb研究都发表在近几年,往往发表在酒店/旅游期刊。期刊文章作者集中在美国/加拿大和欧洲。基于内容分析结果,发表的期刊文章被分类在六个主题-Airbnb顾客、Airbnb服务提供主、Airbnb供应商、以及其对旅游目的地的影响,Airbnb规范、Airbnb对旅游行业的影响、以及Airbnb公司。研究结果还归纳出几项重要的话题,包括顾客动机和民宿地理分布。然而,大多数研究空缺仍然存在,因此,本论文总结出多项未来研究方向。
研究实践意义
本论文通过审阅大量较新和及时的文献,对Airbnb的相关知识进行了精准梳理,这个研究结果对从业者适应Airbnb较新较快发展的现象,有着实践意义。
研究原创性/价值
本论文是首篇审阅有关Aribnb文献的文章。
关键词
Airbnb、文献综述、共享经济、P2P、短期出租
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This paper aims to identify a wide array of utility-based attributes of Airbnb listings and measures the effects of these attributes on consumers’ valuation of Airbnb listings.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to identify a wide array of utility-based attributes of Airbnb listings and measures the effects of these attributes on consumers’ valuation of Airbnb listings.
Design/methodology/approach
A hedonic price model was developed to test the effects of a group of utility-based attributes on the price of Airbnb listings, including the characteristics of Airbnb listings, attributes of hosts, reputation of listings and market competition. The authors examined attributes as they relate to the price of Airbnb listings and, therefore, estimated consumers’ willingness to pay for the specific attributes. The model was tested by using a dataset of 5,779 Airbnb listings managed by 4,602 hosts in 41 census tracts of Austin, Texas in the USA over a period from Airbnb’s launch in Texas up until November 2015.
Findings
The authors found that the functional characteristics of Airbnb listings were significantly associated to the price of the listings, and that three of five behavioral attributes of hosts were statistically significant. However, the effect of reputation of listings on the price of Airbnb listings was weak.
Originality/value
This study inspires what they call a factor-endowment valuation of Airbnb listings. It shows that the intrinsic attributes that an Airbnb listing endows are the primary source of consumer utilities, and thus consumer valuation of the listing is grounded on its functionality as an accommodation. This conclusion can shed light on the examination of competition between Airbnb and hotel accommodations that are built on the same or similar intrinsic attributes.
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