Constructing new urban tourism space through Airbnb

Abstract

Visitors of urban destinations are increasingly leaving the confines of tourist zones. They venture into residential neighborhoods and stay at private apartments, a phenomenon discussed as ‘new urban tourism’. While this ‘new’ tourist behavior has already been well documented in academic research, the emergence of tourist areas in residential neighborhoods and the role that Airbnb hosts and their place framings play in the social construction of new tourist sites have received less attention. Building upon existing research on urban place making, representations and performances are discussed as two theoretical perspectives that prove helpful in explaining how residential neighborhoods become significant for visitors. These theoretical considerations are then translated into an empirical research design. Airbnb listings located in the residential neighborhood of Reuterkiez in Berlin-Neukölln are collected and analyzed in order to understand how Airbnb hosts reframe the notion of their neighborhood. These listings serve as digital representations of Reuterkiez, contributing to the area’s discursive construction. A qualitative analysis of selected listings revealed a set of strategies that Airbnb hosts apply in order to reinterpret ordinary places and facilities and add ‘new’ meanings, thus transforming their neighborhood into a place of significance for visitors. Hosts encourage place-specific performances that support this transformation and enable visitors to transgress the boundaries between tourist and resident. Sharing-platforms thus become a new means for ‘ordinary’ people to engage in place-making processes. However, Airbnb hosts’ power in that process is two-fold. They not only invest discursively in the making of tourist places but also materially, through the rooms and apartments they provide. As such, the platform Airbnb has an immediate effect on the construction of new urban tourism areas.

摘要

城市目的地的游客越来越多地越过旅游区的界线。他们冒险进入居民区, 住在私人公寓里, 这种现象被称为”新城市旅游”。虽然这种”新”的游客行为已经在学术研究中得到了很好的报道, 但住宅区中旅游区的出现, 以及爱彼迎在新旅游景点的社会建构中所扮演的角色, 却很少受到关注。在现有的城市对方营造研究的基础上, 表征和展演被作为两个理论视角来讨论, 这有助于解释住宅社区如何对游客变得重要。然后将这些理论考虑转化为实证研究设计。本研究收集和分析位于柏林新克尔恩地区Reuterkiez居民区的爱彼迎房源, 以了解爱彼迎房东如何重新定义他们的社区概念。这些列表作为Reuterkiez的数字表征, 有助于该地区的话语构建。对选定的房源进行定性分析后, 爱彼迎房东采用了一系列策略来重新诠释普通的地方和设施, 并添加”新的”含义, 从而将他们的社区变成对游客有意义的地方。房东鼓励特定场所的展演支持这一转变, 使游客跨越游客和居民之间的界限。分享平台因此成为”普通人”参与地方营造过程的一种新手段。然而, 爱彼迎在这一过程中的影响力是双重的。他们不仅不假思索地投资于旅游景点的建设, 而且还通过提供的房间和公寓进行实质性的投资。因此, 爱彼迎平台对城市新旅游区的建设产生了立竿见影的效果。

Keywords:

• Airbnb
• sharing economy
• city tourism
• new urban tourism
• social constructionism
• representation
• performance
• Berlin

关键词:

• 爱彼迎
• 分享经济
• 城市旅游
• 新城市旅游
• 社会建构主义
• 表征
• 展演
• 柏林

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 For a concise definition of migration background, see ASBB (2018b).

2 For a detailed description of the countries of origin, see ASBB (2018b).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Natalie Stors

Natalie Stors (Ph.D.) is a postdoctoral researcher at Trier University, Germany. Her research interests include urban tourism and the sharing economy. In her PhD thesis, she investigated the motivation of Airbnb hosts to rent out private space and the resulting spatial implications of these practices. She is a co-founder of the urban research group ‘new urban tourism’ located at the Georg Simmel Center for Metropolitan Studies at Humboldt University Berlin.