Airbnb and the sharing economy

ABSTRACT

A large share of growth in the sharing or platform economy is driven by peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation providers such as Airbnb. The literature argues for both positive and negative socio-cultural, economic and environmental impacts emanating from the tourism and hospitality businesses and value chains that are dependent on AirBnB and other online platforms. These impacts are felt in terms of competition with more traditional business models (e.g. hotels, motels and B&Bs) and their influence on tourist and visitor flows as well as their spatial impacts that has led to substantial community opposition to accommodation providers that utilise Airbnb in some destinations. This introduction to the special issue on AirBnB and the sharing economy identifies several themes in the consumption and production of the sharing, peer-to-peer and platform economies on tourism at various scales, ranging from international networks, destinations and business, through to neighbourhoods and individuals. Although Airbnb provides the primary frame by which to investigate the relationships between the sharing economy and tourism and the implications of so-called disruptive innovation this introduction also notes some of the wider implications of the sharing and platform economy for people and places.

KEYWORDS:

• P2P
• platform economy
• platform capitalism
• collaborative economy
• gig economy
• informal economy

Introduction

AirBnB and the sharing and platform economies have arguably had as major an effect on tourism and hospitality research as they have on destination economies, the experience of place by resident and guest, and on the markets they serve (Altinay & Taheri, 2019; Casado-Diaz et al., 2020; Cheng & Edwards, 2019; Hossain, 2020; Kuhzady et al., 2020; 2021; Ozdemir & Turker, 2019; O’Regan & Choe, 2017; Prayag & Ozanne, 2018; Sainaghi et al., 2020). Recent years have seen a massive surge of interest in these topics linked as they are to vital questions of innovation and change in destinations and the business of tourism as well as many other critical issues including, inter alia, overtourism, accommodation provision, and tourism planning and, of course more recently, economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic (Coles, 2021; Crommelin et al., 2018; Gössling & Hall, 2019; Gyódi, 2019; Nilsson, 2020; Oskam, 2019; Peeters et al., 2018).

The digitalisation of the economy has led to the shortening of the distance of economic exchange between service providers and their users, and has had profound effects on value and supply chains, the structure and concentration of capital and associated market power, and on the nature of service provision (O’Regan & Choe, 2017). Gössling and Hall (2019, p. 75) observe that the concept of the ‘sharing economy’ is an ‘inherently normative concept’ that was originally intended to address some of the shortcomings of the dominant capitalist economic system and issues of sustainability through more efficient use of underutilized resources (Botsman & Rogers, 2011), including capital assets such as rooms, homes and second-homes.

Botsman and Rogers (2011, n.p.) defined the sharing economy as ‘an economic model based on sharing underutilized assets from spaces to skills to stuff for monetary and non-monetary benefits, largely focused on peer-to-peer transactions’. However, over time it has come to be used interchangeably with other terms such as ‘collaborative economy’, ‘gig economy’, ‘participative economy’, ‘peer-to-peer economy’, and ‘platform economy’ so that there is no single accepted definition with the terms applied to both profit and non-profit activities (Gössling & Hall, 2019; OECD, 2016; Peeters et al., 2018).

Regardless of definition, it is clear that the growth of globally dominant platform-based intermediaries, such as AirBnB, Booking.com, and Uber, has fundamentally changed interactions and relationships between actors in the tourism system. It has also undoubtedly been disruptive, with AirBnB often considered as having some of the largest impacts in the accommodation sector and in destinations. However, whether AirBnB is truly innovative remains something of a moot point and very much depends on perspective (Coles, 2021; Guttentag, 2015; Hall & Williams, 2020; O’Regan & Choe, 2017; Peeters et al., 2018; Varma et al., 2016). For example, Gössling and Hall (2019, p. 85) highlighted that AirBnB are very much like other transnational companies in terms of their tax minimization activities with ‘the infrastructure and impact of the intermediary … primarily located in a third country [outside of the destination country and the tourist generating country] with the financial flows actually being managed through fourth and even more countries in an effort to minimize tax’. Indeed, revelations of the lobbying activities of AirBnB in various countries around the world to change policies and regulations, highlight the extent to which AirBnB is a very large transnational company with a huge capital base that acts to serve its own interests (Cann, 2022). Indeed, Behr (2022) suggests that tech giants such as Uber and AirBnB are a threat to democracy because of their political power: ‘Ruthlessness is a historic driver of economic evolution. Some innovators have a philanthropic streak, others are rapacious. The pattern across history is that technology smashes its way into an economy and only later, once the wider implications are visible, does society organise a political response to mitigate the downsides’ (Behr, 2022, n.p.). As Behr (2022) notes, the use of political power by platform capital to create favorable conditions for itself by changing political discourse as well as regulations, stands in contrast to the foundational myth of Silicon Valley folklore, often promulgated unthinkingly by business schools: ‘A large part of innovation is new ways to deliver old ideas. Technology gives the innovator an edge by lowering costs, enabling nimbler delivery and outcompeting established traders who are stuck with obsolescent methods’ (Behr, 2022, n.p.). In reality, a significant share of platform revenue appears to be ‘invested’ in legal counsel and the filing of lawsuits, often against cities and state government, and usually dragging out over years (Carville et al., 2020), in order to prevent legislation that is not in the interest of the platform. Arguably then, the disruption of AirBnB and such platforms is not just with respect to business, but also to policy and to the wider economy and society.

These issues therefore set the context for this special issue of Current Issues in Tourism which covers several significant themes and issues, and which represents a major contribution to the literature on the platform and sharing economy as outlined below.

Collaborative consumption

Marques and Gondim Matos (2020) argue that the Internet opened up opportunities for consumers and businesses to develop sharing or collaborative consumption and the focus on network relationality as indicators of ‘the intensity of temporary relationships which shape the tourist experience beyond the accommodation service’ (Marques & Gondim Matos, 2020, p. 1164). Sigala (2017) suggests that Web 2.0 changed the tourist experience and the relationship between customers and business, encouraging traditional tourist companies to change their business approaches towards collaborative commerce. This is notwithstanding her concern that AirBnB providers are integrated in destination management strategies, which tend to focus on the online booking platforms rather than the operators themselves. Similarly, Keogh et al. (2020) stress that second homes –as a part of the tourism economy– are not recognised by regional organisations with the participation of short-term rentals in destination networks decreasing in favour of the platforms (see also Müller & Hall, 2018). This is a situation that may possibly shift the balance of power in relationships and influence regional systems and is a point that is also taken up by Prayag et al. (2020) who discuss the approach of introducing AirBnB into a network of traditional accommodation providers by the principles of acquiescence, negotiation, and translation.

Consumer behaviour

One of the major areas of research on AirBnB considers consumer behaviour related to both hosts and guests. Guttentag and Smith (2020) explore different types of consumers according to when they first started using AirBnB. They discover differences between early, recent and non-adopting customers. Non-adopters are not interested in the innovativeness of information technologies and represent lower socio-economic status. Recent adopters are more likely to use midrange or upscale hotels. Early adopters are more loyal with high expectations and satisfaction level, hotel-like features is less attractive for this type of consumers.

AirBnB and its high ratings have also been an area of concern representing positive bias despite the experience (Baute-Díaz et al., 2020). For Bulchand-Gidumal and Melián-González (2020) AirBnB demonstrates an extreme case of high ratings among accommodation platforms. They question the reasons for customers to rate highly the accommodation they stayed in. The findings show that guests do not want to offend hosts as they build personal connections and that they also try to avoid any chance of negative reviews on their profile. Bridges and Vásquez (2018) also highlight the tendency for positive reviews and ratings being a norm for AirBnB. The personalisation of accommodation experiences due to the guest–host interactions drives higher post-hoc evaluation of accommodation within structures of what Gössling et al. (2021) describe as ‘mutual surveillance’. Further substantiation for this is provided indirectly by the observation of negative comments as they often relating to the property or location and rarely touching on the hosts. As such, the consequent negative experience of AirBnB is framed around poor communication between hosts and guests and poor customer service on the platform itself causing the loss of guests’ time and money (Sthapit, 2019; Sthapit & Jiménez-Barreto, 2019).

Another significant topic of customer behaviour research in the AirBnB literature is booking behaviour. Amaro et al. (2019) focus on the booking behaviour of millennials from Germany and China. Subjective norms, variety and unique accommodation offering, attitude and economic benefit all impact the intentions to book through AirBnB. Among these factors though, economic benefits have little effect, while perceived risks were found to have no influence on booking decisions. In contrast, Tussyadiah and Pesonen (2018) stress that economic factors such as cost savings along with feelings of community belonging and sustainability are driving forces for choosing AirBnB. Familiarity, cost, efficacy and trust are barriers to using the platform. Volz and Volgger (2022) indirectly explore motivations to book AirBnB by analysing affective and cognitive advertising. In comparison to a boutique hotel group where emotional appeals are more effective, there is no significant difference between emotional and rational advertising for AirBnB. The choice to book through AirBnB is dictated by a mixture of hedonic and utilitarian motivations. Mahadevan (2020) attempts to discover differences in booking motivations between urban and rural areas. In contrast to previous studies, restrictive factors for demand in urban areas are locational benefits, while social experiences, home benefits, and the sharing economy philosophy have no effect on demand. Furthermore, economic benefits and local experience are stronger motives for use in rural areas rather than urban.

While consumer behaviour is considered in relation to guests, hosts are also consumers of the platform services and there is growing literature on the behaviour of hosts including with respect to price settings and seeking to influence reviews and ratings (Gössling et al., 2018, 2019). Arvanitidis et al. (2020) find that ‘casual’ and ‘professional’ hosts differ in how they price their listing on AirBnB in Greece. Tong and Gunter (2020) identify several factors affecting the pricing of AirBnB in Spanish cities. For example, the size of accommodation strongly and positively affects the price, while the remoteness from the city centre and the number of reviews negatively impacts pricing. Liu et al. (2022) attempt to understand service providers’ behaviour on the Airbnb platform. They stress that usefulness, control, familiarity and self-investments influence the perception of hosts to further usage and their intentions to interact online and charge lower prices. However, the offline interactions between guests and hosts often weaken the positive effect on behavioural intentions on the platform. Belarmino and Koh (2020) explore behaviour regarding factors that affect hosts’ return to the market after major events. Financial and social reward, sustainability, civic pride and communication positively affect hosts’ intentions to list their dwellings for future events.

Airbnb and hotels

The growth of peer-to-peer accommodation platforms, particularly AirBnB, is widely regarded as having created substantial pressure on the traditional accommodation sector (Coles, 2021; Müller & Hall, 2018; Prayag et al., 2020; Qiu et al., 2020). A number of papers compare various aspects of AirBnB and hotels and other elements of the formal accommodation and lodging sector. Benítez-Aurioles (2019) has found that the peer-to-peer market negatively affected hotels’ performance and occupancy in Barcelona, Spain. However, if hotels are located in attractive city zones, the negative effect of AirBnB on hotels’ profitability is reduced (Destefanis et al., 2020). Stressing the differences in key attributes of hotels and peer-to-peer accommodations, Zhang et al. (2020) note the challenges to the traditional accommodation sector. Among the key attributes that differentiate peer-to-peer accommodations from traditional accommodation providers are atmosphere, flexibility, value for money, quality assurance, and the possibility of hosts’ pet encounters. Belarmino et al. (2019) compare the motivations to choose between AirBnB or a hotel. The findings reveal that guests choose peer-to-peer accommodation because of the guest–host relationship, while hotels are chosen because of their room attributes.

In comparing hotels and AirBnB listings, Yu et al. (2020) indicate differences in amenities such as check-in, public areas, safety, home benefits, pet-friendliness and others. They underline that these differences exist due to variations in legal and safety regimes that providing more flexibility for AirBnB. This situation presents significant challenges for the ‘conventional’ accommodation sector due to standardised regimens of operation that are often in part a response to the regulatory environment (Chen, Lin, et al., 2021) explore the AirBnB-hotel relationships in Taiwan, and argue that AirBnB is a threat to Taipei’s international tourist hotels. In contrast, Casado-Díaz and Sellers-Rubio (2021) identify complementary effects of short-term services in Spain while Ginindza and Tichaawa (2019) observe that an increase in occupancy rates in hotels accompanies increases in AirBnB occupancy rates in Swaziland. For them, because it is an online platform, AirBnB appeals to different types of tourists in comparison to hotels and, therefore, acts in a complementary manner yet they too note the significance of different regulatory and legal requirements for operation (Ginindza & Tichaawa, 2019). Significantly, the relationships between AirBnB and hotels has also been expanded to look at the interrelationship with the housing market. In the case of Tel Aviv in Israel, this includes findings that AirBnB places pressure on rental prices (Ram & Tchetchik, 2021) and hence studies of this nature highlight the salience of considering issues such as housing supply and property ownership in considering the impacts of AirBnB on destinations (Coles, 2021; Hall, 2015; Paris, 2009, 2019).

The impacts of AirBnB development

A substantial body of literature now examines how the development of AirBnB impacts communities, housing, cities and spatial distribution, an issue that was particularly significant pre-COVID-19 as a result of concerns over overtourism (Koens et al., 2018; Nieuwland & van Melik, 2020; Nilsson, 2020; Oklevik et al., 2019; Ram & Tchetchik, 2021). However, such studies are increasingly essential to better informing local policies and decision-making (Adamiak, 2019; Curto et al., 2022). Curto et al. (2022) stress the need for investigation of different variables regarding AirBnB development such as rates, location, long-term rental patterns and others. Studies investigate how AirBnB offerings develop in different countries. The findings generally show that AirBnB offerings are more developed in mature traditional destinations with a prevailing commercial approach (Adamiak, 2019; Morales-Pérez et al., 2020). In particular, cities and coastal areas are major locations of AirBnB listings. New markets grow more quickly, while mature urban city offerings are stable or decrease (Adamiak, 2019). As may have been expected given the spatial dimensions of tourist demand, Cerezo-Medina et al. (2021) show that AirBnB echoes the spatial distribution of traditional hotels in the small cities of Andalucía. Nevertheless, Adamiak (2019) underlines the spatial unevenness in the impacts and benefits of AirBnB and thereby the importance of considering the specific destination context when evaluating the effects of AirBnB.

In their study of three European cities, Amore et al. (2020) suggest that AirBnB has a direct impact on residents in Athens, Lisbon and Milan. The rapid growth of AirBnB has led to changes in the urban population and issues such as displacing tenants, gentrification and tourismaphobia are among a growing list of concerns. In contrast, Stienmetz et al. (2020) show that positive perceptions of the impacts of community peer-to-peer accommodation are more prominent than negative. However, as with Ram and Tchetchik’s (2021) study in Tel Aviv, Clancy (2020) demonstrates how the development and commercialisation of AirBnB has contributed to a housing crisis in Dublin where three particular features have intersected: the concentration of AirBnB offerings around tourist districts; their extension to commercial and residential areas; and the overall increase in the cost of housing. Indeed Coles (2021) argues that that impacts on property markets is critical in assessing the role of Airbnb and the sharing economy on destination. Taking up this challenge, Wyman et al. (2020) identify that short-term rental properties are sold at a premium in comparison to long-term and owner-occupied properties; be this as it may though, being closely located to short-term rental properties did not appear to affect the provisional price of such properties.

Regulating AirBnB

Several papers investigate the difference in regulations affecting AirBnB and traditional hotels, with the former often regarded as presenting challenges to the formal accommodation and lodging sector. If specific and dedicated regulations exist, they tend to be concerned with the impacts of AirBnB on neighbours rather than considering equitable regulation between hotels and AirBnB (Nieuwland & van Melik, 2020). However, cities with strong contributions from the lodging industry to the economy have stricter regulations, and such regulations negatively affect short-term rentals (Furukawa & Onuki, 2019). Yeon et al. (2020) also show that regulations have been proved effective in New York city restricting the performance of AirBnB and thus far reducing their (deleterious) impact. However, as an emergent area of research, this has not explicitly considered the full gamut of potential and actual regulations of the full array of impacts associated with AirBnB particularly, over time. Likewise, the legal power employed by platforms to prevent common-interest legislation is an important field of future study.

New services on AirBnB

Research has started to acknowledge that AirBnB has expanded its offering to include tours, local experiences and activities on the AirBnB platform. Melián-González et al. (2019) observe how AirBnB has become a distribution channel for professionals with the platform presenting a mixture of professional and volunteer service providers. Women’s motives to engage in peer-to-peer accommodation have been explored by Farmaki (2019) and this would appear to be a valuable area of research with respect to gender roles in service provision as well as the relationship to copreneurship and family entrepreneurship (Bensemann & Hall, 2010; Hall & Williams, 2020). Regardless, AirBnB services continue to grow, transforming online and production experiences. Pung et al. (2019) investigated the motives and constraints to book experiences on the platform, a development reinforced by restrictions of mobility due to COVID-19 (Zhu & Cheng, 2021). For Pung et al. (2019) factors such as trust, interactions, location and authenticity drive the use of sharing economy platforms. Customers are also attracted by novelty, logistics, quality and personal interest including the social dimension of the sharing economy. In contrast, product scarcity, effort and independency expectancy, lack of awareness, economic benefits, distribution and timing constrain the use of tours and other services on sharing economy platforms such as AirBnB.

One experience development that is tied to both AirBnB, as well as other specific platforms, is that of meal-sharing. Atsız et al. (2022) use online reviews to investigate components of the meal-sharing experience. Local hospitality, culture, authenticity, social interaction, awe, novelty, and servicescape are important constituents of local meal sharing experiences. Several studies investigate motivations. Ketter (2019) examines the motivations of communal dining experiences through the platform EatWith. Communal dining experience is driven by the generic motivation of achievement. Atsız and Cifci (2022) identify socio-cultural and economic motives for collaborative gastronomy while Mhlanga (2020) highlights the significance of not automatically translating findings from one domain of accommodation to meal-sharing services. Rather, research of this nature suggests that sharing food businesses are not disruptive per se as these platforms do not have a significant influence on the price and revenue of restaurants.

Is AirBnB the sharing economy?

Although the term is widely applied, some studies question whether AirBnB represents the sharing economy at all. For example, Rodríguez-Pérez de Arenaza et al. (2019) claim that AirBnB has not fundamentally changed the tourism market model. They show how AirBnB has peer-to-peer as well as business-to-clients offerings, with the majority of listings in Catalonia provided by a small number of real estate agents. They stress that AirBnB is not a platform for collaborative tourism but acts as a distribution channel (see also Hall & Williams, 2020). Gil and Sequera (2020) also demonstrate the commercialisation of AirBnB in Madrid where professional actors use the platform to offer their listings. This model is regarded as questioning the principles of a sharing economy and potentially threatening the city’s economic sustainability with respect to tourism. Similarly, Petruzzi et al. (2019) compare AirBnB and FairBnB to determine the extent they belong to sharing economy based on a continuum of pure sharing to pure exchange features. In so doing they speculate that FairBnB is possibly a stronger example of the sharing economy due to its approach and fee structure. Phua (2019) explores complaints in order to examine whether AirBnB is perceived as sharing economy, with frustration hypothesized to arise from the perception of AirBnB as a sharing economy platform and different expectations between different audiences. From their analysis, they conclude that AirBnB looks less like an embodiment of the sharing economy and more like a booking platform.

Future research

AirBnB and other transnational organisations of the platform economy are undoubtedly part of the tourism landscape for the foreseeable future. Whether AirBnB is genuinely part of the sharing economy or is better described as a distribution channel or a booking platform or both is a moot point in some ways as it has clearly had a substantial impact on tourism and destination systems at various scales. However, the long-term impacts arguably do not derive so much from the technology, which is now ubiquitous, but more so from the structural changes it has made with respect to reframing the policy and regulatory settings within which individual actors operate, including consumers and workers. Policy disruption occurs when business models change and create a disjunction between the regulatory system and the industrial sector and/or activity that is being regulated (Hall & Williams, 2020). Such a disconnect can greatly affect incumbent firms, workers, consumers and the various spaces of regulation that exist (Biber et al., 2017; O’Regan & Choe, 2017; Peeters et al., 2018). Biber et al. (2017) identifies four main forms of policy disruption:

• End-runs – conscious choices by entrepreneurs to exploit ambiguous laws;

• Exemptions – utilise legal loopholes;

• Gaps – innovations to which the existing regulatory regime does not apply; and

• Solutions – solve problems that regulatory systems are designed to address.

In the case of AirBnB different jurisdictions reflect the different types of disruption in their policy responses to the challenges posed by AirBnB. Table 1 illustrates some of the regulatory responses that may be adopted, with such responses affecting almost all aspects of the interaction of AirBnB with consumers and producers as well as other businesses and residents within destinations. However, importantly, the effectiveness of these policy and regulatory responses in terms of policy goals will not be known for some time, hence the important need for more longitudinal studies of policy, business and consumption disruption. Such measures would allow for improved recognition and monitoring of many of the issues identified in this paper and provide valuable insights into many of the debates that surround the relative value of AirBnB for destinations and their sustainability (Zhang et al., 2021), including with respect to housing, community attitudes and place identity.

Table 1 . Regulatory responses to disruptive innovation and Airbnb.

Regulatory tool	Strategy	Application to Airbnb
Block new business model	Interpret legal rules to block the new business model and preserve existing regulatory and business models.	Only licensed accommodation providers can serve this market. Unlicensed Airbnb providers are not legally permitted to operate at all.
No change / ‘Free pass’ / Laissez-faire	Allow the business innovation to proceed without changing the regulatory structure. This threatens the previous business model and its associated regulatory structure and may even make them extinct.	Airbnb providers are permitted to serve this market. Existing legal rules for accommodation providers only apply to providers over a certain room size or open for specific periods or length of time. Freedom from regulatory structures and costs means that Airbnb places cost and market pressures on formal accommodation providers and increased pressure to change the accommodation laws.
Old Regulations	Allow the new firm to enter the market but adapt or apply existing legal rules. This approach imposes additional regulatory costs on new business models but aims for a ‘level playing field’ between incumbents and innovators	Existing health and safety regulations for accommodation providers are designed to protect guest safety. An Airbnb provider is treated like a licensed accommodation provider therefore these rules will be applied to Airbnb hosts. This increases the costs for hosts but does not block market entry.
New Regulations	Develop new regulatory structures and legal and policy categories. The new regulations need not be neutral between incumbents and innovators.	A new set of regulations for accommodation providers is developed. These address public and policy concerns such as guest safety, tax rating, health and building regulations, zoning regulations, and environmental harm.

Source: After Biber et al., 2017; Hall & Williams, 2020

Research on Airbnb has also become even more important following the impacts of COVID-19 on tourism. While previous research has examined the impacts of disruptive events, including disasters on peer-to-peer accommodation (Chen, Chen, et al., 2021), there is a need to better understand the pandemic’s effects on the overall sharing economy (Chen et al., 2022) as well as AirBnB in relation to housing markets and destination strategies (Gyódi, 2022). This is especially significant for those seeking to transform the nature of tourism within destinations. Furthermore, there are also substantial implications for consumer confidence in the health and safety of AirBnB properties, especially given the growth of contactless or untact tourism (Bae & Chang, 2021).

AirBnB and other platforms of the sharing economy have had substantial impacts on tourism systems and destinations over the past decade; importantly they have had substantive effects over what is often held to be outside of the system, including housing stock, property rights and transnational tax minimisation, among other things (Coles, 2021; Gössling & Hall, 2019; Ram & Tchetchik, 2021). AirBnB and the sharing economy will face new challenges in light of further technological change, shifts in consumer preference, and calls for greater regulation. We believe that this special issue provides a valuable base with which to benchmark and evaluate such change, as well as undertake new research on disruptive business activities and their effects on tourism.

Disclosure statement

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