Human capital and sustainability challenges for Airbnb Bed and Breakfast lifestyle entrepreneurs

ABSTRACT

The Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea is a well-known tourist destination, visited annually by almost 2 million tourists. Among the different types of accommodation available to visitors, Bed and Breakfast (B&B) on the Airbnb platform have become very popular. This exploratory study discusses how the human capital of some B&B lifestyle entrepreneurs affects their plans and practices of sustainability. Human capital theory (Becker, G. (1964). Human Capital. The University of Chicago Press.) is discussed by intersecting it with a sociological perspective represented by the two main Bordieuan forms of capital, namely cultural and social capital (1986 and 1992). The research is based on data collected between June 2017 and October 2020 through semi-structured interviews and field observation of fourteen rural B&B lifestyle entrepreneurs listed on Airbnb. Results show that participants’ cultural capital is high and constantly developing through the acquisition of new knowledge on sustainable measures that can be applied to their businesses. Their current social capital in Gotland, on the other hand, is still quite underdeveloped.

KEYWORDS:

• Bed and Breakfast
• lifestyle entrepreneurs
• sustainability
• human capital

Introduction

In the past decade, micro Bed and Breakfast (B&B) accommodations have grown steadily in the Nordic Countries and have proliferated in Sweden, particularly through Airbnb’s global platform (see Neeser, 2015).¹ Micro businesses are defined by the Swedish Tax Agency as those with less than 10 employees. These businesses are run mostly by lifestyle entrepreneurs, that is, by owners whose main motivation for starting their business is oriented towards non-economic motives (Morrison, 2006). Lifestyle entrepreneurs have been shown to be aware of and willing to run their business by tackling sustainability issues, from environmental sustainability (Cuhna et al., 2020; Dantas & Carvahlo, 2020) to social and cultural sustainability (Bosworth & Farrell, 2011; Keen, 2004; Morrison, 2006).

This study focusses on how our informants’ human capital affects their plans and practices of sustainability as part of their business venture. We engage human capital theory (Becker, 1964) to answer the following question: how do social and cultural capital affect these lifestylers’ ideas and practices of sustainability in running their B&B?

This qualitative exploratory research is based on fourteen semi-structured interviews and field observation of lifestyle owners of micro and small (up to 20 rooms) B&B accommodations found on the Airbnb site for the Swedish island of Gotland. Data was collected between June 2017 and October 2020. Content data analysis for this embedded study has revealed three main themes: (1) Human capital and environmental sustainability, (2) human capital and social sustainability (social capital), and (3) human capital and cultural sustainability (cultural capital).

In the following sections, we present relevant literature on B&Bs, their characteristics as part of the sharing economy, and lifestyle entrepreneurship. A brief overview of the growth of Airbnb accommodations in the Nordic Countries is also presented. We later frame our theoretical discussion by introducing the concept of human capital and by enriching it with a specific discussion of our lifestylers’ cultural and social capital in relation to their values and practices of sustainability. The findings of this research are later analyzed in the discussion section. The conclusions session is correlated with some thoughts on the implications of the study, its limitations, and areas for future research.

Current trends and statistics on the global growth of the Airbnb platform bring to the surface economic, environmental, and social issues. Recent scholarly papers have started to look at the effects of home-sharing on: increasing housing costs (Barron et al., 2018; Horn & Merante, 2017; Lee, 2016 for the US market), the hotel industry (Zervas et al., 2017), illegal advertising (Guttentag, 2015; Mills, 2014 for Catalonia; Garay et al., 2020 for Barcelona), neighbourhoods’ gentrification and touristification (Colomb & Novy, 2016; Wachsmuth & Weisler, 2018), and the impacts on the environment and sustainability (Juvan & Dolnicar, 2017; Martin, 2016; Midgett et al., 2017; Palgan et al., 2017).

Despite the statistical growth of micro B&B accommodations through Airbnb in the Nordic Countries (Neeser, 2015), there are only few specific studies on the various aspects and implications of the Airbnb B&B sector. For instance, Nesser’s research on the economic impact of Airbnb on the Nordic hotel industry shows that, in general, the number of Airbnb listings has not only increased between 2009 and 2015 (2015, p. 17), but that Airbnb has also contributed to a reduction in the average price of hotel rooms where Airbnb listings were present in those countries. Another recent study set in Reykjavik (Mermet in Gravari-Barbas and Guinand, 2017) discusses the link between the expansion of Airbnb and the evolution of the real estate market in the capital city. A 2019 study on the development of housing markets in Scandinavian capital cities shows that the growing demand for Airbnb accommodations can be one of the secondary factors for the sharply rising demand and shortage of houses in Stockholm and Oslo (Næss Torstensen & Roszbach, 2019; see also Elíasson & Ragnarsson, 2018). On a different note, Andersson Cederholm and Hultman’s study (2010) investigates the emotional and commercial impact of intimacy and distance in small-scale hospitality businesses in Southern Sweden. Interest has been awakened, however, and very recent studies on the sharing economy in the accommodation sector in the Nordic countries have started to appear. These studies are interesting because they enable a more sophisticated theoretical and methodological discussion on the social and cultural entanglements of the sharing economy phenomenon (Adamiak, 2020; Jokela & Minoia, 2020).

One important factor of the impact of Airbnb in the Nordic Countries that needs to be further addressed relates to how sustainability is thought of and implemented by proprietors of micro and small accommodations. This is of particular importance for two main reasons: (1) the substantial political and legislative steps taken by those countries in the past decades (see the Nordic Strategy for Sustainable Development 2013-2025, 2019, p. 2) in Sweden and Gotland SME (Small and medium-sized enterprises) like the ones in this study constitute the great majority of enterprises (NatureBizz Working Report, 2018 and Statistiska Centralbyrån, 2020).

Within this perspective, micro and small B&B accommodations are interesting research platforms that can potentially lead to an improved understanding of the relations between hosting and sustainability. This exploratory study aims to contribute to this discussion.

Theoretical background

The rise of the sharing economy and airbnb

Since the 1960s, when the B&B sector was not regarded as a serious subject in British tourism (Hall and Rusher, 2004, p. 85), international research on B&Bs has grown (e.g. Stringer, 1981on hosts and guests experience in British B&Bs; Kline et al., 2005; Vallen & Rande, 1997; Warnick & Klar, 1991; Zane, 1997 on evaluation of B&B websites; Lowe, 1988; Pearce, 1990 and Wood, 1994 on the importance of home setting in hospitality product construction; Momany, 2015 on social media’s impact on the B&B industry). Recent scholarly papers have started to look at the effects of home-sharing on increasing housing costs (see Horn & Merante, 2017; Lee, 2016 and Barron et al., 2018 for the US market) as well as on the impacts of Airbnb accommodations on visitors’ behaviours and experiences (Chen, 2012; Zervas et al., 2017).

This study focusses on micro and small B&Bs. B&Bs are small business where owners rent out a number of rooms in a private home to travellers on a short-term basis. Typically, breakfast is included in the room rate (Angowski Rogak, 1995; Fajardo, 2014; Lanier & Berman, 1993; Lubetkin, 1999; Zane, 1997). In the end, B&Bs are commercial homes (see Lynch et al., 2009 for a detailed definition, description and discussion of the commercial home enterprise) in which commercial, private, and social domains are fused (Lashley, 2000).

To classify a B&B accommodation’s size is complex, as these categories vary greatly across nations, regions, and even cities (Lynch et al., 2009). For the study’s sake, we adopt the regulations and categories set by the Swedish Police, the Swedish Tax Agency², and SME: a micro B&B is an accommodation with less than four beds and less than eight guests per night, less than 10 persons employed or up to 49 employees for small enterprises, a renting period that does not exceed 16 weeks per year, and a yearly income that is not more than 50 000sek.

SME represent the backbone of the European economy with 92,8% (Eurostat 2015 in Key Figures on Europe, 2018, p. 46). The tourism industry in the European Union comprises some two million businesses, mostly SME. They account for about 5% of both GDP and employment (Ib.). In Sweden, SME represent 96% of all national businesses, of which 73.2% are sole proprietors and 23.1% are micro-sized enterprises with 1–9 employees (NatureBizz Working Report, 2018, p. 5). According to the Swedish Statistiska Centralbyrån, micro-sized enterprises in Gotland run by sole proprietors are the majority: 7500. Those with 1–4 employees are 1651. In our study, only two of the micro business owners we interviewed had a few employees (less than 10; Roberts & Hall, 2001, p. 197). All the others rely on their own and family members’ mostly unpaid labour.

A recent review of almost 400 papers on accommodations that are part of the shared economy (Kuhzady et al., 2020) found that this sector is experiencing high growth, with Airbnb becoming a major focus for tourism scholars. The B&Bs in this study are listed on Airbnb, the worldwide online platform that emerged in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and soon became part of so-called digital collaborative or shared economy (Koh & King, 2017; Richardson, 2015; Wiles & Crawford, 2017). Airbnb users rent their rooms through the Airbnb platform for a limited period of time (Botsman & Rogers, 2010), hence making their underutilized physical assets (their homes and idle capacity, see Frenken et al., 2015) and skills (their language skills and their local and global knowledge) available to consumers. In a matter of few years, Airbnb, along other “unicorns of the sharing economy (i.e. digital start-ups growing into global platforms)” (Gyimothy et al., 2020, p. 206) has become the largest accommodation provider in the world with over a million properties in nearly 35,000 cities in over 190 countries (Varma et al., 2016). A study by Adamiak (2019) based on a data base of over 5.7 million listings worldwide shows that the growth of Airbnb is not uniform and largely depends on the country’s level of economic and tourist development, with one third of Airbnb listings located in European (Adamiak, 2018; Serrano et al., 2020) and North American big cities (Adamiak, 2020, p. 7). Despite Airbnb activity not being limited to big cities, research on Airbnb supply in smaller towns and rural areas is still rare (Adamiak, 2019, 2020), thus potentially making our study an important contribution to this expanding field of research.

In Sweden, a recent report on the sharing economy and Airbnb by Timbro (Timbro Sharing Economy Index. Boende i Sverige, 2018) shows that the larger number of accommodations available on Airbnb is to be found in well-known tourist destinations such as Åre (a winter destination and number one on the list) and Gotland (mainly a summer destination and number seven on the list).³ Airbnb success in Sweden, however, has not been without some controversies. If, on the plus side, it has been praised for creating more rental opportunities in a highly congested market, on the negative side, Airbnb has also been accused of discrimination (Airbnb Hosts Accused of Discrimination in Sweden) and tax evasion (see Carlström, 2016 on recent measures taken by the Swedish taxation agency in regard to Airbnb incomes).

The B&B owners who participated in this study are lifestyle entrepreneurs. As a business-related concept, “lifestyle” refers to the set of life self-selected values and expectations that are chosen by the owners as their business’ driving force (Andrew et al., 2001). There are numerous definitions of lifestyle entrepreneurs (for a brief literature review see Gomez-Velasco & Saleilles, 2007). According to Deakins and Freel (2006), lifestyle entrepreneurs are primarily motivated by the need to live a certain quality of life through an income that allows them to survive (Burns, 2001). Lifestylers are “world-makers” (Hollinshead, 2008, 2009) and this, in turn, makes them important actors for a holistic understanding of how the hospitality industry is changing and how it can affect the world, in particular in regard to different aspects of sustainability.

Morrison et al.’s (2008) review explores both the ubiquitous and limited current conceptualization and research on this increasingly important area, pointing in particular to various non-economic factors, including the socioeconomic context, that shape decisions to form particular kinds of enterprises, and the meanings attached to the owners’ business practices (Thomas in Hall et al., 2015, p. 398). Interestingly, Gertz and Carlsen (2000) found that a large proportion of tourism enterprises in western countries are driven by lifestyle-related benefits rather than profits. Previous research also claims that lifestyle entrepreneurship includes “autonomy, control, and independence” (Kuratko & Hodgetts, 1998, p. 2), intrinsic satisfaction (Andrew et al., 2001), innovation (Johannesson & Lund, 2017; Yachin, 2019) as well as social relationships (Lynch, 1998; Morrison et al., 1999).

In the past thirty years there has been a growing recognition of the importance of small-scale and lifestyle entrepreneurship in the tourism industry (Shaw, 2004), in particular due to the recent global growth of B&B establishments in developing and developed countries on the Airbnb platform (Guttentag, 2015; Visser et al., 2017). The global growth of Airbnb brings to the surface economic, environmental, and social issues, as briefly mentioned in the previous section in regard to Sweden. Thus, lifestyle entrepreneurship within the booming sharing economy in the tourism and hospitality industry has started to be approached in more nuanced ways, as a highly creative and innovative industry (Dias et al., 2020a; Ratten, 2019; Shaw & Williams, 2013). Nonetheless, as observed by Honein (2017), there still is a scarcity of studies on the suppliers of this kind of accommodations and their main motives for doing Airbnb hosting. Similarly, despite the growth of the Airbnb phenomenon in the Nordic countries, there is only a handful of studies on the various aspects and implications of the B&B Airbnb sector (Ateljevic & Doorne, 2000; Ateljevic & Page, 2009; Burns, 2001; Ioannides & Petersen, 2003; Li, 2008; Thomas, 2004, 2015). Among these, Karlsson and Dolnicar (2016) have identified three main motives that drive lifestylers’ ventures – income, social interaction, and sharing, whereas Ert et al. (2016) discuss the role of hosts’ photos on Airbnb in building their guests’ trust.

In Gotland, a world-famous tourist destination, despite the recent “mushrooming” of family B&Bs through Airbnb, no study on this phenomenon and its possible impacts on the various aspects of sustainability, such as social sustainability has been conducted to date. This is partly due, we argue, to the non-regulatory environment in which these B&B owners operate (see Dewhurst and Thomas’ study on sustainable business practices in a non-regulatory environment in a British national park, 2010). This is remarkable, especially if one considers that the island province of Gotland has the highest rate of micro and small businesses in Sweden, in particular within the hospitality industry (cf. Gotland in Figures, 2017, p. 18).

Our exploratory study aims to further the understanding of this particular sector and how it could impact the successful implementations of sustainable measures in Gotland.

Lifestyle Entrepreneurship and B&B: sustainability and human capital

The B&B owners who participated in this study confirm that it is not the economic motive that drives them to operate their business. Sustainability, along with autonomy, seemed to be their central motive, thus reiterating their commitment as lifestyle entrepreneurs. As observed by Ateljevic and Doorne (2000), lifestylers have the potential to become important stakeholders in the creation of new tourism products, experiences, and strategies for the conservation and promotion of local natural and cultural heritage, hence making sustainability a relevant topic of study in relation to micro and small B&B as part of the sharing economy.

While the term sustainable development was popularized by the publication of the Brundtland Commission Report’s Our Common Future in 1987 (Dixon & Fallon, 2008; Saarinnen, 2006), it is generally recognized that notions of sustainability were promoted in “limits to growth” and “green” discourses already in the early 1970s (Lumley & Armstrong, 2004). In reality, as Grober (2012) convincingly demonstrates, the concept of sustainability has a long history in Europe. Over time, the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development have evolved through a process that “has gained ethical and political significance that goes beyond the specific ecologic aspect” (Vogt, 2009, p. 17). For instance, the Three-Pillar Model -economy, environment, and social equity- has been recently complicated and enriched by UNESCO’s 17 Sustainability Development Goals. The Goals are all interconnected and serve as a blueprint for the achievement of a more sustainable future at global level. For the hospitality and tourism sector, the UN World Tourism Organization has defined sustainable tourism as “tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities” (UNWTO and UNEP, 2005). The term has been often criticized for being too malleable in terms of its ability to produce concrete and effective practices (Newton and Freyfogle in Paddock and Sears, 2005). Recent research, however, has shown that this is no longer the case (Robinson, 2021; Soini & Birkeland, 2014 shows that rural tourism can support cultural sustainability in the wine and food sector; Thorsby, 2008 discusses a theory of cultural sustainability). In the past few years, research on socio-cultural sustainability and tourism has become more complex (e.g Soini and Dessein’s conceptual framework on the relation culture-sustainability) and nuanced (see the growing importance of social media in tackling sustainability issues, Budeanu in Munar et al., 2013 change or growing to on growing studies on social sustainability for residents of tourist destinations; Helgadottir et al., 2019). In the sharing economy, peer-to-peer platforms such as Airbnb have often been presented as a more environmentally friendly than other conventional forms of accommodation. Recent studies, however, have evaluated and challenged these assumptions, revealing the need for a broader and more consistent study of the environmental sustainability of the sharing economy (Cheng et al., 2020 on the additional footprint induced by Airbnb hosts’ extra income).

What strategies do our lifestylers apply in order to realize a more sustainable business? Our data show that it is human capital that drives these lifestylers’ business venture. Our theoretical framework engages the concept of human capital to explain some of the sustainable measures put in place by our informants. Human capital is here approached as the core of our lifestyle entrepreneurs’ business idea and involves the accumulation of resources, that is, the totality of one’s knowledge, skills and competencies (Becker, 1964). Human capital theory is based on the idea that people acquire individual resources with the goal of enhancing and increasing their own business productivity. Acquired resources are related to the type of education or training, as well as the amounts and types of work experiences gained in the course of a person’s life. Hence, human capital is the necessary starting point for obtaining and developing other resources that will influence the characteristics, direction and performance of a venture (Bird, 1989; Davidsson & Honig, 2003). Moreover, we want to enrich Becker’s economic theory by intersecting it with Bourdieu’s forms of capital (1986): social and cultural capital. In the sharing economy, human capital thus encompasses both cultural and social capital. Cultural capital is made of those cultural assets – education, personal predispositions and life experiences – that confer a person’s social status and power within a stratified society. In the case of our B&B lifestyle entrepreneurs, the main features of their cultural capital are represented by their education and life experiences accumulated during their pre-Gotland life. Social capital, on the other hand, is understood as “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network” (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 51). Our lifestylers’ current social and cultural capital is a mix of those resources and networks that have been developed prior and during their moving to Gotland or starting their ventures. Their current networks and the resources that derive from them are thus cross-cultural and cross-border/regional. If, on the one hand, these lifestylers cultivate and use in loco networks and resources such as their direct knowledge of ecological producers on the island to improve the sustainability of the tourist experience they offer, on the other hand they also seem to utilize networks and resources that are not local but that derive from the social capital they have accumulated before they moved or moved back to Gotland and started their businesses.

In summary, as several researchers have shown (Karlsson, 2005; Karlsson & Lönnbring, 2003b; Schaper & Carlsen, 2004; Tzschentke et al., 2008), it is personal values and beliefs (cultural capital) and networks (social capital) that are crucial for the implementation of sustainable initiatives and measures in small hospitality firms. Regardless, strong social and cultural capital do not necessarily translate into sustainable behaviours and practices. Concerning ecological sustainability, for instance, recent studies found that, although most small business owners in the accommodation sector believe in supporting the environment, environmental initiatives in place are usually limited and are mainly of a cost savings nature (Schaper & Carlsen, 2004 for Western Australia; Van Haastert & de Grosbois, 2010 for the Niagara Region in Canada; Kornilaki et al., 2019 for Crete).

Ideologically, the lifestyle entrepreneurs in our research are also closed to this holistic approach. They consider sustainability primarily as an ethical issue, mainly because their main objective with the B&B is not economic (Gertz & Carlsen, 2000). However, are sustainable behaviours among lifestylers in the tourism and hospitality industry only possible if the economic aspect of their enterprise is almost completely absent from their dreams and plans as entrepreneurs? An interesting perspective, that of lifestyle-value drivers (Font et al., 2016) aims at explaining pro-sustainability behaviours among small and medium lifestyle entrepreneurs in the tourism and hospitality industry by combining personal choices and habits, without completely negating economic reasons (Ateljevic & Doorne, 2000; Font et al., 2016; Morrison et al., 2008; Sampaio et al., 2012a; Sweeney & Lynch, 2009). Pro-sustainability behaviour thus “refers (to) voluntarily applying practices to reconcile environmental preservation, social equity and economic demands” (Font et al., 2016, p. 1439). Font et al. (2016) claim that sustainable actions undertaken by small lifestyle entrepreneurs in the tourism industry are often related to the owner’s empathy towards sustainability. Sustainability empathy is here defined as “one’s ability to establish an emotional connection with the surrounding people and environment” (Font et al., 2016, p. 65).

Current global trends and research point to the need for more detailed studies on the cumulative environmental impact of this kind of businesses (Coles et al., 2014; Haber & Reichel, 2007; Sampaio et al., 2012a; Tilley, 2000; Vernon et al., 2003). Several studies have highlighted the “value– action” gap, whereby the extensive barriers experienced by lifestyle entrepreneurs cause their generally positive environmental attitudes to rarely translate into concrete actions (Maiteny, 2002; Radwan et al., 2012; Vernon et al., 2003). Martin’s research (2016, p. 154) has shown that the sharing economy in the form of Airbnb accommodations “identifies the environmental and social impacts of unsustainable consumer behaviour within capitalist economies as the problem to be addressed. Hence, the sharing economy is often heralded as a new and sustainable form of consumption based on individuals accessing rather owning resources.” A recent study based on a survey of 900 small and medium enterprises in 57 European protected areas -including some B&Bs- shows that small firms are more involved in taking responsibility for being sustainable than previously expected (Font et al., 2016). Their strategies include eco-savings related operational practices as well as a wide range of social and economic responsibility actions. Regardless, as noted by Dodds and Holmes (2011, pp. 482–483), “although there are numerous examples of sustainability efforts by large accommodations, little has focused on bed and breakfasts (B&Bs)” and small firms within the tourism sector (see Thomas in Hall et al., 2015; Sampaio et al., 2012b). Our study’s goal is thus to widen and deepen our understanding of the nature of sustainable practices among micro and small B&B lifestylers in the sharing economy in Gotland.

Material and methods

Case area

On the island of Gotland in Southern Sweden, the tourism industry has been an important economic factor for more than 150 years (Ronström, 2008; Scholz, 2018; Scholz & Wegener Friis, 2013). Around 60,000 people live permanently in Gotland, whereas nearly 2 million visitors come to the island during the year (Gotland in Figures, 2017, p. 24). Visby is the island’s capital and only city. It is in Visby that the principal administration, education, and health services are found. As in many other parts of the country, centralization is strong in Gotland. Approximately 24,000 people live in Visby, close to 40% of the island’s permanent inhabitants. About as many live in the countryside, however, rapid depopulation and loss of public services “has been rapid and is still going on, except during a couple of months in summer, when the population in some places multiplies 20 times or more” (Ronström, 2003, p. 2).

The inscription of Visby into the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1995 has propelled the medieval town and the island into the global circuit of tourism. The recent incorporation of Gotlands Högskola, for decades the island’s only institution for secondary education into Uppsala University and the birth of Uppsala University Campus Gotland has brought new opportunities to the island. Improved transportation to and from Gotland, as well as complete digitalization of the island⁴ has added to its competitivity and attractiveness as a place to work and live. This has certainly enabled Gotland to more easily and efficiently develop new forms of entrepreneurship, such as the lifestylers in this research. Recently, the inauguration of the new cruise pier in Visby in April 2018 has opened up further opportunities for tourism development in the city, and possibly, on the whole island.

Data collection

Primary data collection for this exploratory qualitative study took place between June 2017 and October 2020 on the island of Gotland. About 50 invitations to participating in the study were sent to micro and small B&Bs in Gotland either via email or by contacting the owner via telephone. B&B owners were selected by searching the Airbnb webpage for Gotland. One important limitation of the recruitment method through Airbnb is the minimal advance knowledge about the nature of each establishment, making them not necessarily representative of all B&Bs on the island.

We have chosen to conduct our research as an exploratory single-case study (Yin, 1994) in order to gain insight into the structure of the Airbnb phenomenon on the island of Gotland and its possible connections to sustainable development in the local tourism industry. We understand that our study resembles a pilot study in its research design and data collection methods. Our aim is to develop future hypothesis and models for the holistic study of this phenomenon. The case study method enables researchers “to closely examine the data within a specific context. In most cases, a case study selects a small area or a very limited number of individuals” (Zainal, 2007, p. 1), hence resulting in data observation at the micro level. In qualitative studies like ours, it is common that data are based on 1–30 informants (Fridlund & Hildingh, 2000). Fourteen qualitative semi-structured interviews – one hour each – were conducted with B&B lifestyle entrepreneurs in rural Gotland. Semi-structured interviewing is a very flexible technique for small-scale – e.g. mini-studies and case studies – research like ours (Drever, 1995). One of its main advantages is that it allows the interviewer to set up the ground to be covered and the main questions to be asked in advance, at the same time allowing the interviewee a fair degree of freedom on what to talk about, how much to say, and how to express it (Bernard, 2006). Interviews were based on an open-ended interview guide, divided into four main categories: (1) demographic information (informant’s age, gender, place of origin, education, language knowledge, time and reasons for moving to Gotland); (2) the establishment of the B&B (when and why the informant started the B&B, various information about the activity such as number of rooms and seasonality, advantages and disadvantages of running a B&B); (3) general questions on sustainability and sustainability measures taken by the informant in their establishment; (4) on further implementation of sustainable measures in the informant’s B&B and on the island of Gotland.

Given the limited number of interviews, the research has been approached methodologically as an embedded case study: “Embedded case studies involve more than one unit, or object, of analysis and usually are not limited to qualitative analysis alone” (Scholz & Tjetje, 2002, p. 9). Data are interpreted through qualitative content analysis and presented in three themes: (1) human capital and environmental sustainability, (2) human capital and social sustainability (social capital), and (3) human capital and cultural sustainability (cultural capital). Data are mostly qualitative in nature, however, following the embedded case study approach, quantitative data has also been integrated. For instance, beside employing qualitative research methods such as semi-structured interviews and direct observation, we have also used quantitative oriented methods such as surveys and statistics on the Airbnb phenomenon from recent studies in Scandinavia as well as from official data about lifestylers in Sweden (see Introduction).

Interviews were conducted in Swedish. Only one interview was conducted English, the participant’s mother tongue. The questions for this interview were translated into English. Eight interviews took place in the participant’s B&B, allowing for some degree of direct observation. A tour of the facility usually either preceded or followed the interview, thus enriching the interview guide’s data and making for some form of unstructured interviewing. Direct observation in case studies such ours allows for some degree of data comparison, like in the case of Adam, one of our informants. Talking to him about the importance of using local produces while he was preparing breakfast for his guests gave us the opportunity to compare data from the interview with observational data. The four interviews conducted in the fall of 2020 were done via Zoom, as a result of the current pandemic.

The indispensable criteria for the selection of our informants were: B&B providers had to be residents of the island, owners of the B&B establishment, the establishment had to be micro or small (max number of rooms 20, max number of employees 10), and currently in business. These four criteria were chosen to answer the research’s main question, namely, what sustainability measures Gotland’s B&B owners implement and what hinders the development and/or creation of sustainable measures in their establishments.

Of all the B&B owners interviewed, two are run by single persons and twelve by couples. The socio-demographic profile shows that informants were predominantly women (80%), the average age was 50 and above (80%), the great majority had an undergraduate or graduate college degree (90%), most were Swede nationals (two participants had dual citizenship, 80%), and all participants were fluent in at least one foreign language (mostly English). Four participants, all female, were returning Gotlanders, meaning that they moved back to Gotland where they family originated from and established their B&B in their family home. Four participants were foreigners who recently moved to Gotland and purchased a house. One participant was Swede but with no familial ties to Gotland. Getz and Carlsen (2005, p. 242) point to international research on whom lifestyle entrepreneurs in small firms are and show that gender and migration are two important issues (Carson et al., 2018). In our case, the issue of migration seems to be the more relevant as no one of the participants interviewed for this research had been living on Gotland for all their life. One third of the interviews were digitally recorded, according to previous consent given orally by the interviewees. Consent for the interview and treatment of data was given by B&B owners by responding to an initial email sent to all in which the scopes and terms of the research were stated. The B&B owners were informed that the results from the interviews would be presented in the research in the aggregate form. No ethical issues were encountered during the research. Confidentiality has been guaranteed throughout the project. In the analysis, fictional names have been used for informants. Due to the small size of the sample in this exploratory study, statistical analysis is restricted; therefore, only descriptive results are presented in the discussion section.

Results

Content analysis of data has revealed three main analytical themes: (1) human capital and environmental sustainability, (2) human capital and social sustainability (social capital), and (3) human capital and cultural sustainability (cultural capital).

Theme 1: human capital and environmental sustainability

This research focusses on fourteen Gotlandic micro and small Airbnb B&B lifestyle entrepreneurs and how their human capital, in the forms of cultural and social capital, affects their sustainability values and practices. Part of the interview guide’s questions were focussed on understanding how these lifestyle entrepreneurs interpret the term sustainability. Understanding what informants mean when they speak about sustainability is essential for research dealing with sustainability issues (see Toni et al., 2018; Garay et al., 2020). When asked to define sustainability, all participants said that sustainability for them consisted of recycling, using the car less, and buying local produces – food and crafts. In a word, according to Bengt: Think about what you eat and what you do.

Interestingly, 90% of our lifestylers define sustainability as measures rather than first and foremost as an ideal through which they live their life and organize and run their micro-business. Only Adam clearly and consciously approaches sustainability as a philosophy: Being sustainable is idealistic, but it can certainly be realized in practice. Furthermore, all of our participants tend to concentrate their practices towards the achievement of environmental sustainability, whereas social and cultural sustainability are discussed mainly as means to achieving environmental sustainability. Informants’ approach to achieving environmental sustainability, however, appears sometimes to be contradictory. Bengt and Paula’s case is interesting. They are both involved in education. However, despite often talking about investing in solar panels or an electric car, they do not seem to be going to implement these sustainable measures soon, because of the high costs of these implementation. Regardless, they also admit that they have spent a considerable amount of money to build a series of (non-energy efficient) buildings for the amusement of their guests.

Theme 2: human capital and social sustainability (social capital)

Informants’ pro-sustainability behaviours and plans have, at least in theory, a strong community and ecological ethic (see Ateljevic & Doorne, 2000). Bressan and Pedrini found that lifestyle owners of micro and small enterprises in the tourism sector who “had integrated their personal values and beliefs in their day-to-day business practices and stakeholder relationships because of their sustainable lifestyle motivation emerged to be more inclined in the development and implementation of sustainable and innovative practices” (2019, p. 13). Social capital, namely, the amount and quality of networks a person develops throughout their life (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992) thus represents a pivotal aspect of sustainable business development for our lifestylers. All fourteen informants see the establishment of durable networks with local producers and stakeholders such as Region Gotland as important. In this regard, developing a strong social capital is central to many lifestylers and fits well with their long-term plans towards a more comprehensive and holistic sustainable business. Regardless, only four informants claim that a strong, durable, and efficient social capital is absolutely essential for the realization of their holistic plans towards a more sustainable business. One pertinent example is represented by Frida and Lasse. The couple runs a campground/farm with a diversified set of accommodations that ranges from B&B to cottages and they offer a wide range of activities for their guests year-round. Their long-term goal is to develop their establishment as a fully sustainable and self-reliant business. In the past fifteen years, they have installed their own solar panel system and produce their own power, they have their own recycle centre, and their own rules for serving food, as to optimize distribution and reduce waste. However, despite their success in implementing and developing energy- and cost saving strategies, Frida and Lasse are convinced that a truly sustainable business can only be achieved if their social capital is continuously evolving. As Frida claims:

We are everywhere, even in documentaries. We collaborate with almost everyone. We are interested in every person and organization that shows interest in developing more sustainable ways. It’s hard, sometimes frustrating, but we think it’s worth it.

When we ask why they are being so active in cultivating their networks, Lasse answers enthusiastically:

We cannot be experts in everything. We need to have constant contacts with experts about the latest technology, and about the latest regulations. For example, we collaborate with Uppsala University … they do research on wind and solar energy, and more efficient cars.

Frida and Lasse are aware that a truly long-term sustainable business is only possible if their own social capital is vital. They understand that collaborating with people and organizations with the same interests, from researchers to local politicians, will equip them with the necessary and most updated knowledge and technical solutions that will make their venture more sustainable.

Theme 3: human capital and cultural sustainability (cultural capital)

Before they started their B&B, all of our participants spent time either abroad or in other parts of Sweden, either for work (12 out of 14) or for study and work. During this period, they have acquired skills and knowledge (i.e. cultural capital, Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992) that are important and desirable to run a B&B in an international tourist destination such as Gotland: language skills, a different perspective on their own and/or other cultures, marketing knowledge, travelling and staying at similar establishments. Four of the fourteen informants are foreigners who have lived abroad for many years, speak several languages, and bring their own global working experiences to their venture.

Adam, who started his home-based B&B just outside Visby after decades living in Asia, would like to use his knowledge and long-term experience in the marketing sector to develop a more sustainable and efficient market of rural B&B on the island:

We need to understand the market in Sweden. I have the statistics, but what to do with it? I don’t get it. Why don’t B&Bs here do like in other countries?

Lasse and Frida have been educating themselves on sustainable knowledge and strategies for years, attending courses on both the island and the mainland, collaborating with Uppsala University and Region Gotland, and developing their own sustainable solutions and practices. Their cultural capital is constantly being updated, and it is often translated into new networks (social capital) that allow them to grow the human capital they wish to realize in their business. Networks, however, are not just created by educating themselves or by collaborating with public institutions such as the university. As Lasse points out, they both think that sharing their knowledge with locals, islanders, guests, and the community at large is essential, because

Our goal is to become an energy center on the island. We want to inspire people and other entrepreneurs to become more sustainable. That’s the reason why we are everywhere! It’s important to share knowledge, to exchange knowledge. This is done by talking to people, by making them aware of what can be done to be more sustainable in our daily life and as entrepreneurs. People are genuinely interested. Look at the success of our annual energy fair, every year more people come to us and want to learn more on how to be more efficient and sustainable.

Discussion

First and foremost, it must be noted that the three main themes that have emerged from the data (see Results) partly correspond to some of the 17 Sustainability Development Goals adopted by UNESCO in 2015. Within this framework, UNESCO “refers to culture for the first time. The safeguarding and promotion of culture is an end in itself, and at the same time it contributes directly to many of the SDGs – safe and sustainable cities, decent work and economic growth, reduced inequalities, the environment, promoting gender equality and peaceful and inclusive societies. The indirect benefits of culture are accrued through the culturally informed and effective implementations of the development goals. […]. The economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, in turn, contribute to the safeguarding of cultural heritage and nurturing creativity” (Hosagrahar, 2017).

The intrinsic connection between environmental sustainability and social and cultural capital is well illustrated by Charlotte. She runs a small B&B alongside her wool business:

It’s difficult to connect with local producers so that our products are more locally based. It takes time. I am constantly training myself about the technology and the opportunities to be more sustainable with my businesses. And then I try to talk about them to the other producers. It’s difficult … but over the years I think we have created a small circle of likeminded businesspeople, and this reflects in both how we run the B&B and the other business … We help each other, and we fight together to maximize the use of natural resources without wasting them. I couldn’t make it without this kind of support.

Adam more specifically talks about the pivotal importance of a well-established social capital for the realization of his environmental dreams:

I told you already that we are planning to develop our B&B as a fully sustainable business. We want to produce our own vegetables, breakfast, almost everything … But we are new to Gotland, and we have never been farmers before … Getting to know our neighbors, mostly farmers, and talking to them about the land, the weather, what grows and what does not here on the island … we have learnt so much … and probably this also saved us a lot of time and a lot of headaches!

Recent research (Cuhna et al., 2020; Dias et al., 2020b; Sveinsdottir, 2020) has shown that tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs may play an essential role in the sustainable innovation and competitiveness of a tourist destination. This seems to happen mainly when local knowledge, place attachment (Schilar & Keskitalo, 2018), and community-centered strategies are assimilated by lifestyle entrepreneurs and turned into innovative and more sustainable strategies. Our participants seem to strive towards the realization of a series of strong networks which is anchored to the place they inhabit.

Human capital: rich cultural capital vs poor social capital

As we have mentioned earlier in the theory section, our interviewees are all lifestyle entrepreneurs. Lifestyle entrepreneurs are driven by ideals, innovation, and the will to change the world around them (Hollinshead, 2008) through their “disruptive” economic activities to realize “a pathway to a decentralized, equitable and sustainable economy” (Martin, 2016, p. 153) and develop sustainable livelihood strategies for them and the society they inhabit. Sustainability for them is thus at the core of their life and the principle through which they run their B&Bs. Sustainability for them as lifestyle entrepreneurs is shaped by their lifestyle philosophy (Font et al., 2016), namely those personal social and cultural values that underline their empathy towards sustainability (Ib.). In order to be able to realize most of their sustainable plans through their B&B, participants rely heavily and consciously on their human capital. Most of our informants (80%) explicitly recognize the importance of the interplay between their own cultural capital -their education and life experiences- and their social capital – networks acquired before and since moving to Gotland. Regardless, their human capital, that is, the amount and quality of resources they utilize to improve their business’s sustainability plans appears to be quite unbalanced.

Admittedly, as research has shown (Cooper et al., 2005), smaller accommodations with fewer guest rooms might be more manageable in terms of, for instance, waste disposal or water consumption. This, however, does not necessarily translate into sustainable strategies and practices. This is particularly true for micro business like the B&Bs in this research, run by lifestyle entrepreneurs. Dewhurst and Thomas (2010) note that there exists a gap between the environmental awareness of small businesses in tourism and their actions. The gap is mainly due to what Tilley refers to as “resistant forces” (Tilley, 1999, p. 242). Resistant forces prevent these entrepreneurs from being more efficient in the application of environmental sustainability. Tilley’s analysis revealed a “low standard of eco-literacy and poor environmental awareness” (1999, p. 241). Her results seem to be backed up by other, more recent studies (see Hassanli & Ashwell, 2020; Van Haastert & de Grosbois, 2010). Nevertheless, these results do not seem to coincide completely with ours. By engaging more openly with our lifestylers’ human capital, we have found that their cultural capital is very high and constantly evolving, whereas their social capital does not seem to be developing with the same intensity.

Social capital refers to an individual’s existing and potential networks of relationships (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). In economic and commercial terms, social capital comprises those “characteristics of social structure of social relations that facilitate collaborative action and, as a result, enhance economic performance” (Johnston et al., 2000, p. 746). Thus, social capital is essential to the realization of an effective human capital where the B&B establishment not only realizes the owners’ lifestyle values of a better, more sustainable life but also becomes economically viable. Social capital thus regulates social life and co-operative activities.

The strongest and most effective social capital we have experienced in our research belongs to Frida and Lasse. They seem to have found a successful way to make their human capital one of their most valuable assets in achieving their sustainability as well as their economic goals. It must be noted, however, that Frida and Lasse are Gotlanders with deep familial roots on the island. The fact that they know many people in their locality and that their social capital is deeply embedded in the cultural and social fabric of Gotland might be of some advantage. Despite their extensive human capital, they both acknowledge that it took them many years to come to this point:

It took us many, many years to become what we are today. Frida acknowledges with a smile. You don’t know how many times we have bang our head against the wall because of those people … Region Gotland in particular but also locals here … It took them many years to understand what we were trying to achieve, but now everyone seems to be on board with it. Still, to get funded or even get help for new projects is so difficult … 

Although all of our participants rely heavily on their cultural capital pre-Gotland (i.e. their professional and private life before moving to/moving back to Gotland), what really makes their sustainable plans and strategies valuable to them on both an ideal and business-related level is the fact that they invest their own energy, time, and money to constantly update and improve their human capital so that their business can grow and being more sustainable at the same time. Our considerations in this regard contribute to an emerging line of research that points towards a dynamic intention model which takes into account the temporal evolution of beliefs, perceptions, and intentions in entrepreneurship (see in particular Carsrud & Brännback, 2009; Fayolle et al., 2014; Kruger, 2009).

All participants constantly engage in official training and self-learning and test ways and practices to improve the overall environmental sustainability level of their B&B. Adam is studying how to effectively use permaculture on his land. He does not only read relevant material, but he also chats online with experts and practitioners around the world. Frida and Lasse are very knowledgeable about alternative energy sources. Anja and Harald attend local courses that teach them how to grow food in a greener way. Per and his partner have been part of a pilot project for micro green businesses organized by a group of Baltic countries, including Sweden, and sponsored by the Nordic Council and the European Community.

Our participants differ quite from much research on some of the barriers faced by micro and small tourist accommodations in successfully implementing sustainable strategies. Van Haastert and de Grosbois (2010) research on the challenges of Canadian B&B proprietors in the Niagara Region shows that one of the main barriers to going greener was their lack of pertinent and relevant knowledge on sustainable issues and measures. Similarly, a recent review of literature on the saving potentials of energy and water and contributions of the accommodation sector to these aspects of sustainability (Warren & Becken, 2017) identifies substantial gaps in the sector that suggest insufficient knowledge on how accommodations in the tourism and hospitality sector can become more sustainable.

We have shown that our participants’ cultural capital is constantly being enriched through self-learning, further training, and experimenting. This, however, does not mean that these lifestylers’ practices are without contradictions or necessarily successful. Two particular cases are here interesting and revealing.

Annika runs her B&B in her family home in the countryside. She has been working in the design industry for many years. She spent most of her adult life in Stockholm. She thinks she has the experience, the knowledge and the right contacts for improving the sustainability of the branding sector for the accommodation sector in Gotland:

We need to grow people’s consumption of local and ecological products. The right branding can do that! I used to work on branding that was more sustainable like … privileging local eco- and green production in rural areas. You see, if we can do that, then local producers will become more and produce more sustainably, because that’s what people want. This can be applied also to a B&B like mine.

When asked how she “translates” her ideas of sustainable branding onto her B&B business, there were few incongruences between theory and practice. Annika claims that she wants to live a more sustainable life and tries to run her B&B the same way. For her guests’ breakfast, Annika buys local produces such as bread and eggs from Gotlandic farmers she knows personally but then serves cereals and jams in mono portions. She confesses that she has received some critical feedback from her guests. Her intention is to make her breakfast more sustainable and less wasteful in the next future.

Our informants’ pro-sustainability behaviours and plans appear to have a strong community and ecological ethic (see Ateljevic & Doorne, 2000; Bressan & Pedrini, 2019), even though they do not seem to reflect deeply on the connection between social and environmental values when talking to them about the nature of sustainability. Frida and Lasse are the exception. Over the years, they have been able to successfully develop their skills and competencies (cultural capital) alongside their local and national networks (social capital) to build a business that is becoming consistently more based upon self-subsistence, environmental sustainability, and local collaborations. Frida and Lasse’s social capital has been anchored to Gotland for many generations, as they are both Gotlanders who have spent most of their life on the island. More importantly, they have been very pro-active over the years in reaching out to islanders and local and national institutions to create effective networks that could help them reaching their ambitious lifestyle sustainable human capital. This confirms recent research trends that show how the sharing economy (Ateljevic & Doorne, 2000) and lifestyle entrepreneurs (Miciak et al., 2001; Morrison, 2006; Sampaio et al., 2012a) are best understood by reference to the cultural, economic, and social settings in which they are embedded, making lifestyle motivations predominant (Carlsen et al., 2008; Di Domenico, 2005).

When asked to highlight the main barriers towards a more sustainable product and experience (e.g. an accommodation business that is mostly self-reliant, positively rooted in and dependent upon the local social fabric, and does not deplete the island’s resources), twelve out of fourteen participants listed lack of communication, information, and complex bureaucracy at regional level. During the interview, Adam was not shy in venting his frustration for the lack of understanding of the international tourist market on the island. He tried to get in contact with the local tourist organizations to develop a complex plan to extend the tourist season, but nobody seemed really interested in his expertise:

They all talk about making Gotland more sustainable, a better place to live where you can work in the tourism industry for most of the year. They all praised our sustainable initiatives in our B&B but then there is no coordination between B&B owners and the region … they still have so much to learn … 

Adam’s frustration is born out of the realization that his human capital, and in particular his cultural capital consisting of knowledge, skills, and experiences he has accumulated over many years working abroad in the marketing sector are not even being considered by the local official channels:

I tried to bring to them my experience in the marketing sector in Asia … I mean, it’s a different world out there that you need to understand. Particularly when one thinks that Asian tourism to Scandinavia is going to explode in the next few years. But one needs to be prepared, to be knowledgeable about that market and culture … 

Underdeveloped networks are not just between our lifestylers and the official institutions on the island but also between them and local stakeholders working in the tourism and hospitality sector. Collaborative innovation efforts have been found to be particularly useful and important for micro and small tourism entrepreneurs in the tourism sector (Novelli et al., 2006; Zach, 2016). However, it has also been observed that micro businesses’ inability to engage effectively with other tourist stakeholders, being them official institutions (Ateljevic & Page, 2009; Fuller-Love et al., 2006) or other micro and small lifestyle entrepreneurs tends to result in loss of competitive advantage (Hollick, 2003). With the exception of Lasse and Frida who were born and have spent most of their life on the island, our lifestylers are all in-migrants. One third of our participants was returning Gotlanders which means that their family-related and interfamilial social capital was on average higher than of those who did not have familial roots in Gotland. Most of the participants’ networks at local level seem to lack the depth that would allow them to create more sustainable long-term solutions for their B&B. Many of them feel alone in their mission and either ignored or marginalized at local level. Anja and Harald have been living in their house in a small village in central Gotland for decades. Still, as Harald tells us:

We have been trying to involve more locals … to become more sustainable … particularly the farmers. They are all nice, but then they do their own stuff. Perhaps they don’t trust us? My God, we have been here for most of our adult life!

Tim, who runs a small summer B&B in northern Gotland with his wife, seems to agree with Harald:

We do our best to be more sustainable, but we are so small. If we want sustainability to become a way of life, then we need to work together, everyone in the society. But it’s so difficult here to create trust with locals and local institutions such as Region Gotland, to reach that level of understanding that allows you to make things happen, for everyone. Until this happens, well, what we do might look sustainable on the surface but in reality … 

Our participants’ weak social capital, that is, the lack of effective and innovative communication and collaboration with Region Gotland and fellow stakeholders has important consequences that ought to be considered more attentively in future research. Despite their current poor social capital, our informants’ ideologies of sustainability and a certain confidence in their human capital are the main values that keep participants “in business”. Informants think that what they are doing is important for the future. This is confirmed by several studies, as pointed out by Van Haastert and de Grosbois (2010, p. 181): “it is common for small hospitality firms to remain unprofitable, to struggle with long-term survival and face difficulties with major capital investments. This context is very important to understanding the level of commitment and concerns that small hospitality owners have with regards to becoming more sustainable in their operations”. In spite of their underdeveloped social capital, all participants are still willing to create a beneficial dialogue and to implement effective sustainable practices in collaboration with Region Gotland and other stakeholders. Their biggest challenge to come is how to make this possible.

Conclusions

This exploratory study discusses the human capital’s strengths and limits of fourteen micro and small B&B lifestyle proprietors in Gotland’s countryside in relation to their sustainability values and practices. All the lifestylers in this research participate in the sharing economy by listing their property on the global online platform Airbnb (Martin, 2016).

Lifestyle entrepreneurs are primarily motivated by the need to live a certain quality of life through an income that allows them to survive (Burns, 2001). The main motivation for a lifestyle entrepreneur for starting a business is oriented towards non-economic motives (Miciak et al., 2001; Morrison, 2006). In virtue of their values and holistic perspective, lifestyle entrepreneurs consider issues of sustainability at the core of their life and business.

As part of the sharing economy within tourism settings, the micro and small B&B lifestyle entrepreneurs (Ateljevic & Doorne, 2000) in this study thus have the potential to become important stakeholders in the creation of products, experiences, and strategies for the sustainable conservation and promotion of local natural and cultural heritage in the Nordic countries. Our findings thus contribute to the ongoing and growing tourism research on the effects of the sharing economy on various aspects of sustainability (Lindström, 2020 on sustainable tourism governance; see special issue Contested Spaces in the Sharing Economy in Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, 2020).

We have approached our informants’ attitudes and practices towards sustainability through the lifestyle-value drivers perspective (Font et al., 2016) which helps us explain pro-sustainability behaviours among small and medium lifestyle entrepreneurs in the tourism and hospitality industry by combining personal choices and habits (social and cultural capital), without completely negating economic reasons (Ateljevic & Doorne, 2000; Font et al., 2016; Morrison et al., 2008; Sampaio et al., 2012a; Sweeney & Lynch, 2009).

According to Becker’s economic theory (1964), human capital is the set of resources an individual acquires in order to enhance and increase their own business productivity. Because our participants are all lifestyle entrepreneurs, many of the values, knowledge, skills, and networks they bring to their business are not exclusively meant to increase their venture’s productivity (this is only true for two of the participants who run a year-round small B&B business). For this reason, we have decided to complicate the concept of human capital by approaching it in more sociological terms and by analysing how their social and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992) influence these lifestylers’ sustainable plans and strategies. We consider both cultural and social capital as evolving sets of assets throughout an individual life. Three main analytical themes have emerged: human capital and environmental sustainability, human capital and social capital, human capital and cultural capital.

Our research shows that, even though personal values and beliefs are crucial in small hospitality firms for the implementation of sustainable initiatives and measures (Schaper & Carlsen, 2004; Tzschentke et al., 2008), these values and beliefs do not necessarily translate into sustainable behaviours and practices. The amount, quality, and strength of participants’ cultural and social capital are essential for the implementation of sustainable strategies and practices in their B&Bs.

We found that our lifestylers’ cultural capital, that is, those cultural assets such as education, personal predispositions and life experiences that confer a person’s social status and power within a stratified society, is high. Although in quite a range of different ways, these lifestylers consider continuous learning (both self-learning and more formal learning such as attending courses organized by the university, Region Gotland, or other institutions) and experimenting essential for the realization of their sustainable visions. Their eclectic life experiences have the potential to enrich the Gotlandic tourist panorama within the local sharing economy.

Conversely, their social capital, namely those actual or potential resources linked to the possession of a durable network appears to be quite poor. Local networks are particularly underdeveloped. One of the motives seem to be related to their limited knowledge of the island’s social substratum. Except for Frida and Lasse, all the other lifestylers are either migrants or returning Gotlanders. This means that their local networks are not necessarily very deep, and this, in turn, can affect or even compromise their own efforts to create effective sustainable strategies by collaborating with both local institutions such Region Gotland and other stakeholders in the tourism sector.

Limitations and future research

As stated earlier, the exploratory nature of this study makes for a limited sample, meaning that our results cannot be generalized to all Gotlandic lifestyle B&B entrepreneurs present on the Airbnb platform. In the future, we plan to expand our research and include a more systematic study that comprises the rest of Scandinavia and the Baltic region.

Moreover, we did not study the potential benefits, contradictions, and/or impacts of these lifestylers’ sustainable actions on the local population and its social organization. Although research does exist on both the benefits (Irvine & Anderson, 2004; Kokkranikal & Morrison, 2002) and issues (Kamsma & Bras, 2002) of lifestylers and their small businesses on the various aspects of sustainability in peripheral places, it is usually limited to indigenous communities. Another aspect of the online sharing economy in the accommodation sector that needs to be studied in more detail refers to sustainable narratives and measures for free platforms such as home exchange (Palgan et al., 2017). For instance, there is still an important research gap not only on the nature and activity of home exchange in the Nordic countries (see Nordic Council of Ministers, 2017, p. 41) but also on the economic, social, psychological and spatial effects of this phenomenon (see Casado-Diaz et al., 2020). A comparative study of the effects of these platforms on various aspects of sustainability in the Nordic countries would be beneficial.

Although the data for this study was collected well before the beginning of the current pandemic, future research on hospitality and tourism is going to be undeniably influenced by the current crisis (Lundberg & Furunes, 2021, p. 8). In reality, the pandemic has already forced the industry to adjust, improvise, and diversifie in order to survive (Gjerald et al., 2021). This, in turn, offers novel fields of investigation for interdisciplinary study research (Falk et al., 2021). As highlighted by the international research network TRINET in 2020, one of the main challenges the industry is going to face in the future concerns sustainability, particularly “in promoting more sustainable actions and policy development” (Lundberg & Furunes, 2021, p. 9). In this regard, the sharing economy might become an important factor in the remaking of a more sustainable tourism industry in the aftermath of the current global pandemic, as indicated by an increasing number of researchers (Lundberg & Furunes, 2021). Our future research will certainly consider these developments and the implications they might have for the improvement of sustainable strategies among Airbnb rural lifestylers in Gotland.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to extend their sincere gratitude to all the B&B lifestyle entrepreneurs who participated in this study and to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Neeser’s comparative study of the impact of Airbnb in Norway, Finland, and Sweden shows the steady growth of Airbnb in these countries and in particular in some regions within the same countries from 2009 through 2015 (2015: Appendix).

2 Skatteverket: https://www4.skatteverket.se/rattsligvagledning/edition/2019.4/322523.html#h-Skatteplikt-for-hotellverksamhet-och-campingplatser.

3 In Neeser’s study, the number of available rooms on the platform Airbnb in 2015 in Sweden’s twenty counties shows Gotland at number three, just behind Skåne and Stockholm (2015, p. 16), two of the country’s main tourist regions.

4 In 2017 Region Gotland received 26 million kronor from the European Community for the project DISA (building a digital society) to undergo a complete digitalization of the island’s services by 2020 (https://www.gotland.se/disa). Accessed 04/02/20.