Social interactions or business transactions? What customer reviews disclose about Airbnb marketplace

Airbnb is one of the most successful examples of sharing economy marketplaces. With rapid and global market penetration, understanding its attractiveness and evolving growth opportunities is key to plan business decision making. There is an ongoing debate, for example, about whether Airbnb is a hospitality service that fosters social exchanges between hosts and guests, as the sharing economy manifesto originally stated, or whether it is (or is evolving into being) a purely business transaction platform, the way hotels have traditionally operated. To answer these questions, we propose a novel market analysis approach that exploits customers’ reviews. Key to the approach is a method that combines thematic analysis and machine learning to inductively develop a custom dictionary for guests’ reviews. Based on this dictionary, we then use quantitative linguistic analysis on a corpus of 3.2 million reviews collected in 6 different cities, and illustrate how to answer a variety of market research questions, at fine levels of temporal, thematic, user and spatial granularity, such as (i) how the business vs social dichotomy is evolving over the years, (ii) what exact words within such top-level categories are evolving, (iii) whether such trends vary across different user segments and (iv) in different neighbourhoods

Social interactions or business transactions? What customer reviews disclose about Airbnb marketplace

Airbnb is one of the most successful examples of sharing economy marketplaces. With rapid and global market penetration, understanding its attractiveness and evolving growth opportunities is key to plan business decision making. There is an ongoing debate, for example, about whether Airbnb is a hospitality service that fosters social exchanges between hosts and guests, as the sharing economy manifesto originally stated, or whether it is (or is evolving into being) a purely business transaction platform, the way hotels have traditionally operated. To answer these questions, we propose a novel market analysis approach that exploits customers’ reviews. Key to the approach is a method that combines thematic analysis and machine learning to inductively develop a custom dictionary for guests’ reviews. Based on this dictionary, we then use quantitative linguistic analysis on a corpus of 3.2 million reviews collected in 6 different cities, and illustrate how to answer a variety of market research questions, at fine levels of temporal, thematic, user and spatial granularity, such as (i) how the business vs social dichotomy is evolving over the years, (ii) what exact words within such top-level categories are evolving, (iii) whether such trends vary across different user segments and (iv) in different neighbourhoods

How the Internet, the Sharing Economy, and Reputational Feedback Mechanisms Solve the “Lemons Problem”

This paper argues that the sharing economy—through the use of the Internet and real time reputational feedback mechanisms—is providing a solution to the lemons problem that many regulators have spent decades attempting to overcome. Section I provides an overview of the sharing economy and traces its rapid growth. Section II revisits the lemons theory as well as the various regulatory solutions proposed to deal with the problem of asymmetric information. Section III discusses the relationship between reputation and trust and analyzes how reputational incentives affect commercial interactions. Section IV discusses how information asymmetries were addressed in the pre-Internet era. It also discusses how the evolution of both the Internet and information systems (especially the reputational feedback mechanisms of the sharing economy) addresses the lemons problem. Section V explains how these new realities affect public policy and concludes that asymmetric information is not a legitimate rationale for policy intervention in light of technological changes. We also argue that continued use of this rationale to regulate in the name of consumer protection might, in fact, make consumers worse off. This has ramifications for the current debate over regulation of the sharing economy

Harnessing the power of the general public for crowdsourced business intelligence: a survey

International audienceCrowdsourced business intelligence (CrowdBI), which leverages the crowdsourced user-generated data to extract useful knowledge about business and create marketing intelligence to excel in the business environment, has become a surging research topic in recent years. Compared with the traditional business intelligence that is based on the firm-owned data and survey data, CrowdBI faces numerous unique issues, such as customer behavior analysis, brand tracking, and product improvement, demand forecasting and trend analysis, competitive intelligence, business popularity analysis and site recommendation, and urban commercial analysis. This paper first characterizes the concept model and unique features and presents a generic framework for CrowdBI. It also investigates novel application areas as well as the key challenges and techniques of CrowdBI. Furthermore, we make discussions about the future research directions of CrowdBI

Hipsterification and capitalism:A digital ethnographic linguistica landscape analysis of Ghent

This working book is part of an ongoing dialogue with my colleagues at the University of Tilburg and it focusses explicitly on the connection between people, culture, identity, language and semiotic material in a post-digital context. Or more concretely, it analyses how the symbolic economy of Ghent, Belgium is constructed in the neoliberal and post-digital 21st century. The online, global and mobile dimensions of the contemporary material world pose important methodological and theoretical challenges. The research presented here not only makes an empirical, but also a theoretical and methodological argument. I have the explicit aim to contribute and stimulate further interdisciplinary research on social groups and space in the post-digital constellation that characterizes superdiversity. Throughout this working book, I will address these challenges. I will start by tackling the methodological issues in the next chapter where I will introduce my methodology: Digital Ethnographic Linguistic Landscape Analysis or ELLA 2.0. This methodology puts space, or more precisely the geosemiotic landscape and the symbolic economy of spaces central. Space is analysed as constructed through (digitally mediated) social action in context. In Chapter 2, I will introduce the field. I will understand hipster the hipster as a translocal, layered and polycentric micro-population manifesting itself through a very specific style and identity discourse. And just like the hipster is a translocal phenomenon, we see that the hipster- city is also found all over the world. From this translocal introduction of the field, I will zoom in on the process of hipsterification in Ghent Belgium in the 21st century. In Chapter 3, I go back in time to the beginning of the 21st century and analyse the party scene in Ghent as a process of meaning making in the context of neoliberal capitalism. The identity discourse of the Culture Club as edgy, cosmopolitan and hip, created added value for all kinds of big brands. The hipster is not only a transnational, polycentric cultural phenomenon, or a consumer, but also a producer. The identity discourses and semiotizations of the hipster create added value which not only shape micro-enterprises but also cities and platforms. The imagination of Ghent as a hip city is therefor only partly the effect of the presence of hipsters, it is also the effect of neoliberal urban policies. In Chapter 4, I will show how the hipsterification of the historical centre of Ghent is expanding and how new hip infrastructures contribute to the understanding of Ghent as a hip city. At the same time, I will show how the construction of local hipness and originality cannot be understood in full without looking at the higher scales. Hipster culture is a niched, layered and translocal phenomenon and the cultural products and strategies of hipster entrepreneurs, seen from a global scale fit a genre or a format. In Chapter 5, we move from the centre of the city, to a poor and ‘superdiverse’ neighbourhood in the 19th century belt and show how ELLA 2.0 allows us to describe the changes in the social composition of the neighbourhood and the process of hipsterification. In Chapter 5, we move attention to two other sites in the 19th century belt – The Old Docks and the Watt complex – to show how authenticity discourses and hipster semiotics are used to start up a process of hipsterification. I end with a more general reflection and conclusion on the relation between people, cities and capitalism in post-digital Ghent and on the theoretical and methodological impact of the findings. I will explicitly do this from the ethnographic perspective on social space, social groups and social action I developed throughout the book. Maybe even more than a mere methodological contribution, I hope that this book can help to get the conceptualization of superdiversity ‘out of sociolinguistics’ that Arnaut (et al., 2017: 4) hopes for

Airbnb Go Home: Tourism Frictions and Short-Term Rentals in New Orleans

This thesis examines the concerns and conflicts around short-term rental (STR) properties in New Orleans neighborhoods. Using data from collected from critical discourse analysis, semi-structured interviews and social media posts, this paper analyzes the ways the city of New Orleans, residents of the city, STR hosts, and platforms like Airbnb discuss issues of safety, displacement, rising costs of living, as well as responsible STR practices. To understand the complexities of the issues people, have with short-term rental properties, this project approaches STRs from a housing and gentrification lens to understand the role these properties play within in the daily atmospheres of residents’ lives. This thesis contributes to the existing scholarship on cities, STRs and sustainable tourism

Trouble in paradise : contradictions in platform capitalism and the production of surplus by Airbnb hosts in regional tourist towns : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

A tendency toward crisis in social reproduction characterizes digital capitalism. Increasingly, the economic system shows itself unable to generate subjectivities and social processes for addressing the physical and psychical need required for its reproduction. Emblematic of that contradiction is the individualism of digital capitalism which compels people to commodify themselves beyond the ‘normal’ state of abstracted labour power associated with capitalism, to become ‘entrepreneurs of the self’. An extreme form of commodification of the self is evident in a new form of capitalism termed ‘platform capitalism’ which manifests through organizations such as Airbnb. Like the notion of the ‘entrepreneur of the self’, this kind of commodified self is increasingly too thin and too instrumental to be self-sustaining. The commodification of people and of private spaces result in shifts of subjectivity as a response to the production of surplus-meaning and surplus-enjoyment and indicates capture of a new sphere for capitalist activities at the expense of social reproduction. This research explores the construction of Airbnb hosts’ subjectivities across four tourist towns in New Zealand (Picton, Wanaka, Paihia and Whitianga). Placed within the context of global capitalism, tourism is a major economic contributor to the New Zealand economy, estimated at $24 billion annually. Concurrently, regional areas of New Zealand are experiencing challenges relating to economic stagnation, ageing populations and changes to population numbers. Common across people living in these regional towns is a political imperative to commodify their life-worlds for the tourist market. Increasingly, the mechanisms that are synonymous with platform capitalist ventures, of Airbnb in this instance, are becoming significant means through which, the realization of this political imperative occurs. Using a qualitative research framework, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 28 Airbnb hosts, then analyzed using an inductive and iterative thematic analysis. The emerging themes presented here are commodification, biopolitics and the intensification of time and space. Collectively, the themes demonstrate how the contradictions of surplus and of social reproduction manifest within the digital platform of Airbnb. The research informs issues and debates in contemporary theory on capital’s tendency towards crises of social reproduction

Sharing Economy Business Models : Addressing the design-implementation gap

Despite sharing being a long-practiced form of consumption, the concept ‘sharing economy’ has emerged only recently. New business models have proliferated, utilising technology to reduce transaction costs and facilitate shared access. Societal actors have taken interest in the sharing economy, to reduce resource consumption, foster social cohesion, and support the economy. However, sharing economy business models facilitate a wide array of consumption practices, including sharing, renting, borrowing, lending, bartering, swapping, trading, exchanging, gifting, buying second-hand, and even buying new goods. Past academic research and media attention tend to focus on unicorns such as Airbnb and Uber. There is greater need to explore the diverse permutations of business models within the sharing economy, especially considering sustainability.However, a gap exists between the design and successful implementation of sharing economy business models. This research aims to advance and structure knowledge about the sharing economy and sustainable business models, by using business modelling methods to study the design and implementation of sharing economy business models. Inspired by design science, this research engages in prescriptive theory-building and design- oriented research to construct and evaluate design artefacts. Incorporating data materials from people, documents, and literature, the research strategies of grounded theory and desk research are utilised to support methods for data collection and data analysis.The research proposes a prescriptive definition of the sharing economy as a socio-economic system that leverages technology to mediate two-sided markets, which facilitate temporary access to goods that are under- utilised, tangible, and rivalrous. From this, four design principles guide the formation of the sharing economy business model framework, which capture three value dimensions, sixteen business model attributes, and eighty- nine configuration options. This research proposes a coherent design theory to support the conceptualisation of sharing economy business models for sustainability.Additional artefacts are developed to support the successful implementation of these business models. First, business model patterns provide the justificatory knowledge to select relevant business model attributes in specific contexts. Then, a systematic framework measures the social impact of sharing platforms across four aspects – trust, empowerment, social justice, and inclusivity. Finally, organisational response strategies to COVID-19 are established in the sharing economy.The primary contribution of this research is conceptual, with additional modest methodological and empirical contributions. Furthermore, the artefacts are intended to be useful for research and practice, including scholars, entrepreneurs, managers, policymakers, investors, users, and concerned citizens

Toward a Critical Toponymy Framework for Named Entity Recognition: A Case Study of Airbnb in New York City

Critical toponymy examines the dynamics of power, capital, and resistance through place names and the sites to which they refer. Studies here have traditionally focused on the semantic content of toponyms and the top-down institutional processes that produce them. However, they have generally ignored the ways in which toponyms are used by ordinary people in everyday discourse, as well as the other strategies of geospatial description that accompany and contextualize toponymic reference. Here, we develop computational methods to measure how cultural and economic capital shape the ways in which people refer to places, through a novel annotated dataset of 47,440 New York City Airbnb listings from the 2010s. Building on this dataset, we introduce a new named entity recognition (NER) model able to identify important discourse categories integral to the characterization of place. Our findings point toward new directions for critical toponymy and to a range of previously understudied linguistic signals relevant to research on neighborhood status, housing and tourism markets, and gentrification.Comment: Accepted at EMNLP 2023 (main track