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The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical discussion on the nature of research into people's information behaviour, and in particular the contribution of the phenomenological approach for the development of information solutions.

The approach takes the form of a conceptual analysis drawing on the research literature and personal research experience.

The paper brings to the foreground the relative value of different conceptual approaches and how these underpin and relate to the development of information solutions.

The paper, due to the breadth and complexity of the subject, serves to highlight key issues and bringing together ideas. Some topics deserve further explanation. However, this was beyond the scope of this paper.

A conceptual framework is provided that indicates the value of the epistemic spectrum for information behaviour studies and provides support for action research and participative design.

Taking a phenomenological approach, and consequently either a first person approach and/or a highly participative approach to research, challenges the relationship between researcher and respondent. It also raises questions about why the authors conduct research and for whom it is intended.

The paper makes explicit the underlying philosophical assumptions and how these ideas influence the way the authors conduct research; it highlights the significance of Cartesian dualism and indicates the significance of these assumptions for the development of information solutions. It supports the view that researchers and developers should be open to respondents leading the exploration of their needs.

Short-term rentals are mainly of small flats, which are offered to tourists. Currently, the providers of short-term rentals, in particular Airbnb (ABB), are being criticized in several German cities, on the grounds that shares of residential flats are being removed from the housing market, due to illegitimate misuse as tourist accommodation. Thus, the conventional urban housing markets are contending with a decline in housing supply and increasing rents. This paper aims to support these findings empirically.

The paper opted first for a spatial analysis with ArcGIS for ABB in Berlin. Second, different online data requests of periods of up to two months were used to analyze the extent of misuse with regard to the Zweckentfremdungsverbot (misuse prohibition law). Third, analysis of variance was used to analyze rental growth on the ABB markets. The data were collected in different approaches from the website of airbnb.com.

The paper provides evidence that 5,555 residential flats are presently being misused by ABB (0.30 per cent of the total housing stock in Berlin) and that many providers of entire flats have more than one offer simultaneously. Moreover, the paper provides the first entire-market overview of ABB in Berlin. It is evident that the ABB market is mainly located centrally and that only a few neighborhoods have large ABB markets. Rental growth is higher in the ABB markets which have a significant share of misused flats, than in the ABB markets which have insignificant shares of misused flats.

To the authors’ best knowledge, the paper provides the first empirical approach regarding misuse through short-term rentals on a housing market with an innovative design and first-hand data.