Airbnb vs booking: determinants of the use of collaborative and traditional online accommodations

ABSTRACT

The collaborative economy has grown exponentially, significantly transforming certain economic sectors such as Hospitality. New collaborative platforms now compete with other digital platforms already established through hospitality services. But, are they the same types of users on both types of platforms? The objective of this study is to contribute to the sharing economy by studying consumer patterns and identifying differences between the users of sharing platforms as compared to traditional accommodation online platforms, where Airbnb and Booking are the respective world leaders. In this work, we emphasize the role of digital skills as well as trust in the digital environment, along with socio-demographic variables thought to be determinants of use of these platforms. Our results indicate that some variables including gender and income level increase the likelihood of use of Airbnb and Booking platforms in different ways. Digital skills appear to be crucial predictors of using both platforms, while greater digital trust increases the likelihood of use of Booking over that of Airbnb.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital platform
• digital economy
• sharing economy
• accommodation services

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• D16
• C25

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Although this assumption may not always be correct, we find this weighting alternative to be preferable to using an unweighted index.