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The sharing economy (SE) has transformed the tourism industry and continues to disrupt multiple sectors in the global business landscape. This paper aims to investigate the potential of the SE entering the aviation sector and examines travelers’ willingness to pay (WTP) a premium for shared private air travel.

The context for the empirical study was the platform JetSmarter, one of the emerging SE platforms in the private aviation sector. A quantitative survey with a random sampling method was adopted to measure customers’ WTP premium prices.

The results reveal a glaring interest of commercial air travelers in flying on a shared, private aircraft and show significant differences in the WTP for private aviation. The findings highlight a difference of WTP between customer segments, including Northern American and European customers, as well as business and leisure travelers.

The study makes a three-fold contribution to theory and practice. First, it bridges SE literature and the WTP construct, and with that, expands the understanding of pricing behaviors in a SE context. For tourism businesses, the study is valuable in that it offers concrete pricing suggestions for SE services when aimed at a premium rather than a budget customer segment. Third, the study is novel in that it taps into the aviation sector as a subsector of the SE ecosystem and offers critical implications suggesting the potential of the SE disrupting traditional aviation businesses.

共享经济对航空业的影响: 旅客的支付意愿

共享经济不仅影响了旅游业, 更进而改变了许多产业的运作模式。本文旨在研究共享经济在航空业的发展潜力, 以及探讨旅客对于共享私人飞机的溢价的付费意愿。

此实证研究是以一个新兴的共享私人飞机公司JetSmarter作为背景。本研究采用定量调查中的随机抽样方法去衡量客户支付溢价的意愿。

研究结果显示旅客对乘坐共享私人飞机有浓厚的兴趣, 并显示出不同客群在付费意愿度上有显著的差异。调查显示北美和欧洲旅客以及商务和休闲旅客的付费意愿明显不同。

此研究对理论和实践做出了三方面的贡献。首先, 藉由结合共享经济的文献和支付意愿的领域, 它扩展了我们对共享经济的定价行为的理解。对于旅游企业而言, 这项研究的价值是它为共享经济提供了具体的定价建议, 且它针对的是高端客户而非中低端客户群。最后, 这项研究的新颖性在于它将航空业定义为共享经济生态系统的一部分, 并且它提供了批判性的建议, 说明共享经济有可能对传统的航空业务造成负面影响。

Economía colaborativa que perturba la aviación: Disposición de los viajeros a pagar.

la economía compartida ha transformado la industria del turismo y continúa afectando a múltiples sectores en el panorama empresarial global. Este artículo tiene como objetivo investigar el potencial de la economía colaborativa que ingresa al sector de la aviación y examina la disposición de los viajeros a pagar una prima por viajes aéreos privados y compartidos.

el contexto para el estudio empírico fue la plataforma JetSmarter, una de las plataformas emergentes de economía compartida en el sector de la aviación privada. Se adoptó una encuesta cuantitativa con un método de muestreo aleatorio para medir la disposición de los clientes a pagar precios superiores.

los resultados revelan un interés evidente de los viajeros aéreos comerciales en volar en aviones privados compartidos y muestran diferencias significativas en la disposición a pagar por la aviación privada. Las conclusiones resaltan una diferencia de disposición a pagar entre los segmentos de clientes, incluyendo a los clientes norteamericanos y europeos, así como a los viajeros de negocios y de placer.

el estudio hace una triple contribución a la teoría y la práctica. Primero, une la literatura sobre economía compartida y el constructo de la disposición a pagar, y con eso, amplía nuestra comprensión sobre los comportamientos de fijación de precios en un contexto de economía compartida. Para las empresas de turismo, el estudio es valioso porque ofrece sugerencias concretas de precios para servicios de economía compartida, cuando se dirige a un segmento de clientes premium en lugar de un segmento de clientes de presupuesto. En tercer lugar, el estudio es novedoso porque aprovecha el sector de la aviación como subsector del ecosistema de la economía colaborativa y ofrece implicaciones críticas que sugieren el potencial de la economía colaborativa que perturba las empresas de aviación tradicionales.

This paper aims to develop a theoretical framework of value co-creation and value co-destruction of guest-host social practices facilitated through Airbnb in the sharing economy.

This paper makes use of a qualitative online content analysis to extract Airbnb data and to analyse guest reviews and host responses posted in the context of Malta.

A theoretical framework is proposed revealing six distinct themes of guest–host social practices and their sub-categories, resulting in a spectrum of dimensions of value formation.

This paper collects data from Airbnb properties in Malta, with more narratives posted by guests, implying a dominance of guest views on value co-creation and co-destruction. Findings might have a limited transferability beyond similar sharing economy platforms and tourist destinations.

The paper uncovers guest–host hospitality value creation practices, providing concrete examples as to what practices lead to distinct value formation or destruction. In addressing the lack of knowledge about value creation practices in the sharing economy, strategic implications are offered to the hospitality sector to understand the distinct value propositions Airbnb offers compared to traditional accommodation types.

The paper’s contribution is its theoretical framework of value practices of guests staying at Airbnb-listed accommodations, contributing to a better understanding of the distinct value propositions underlying collaborative consumption offers in the sharing economy.

Drawing upon the theoretical framework of the service-dominant (S-D) logic, value co-creation and social practices, this paper aims to investigate how value is co-created among guests, hosts and the wider local community in the sharing economy context of Airbnb.

A qualitative enquiry through an online content analysis was applied to thematically analyse Airbnb online guest reviews to explore the value-co-creation practices in local tourist experiences in Jamaica.

Based on Airbnb guest and host engagements, a theoretical framework emerges, depicting integrated operant and operand resources, host–guest value co-creation practices embedded in the destination’s authentic culture and specific value outcomes.

Being grounded in the geographical and cultural context of Airbnbs in Jamaica, the findings are transferable to similar platforms of the sharing economy, tourism contexts and destinations.

Critical implications unfold for Airbnb accommodation providers, destination stakeholders and policymakers by revealing a specific set of nuanced social practices that need to occur for local authentic experiences and value to be co-created among guests, hosts and the wider local community.

The paper makes an original contribution to knowledge by being one of the first studies to apply a S-D logic lens to the Airbnb sharing economy. It breaks down resource integration, host – guest value co-creation practices and value outcomes that occur for experiences and value to emerge in an Airbnb hospitality context.

Customer willingness to pay (WTP) was initially set out to estimate the perceived value from a purchasing experience. However, purchasing decisions have changed as value co-creation has been increasingly applied in the hospitality industry. In adopting a service-dominant (S-D) logic lens, this paper aims to empirically test how co-creation affects WTP through customer engagement (CE).

The context for the empirical analysis is the Chinese market, one of the largest online purchasing markets that has been significantly transformed since the proliferation of co-creation. The study is a within-design online experiment with 488 Chinese participants. The analysis makes use of mediation models to evaluate the proposed mechanisms behind co-creation, CE and the moderated role of frequency of stay, and their impacts on WTP.

The data confirm the hypothesised positive impact of value co-creation on customer WTP. This impact is fully mediated by CE, i.e. CE is the mechanism behind a higher WTP propensity for co-created hotel rooms. Notably, the frequency of stay at a hotel, thus positively influencing WTP, does not have a moderated mediation effect on this relationship.

Limited research to date has investigated the price effectiveness of value co-creation in the hospitality context. This study contributes to the S-D logic and value co-creation discourses by testing the effectiveness of these concepts in relation to customer pricing decisions. This study empirically confirms the hypothesised model and provides recommendations for hospitality research and practice.

The purpose of this study is to explore “how social media influence the way consumers search, evaluate and select a hotel within the ‘evaluation stage’ of the wider hotel decision-making process”.

An exploratory qualitative research has been carried out, conducting 12 individual face-to-face, semi-structured, in-depth interviews with social media users, followed by a qualitative thematic analysis.

Social media transform the consumers’ hotel decision journey by influencing the way consumers search, decide and book hotels. The findings reveal the determinants shaping this process, by shedding light on the perceived value of using social media, consumers’ information search behaviour “then and now”, the advantages and disadvantages of social media use for decision-making, their trustworthiness and the factors that influence the consumers’ hotel decision-journey. The findings are conceptualised in an integrated theoretical model, entitled “hotel consumer decision-journey through social media”.

The study’s scope for qualitative in-depth insights into the “hotel consumer decision-journey through social media” asked for a compromise on a larger sample size and in turn the transferability of the theoretical model beyond service, hospitality and tourism consumer decision-making contexts.

This paper provides strategic implications for hospitality marketing and management for a better understanding of the influence of social media on the hotel customer decision journey. The study shows that a variety of social media with associated content sources and levels add to the complexity of hotel-related information search and decision behaviour. The developed framework not only helps hotel professionals understand consumers’ different levels (e.g. type of content, content source, content level) through which social media might influence decision-making. Various real-life scenarios presented also help practitioners understand the fine nuances of how consumers are influenced by social media and how this causes them to iteratively change their minds and make a final decision towards the rejection or selection of a hotel.

Consumers use social media for a wide spectrum of scenarios in tourism and hospitality, while the influence of social media on the consumers’ hotel decision-making process remains little understood. This study makes a theoretical contribution in that it addresses these existing gaps and bridges consumer behaviour and social media literature in the hotel context to shed light on the “hotel consumer decision journey through social media”. The core contribution is an integrated theoretical model and real-life scenarios that depict the impact of social media on the hotel decision-making.

In the emerging transformation economy, there is a shift from staging memorable experiences for many to eliciting life-transformative events for one. This study aims to understand how transformative experiences can be guided and what prerequisites are needed to elicit human transformation when designing experiences. This study borrows positive psychology as a theoretical lens to explore festivals as a prime context for liminal transformative experiences in the hospitality context.

A constructivist qualitative research design was used through 31 in-depth interviews. To ensure experience recollection, memory formation and integration of the experience into long-term transformative effects, all interviewees had attended an electronic dance music festival in the past 12 months.

Guided by the positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishments (PERMA) model, the thematic analysis revealed a series of psychological and contextual dimensions around PERMA and liminality that need to occur for transformative experiences, personal growth and self-transcendence to happen.

This study provides a guideline for event organisers and experiences designers to intentionally design and occasion positive human experiences in temporal and spatial liminal hospitality consumption contexts. Psychological and contextual dimensions are identified as critical factors in facilitating human transformation.

This paper bridges the emerging transformation economy, experience design and positive psychology. Grounded in PERMA, the study offers a novel theoretical model that serves as a framework for both transformative experience research and practical experience design.

This study aims to propose a framework for understanding the construction of extraordinary consumer experiences in events from a multidimensional and longitudinal value perspective.

The main research site was the Rock in Rio Brazil VI festival, an extraordinary consumption experience. The study takes a phenomenological interpretative approach, for which input was obtained using multiple data collection techniques (in-depth interviews, diaries and photographs) in a longitudinal study that took place over 18 months. The study also includes the first author’s observations and interactions with the event organizer and its partners during the same period, and post-pandemic complementary data that were collected in 2021.

The research findings demonstrate the integrative potential of concepts and theories that are analysed in the light of a longitudinal perspective for understanding value formation for consumers in their experience of extraordinary events. It also indicates that the construction of experience involves a high level of interaction and a high degree of engagement with the consumer in order to foster the development of an affective relationship between the service provider and the user that is based on a co-created experience.

The study answers call for more research into understanding consumer value, and how it is created, delivered and developed over time (Helkkula et al., 2012). It also expands our understanding of consumption experiences and the consumer journey (Lemon and Verhoef, 2016). It encourages longitudinal qualitative studies to be carried out and analyses value in the consumption experience in the field of events.