3,301 research outputs found

    Sharing Means Renting?: An Entire-marketplace Analysis of Airbnb

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    Airbnb, an online marketplace for accommodations, has experienced a staggering growth accompanied by intense debates and scattered regulations around the world. Current discourses, however, are largely focused on opinions rather than empirical evidences. Here, we aim to bridge this gap by presenting the first large-scale measurement study on Airbnb, using a crawled data set containing 2.3 million listings, 1.3 million hosts, and 19.3 million reviews. We measure several key characteristics at the heart of the ongoing debate and the sharing economy. Among others, we find that Airbnb has reached a global yet heterogeneous coverage. The majority of its listings across many countries are entire homes, suggesting that Airbnb is actually more like a rental marketplace rather than a spare-room sharing platform. Analysis on star-ratings reveals that there is a bias toward positive ratings, amplified by a bias toward using positive words in reviews. The extent of such bias is greater than Yelp reviews, which were already shown to exhibit a positive bias. We investigate a key issue---commercial hosts who own multiple listings on Airbnb---repeatedly discussed in the current debate. We find that their existence is prevalent, they are early-movers towards joining Airbnb, and their listings are disproportionately entire homes and located in the US. Our work advances the current understanding of how Airbnb is being used and may serve as an independent and empirical reference to inform the debate.Comment: WebSci '1

    Going back to its roots: can hospitableness provide hotels competitive advantage over the sharing economy?

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    While the customer experience is at the heart of the hospitality industry, experience-related research remains underrepresented. This gap is critical, particularly given the emerging threat of the sharing economy to the hotel industry along experiential factors. Using data from a survey of 630 customers who stayed at a hotel or an Airbnb, the authors use structural equation modeling to compare two models with alternative conceptualizations of the dynamics of experiential consumption in the accommodations industry. Building on the concept of the experiencescape from the branding and hospitality and tourism literatures, the model enhances Pine and Gilmore’s (1998) original experience economy construct by demonstrating the critical role of the dimension of hospitableness in facilitating favorable experiential and brand-related outcomes, particularly in the context of the hotel experience. The findings have important implications for the hotel industry’s strategic experience design initiatives and emphasize the need to use hospitableness in order to create a competitive advantage in a rapidly changing environment.Accepted manuscrip

    Airbnb in New York City: Whose Privacy Rights are Threatened by a Government Data Grab?

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    New York City regulators have vigorously resisted the rise of Airbnb as an alternative to traditional hotels, characterizing “home sharing” as a trend that is sucking up permanent housing in a city already facing an affordability crisis. However, laws banning short-term rentals have done little to discourage this practice, as Airbnb’s policy of keeping user information private makes it possible for illegal operators to evade law enforcement. Frustrated by this power imbalance, the New York City Council passed Local Law 146, which requires Airbnb to provide city officials with access to the names and information of its home sharing hosts on a monthly basis to assist with law enforcement efforts. Airbnb claims that the ordinance is a flagrant violation of its own privacy rights and the rights of its customers. Local Law 146 is the culmination of the regulatory struggle over Airbnb in New York City, but it is also a flash point for government data-collection efforts generally. Because of the massive potential of using private companies’ data to aid in law enforcement efforts, the implementation of data-collection statutes could be an attractive policing tool. Using Local Law 146 as a lens, this Note examines the privacy issues implicated by datacollection laws and discusses which parties can assert these privacy rights, particularly given recent changes in third-party doctrine jurisprudence. Ultimately, this Note concludes that, while the outcome of Airbnb’s challenge to Local Law 146 will be an important indicator, the suit will not resolve the question of whether individual Airbnb hosts could successfully challenge this law without the support of the company. Individual challenges to sweeping data-collection statutes could be the next frontier in breaking down the third-party doctrine’s barrier to Fourth Amendment protections

    Understanding Transitions of Trust across Different Business Contexts: An Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Study

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    Airbnb’s influence has been growing rapidly in the last few years, and hotel operators are beginning to recognize the competitive threat it poses. However, consumers may perceive Airbnb differently than hoteliers. Thus, the current study attempts to explore hotel customers’ perceptions of the sharing economy business (Airbnb). It is important to pay attention to the different business settings of the channels that currently exist in the lodging industry. Moreover, investigating the relationship between trust and perceived risk in this new channel (i.e., Airbnb) is crucial due to the inherent risk of transactions on Airbnb, especially when compared with traditional Business-to-customer. Considering the fact that Airbnb belongs to a different context (Customer-to-customer) than traditional hotels (B2C), this study uses a mixed methods approach, specifically with an exploratory sequential design. Through the qualitative analysis, Study Phase 1 identified antecedents of trust and perceived risk on the intention to select Airbnb. These factors were categorized into the three attributes of Airbnb, which include channel, accommodations, and individual host. Study Phase 2 consisted of two stages: 1) instrument development by using EFA based on the results from Study Phase 1, and then, 2) empirical validation by using the PLS-SEM technique in order to thoroughly examine the relationships in the proposed S-O-R framework. Findings, implications, and suggestions for future studies were also discussed

    Digital trust and peer-to-peer collaborative consumption platforms : a mediation analysis

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    This paper investigates the nature of digital trust in the context of P2P collaborative consumption platforms. We have analyzed data from the website Trustpilot.com (N=5,606), survey data from users of the online sharing platform Airbnb (N=232), and data retrieved from an online experiment conducted among current non-users of a fictitious online sharing platform (N=462). The findings reveal that trust in P2P collaborative consumption platforms (Airbnb, Lyft, and Uber) is lower than trust in P2P exchange first generation platforms (Ebay), as well as large online retail services and non-P2P platforms (Walmart, Zappos, Amazon). Furthermore, we find that the three trust-building management measures: ‘reliable insurance cover’, ‘simultaneous reviews’, and a ‘large network: many offers worldwide’ had a positive effect on ‘trust in the platform provider’. The findings confirm the hierarchical nature of the two-fold trust construct, meaning that ‘trust in the platform provider’ has a positive effect on the ‘trust in peers’ sharing on this platform. A mediation analysis reveals that ‘trust in the platform’ fully mediates all statistically significant effects of trust-building measures on the ‘trust in peers’ variable

    The Importance of Platform Producers’ Reputation Signals and Product Type on Product Performance in Peer-to-Peer Platforms

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    On two-sided peer-to-peer platforms there exists a supply side (producers) and a demand side (consumers). Platform owners provide the platforms that assist in efficiently matching producers and consumers and an infrastructure that producers can take advantage of to signal quality to consumers. This study examines the effects of producer signals on product performance in the context of Airbnb, a peer-to-peer home sharing platform. Adjusting for producers with multiple listings, the analysis uses 77,445 listings from the platform to produce regression models which tests whether signals are positively related to product performance and if the relationship between producer signals and product performance is moderated by product type. Results show that while producer signals are important to product performance, there is minimal support for the assumption that signals vary by product type. Results also show that certain product attributes may be more important than producer signals in some contexts. Based on these findings, business and theoretical implications are discussed as well as directions for future research

    the case of accommodation sharing

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    Thesis(Doctoral) --KDI School:Ph.D in Public Policy,2019The purpose of this study is to provide implications on policy preparation and amendments on laws and regulations in accommodation sharing in Korea by exploring the current status of demand and supply sides. This study consists of four parts to investigate i) perceived characteristics of accommodation sharing, ii) the impact of attributes of accommodations sharing on business performance, iii) individuals’ perceptions of policy reactions, and iv) exploratory research of current laws and regulations of different countries. First, this study finds that actual preferences of accommodation sharing conflicts with the issues on laws and regulations regarding property and sharing types. Guests who prefer to share entire houses consider instrumental attributes related to properties, while guests who prefer a portion of the house consider relatively more about social interactions, sustainability, and community benefit. Sharing a portion of the houses is legal and more suitable for policy intentions because the policies promote the local economy and community recovery by maximizing the utility of resources and interactions with the community. Further, this study finds that individuals with experience of accommodation sharing tend to have more positive attitudes toward accommodation sharing and perceive more necessity of policy reactions. Among proposed policy instruments, individuals perceive local ordinances, government publicizing and campaign, trust marks, taxation, penalties, and government controls are effective to build trust in accommodation sharing. Individuals evaluate that policies geared toward the majority of the public are more effective, and governments should establish a strategic approach as to which policies are introduced in public and which role the government plays in the departments. Currently, governments have been required the incompatible roles of eliminating regulatory barriers for newly introduced sharing economy business and minimizing the damages to existing industries. This study provides policy and managerial implications what is the most important for the citizen satisfaction associated with proper preparations and amendments of laws and regulations.I. Introduction II. Literature Reviews III. Study 1: Qualitative Research using Secondary Data IV. Study 2: Quantitative Research using Secondary Data V. Study 3: Quantitative Research using Primary Data VI. Study 4: Comparative Study on Policies in Various Societies VII. ConclusiondoctoralpublishedEun Joo LEE

    Consumer adoption of access-based consumption services - Case AirBnB

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    Increasing internet and smart phone penetration has given rise to a new business model, in which the service companies act as intermediaries and allow consumers to exchange value between them. Usually this is done by facilitating resource exchange between the consumers - one party that needs a resource such as a car, a designer bag or a place to stay rents or shares this resource with another party that has no need for the resource at the moment. This phenomenon has been dubbed collaborative consumption, the sharing economy or access-based consumption and is the focus of this research. The current growth of this sector is extremely high, and several companies operating in this field have received valuations in excess of 10 billion USD and are preparing for large-scale initial public offerings. Because this phenomenon is quite a recent one, scant quantitative research currently exists that studies why consumers engage in using these services. This study attempts to fill this gap by studying the consumer adoption process of AirBnB. The main questions are; what factors influence consumer adoption of AirBnB and what is the relative importance of the different factors. By using established theories from marketing, psychology and information systems research, a multi-tiered structural equation model is created based on empirical data from a survey of 124 consumers to test different factors influencing adoption. The results indicate that expected performance and hedonic motivations are the primary drivers of adoption of AirBnB. Social influence is another driver of adoption, albeit to a lesser extent than expected performance and hedonic motivations. In addition, the more materialistic the consumer, the less likely she/he is to adopt AirBnB. Moreover, expected performance is positively influenced by perceived price value and trust. Trust in turn is positively influenced by perceived effectiveness of the feedback mechanisms and the perceived quality of the web site. Based on the results, it can be argued that adopters of AirBnB are willing to exchange regulation and the safety that comes with it - that are inherent in traditional services such as hotels - in exchange for increased price value, increased perceived fun, and a working trust architecture
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