Poster child and guinea pig – insights from a structured literature review on Airbnb

Abstract

Purpose A growing body of research from various domains has investigated Airbnb, a two-sided market platform for peer-based accommodation sharing. The authors suggest that it is due time to take a step back and assess the current state of affairs. This paper aims to conflate and synthesize research on Airbnb. Design/methodology/approach To facilitate research on Airbnb and its underlying principles in electronic commerce, the authors present a structured literature review on Airbnb. Findings The findings are based on 118 articles from the fields of tourism, information and management, law and economics between 2013 and 2018. Based on this broad basis, the authors find that: research on Airbnb is highly diverse in terms of domains, methods and scope; motives for using Airbnb are manifold (e.g. financial, social and environmental); trust and reputation are considered crucial by almost all scholars; the platform’s variety is reflected in prices; and the majority of work is based on surveys and empirical data while experiments are scarce. Practical implications Based on the present assessment of studied topics, domains, methods and combinations thereof, the authors suggest that research should move toward building atop of a common ground of data structures and vocabulary, and that attention should focus on the identified gaps and hitherto scarcely used combinations. The set of under-represented areas includes cross-cultural investigations, field experiments and audit studies, the consideration of dynamic processes (e.g. based on panel data), Airbnb’s “experiences” and automated pricing algorithms and the rating distribution’s skewness. Originality/value This study provides a comprehensive overview of work on the accommodation sharing platform Airbnb, to the best of the auhtors’ knowledge, representing the first systematic literature review. The authors hope that researchers and practitioners alike will find this review useful as a reference for future research on Airbnb and as a guide for the development of innovative applications based on the platform’s peculiarities and paradigms in electronic commerce practice. From a practical perspective, the general tenor suggests that hotel and tourism operators may benefit from: focusing on their core advantages over Airbnb and differentiating features and aligning their marketing communication with their users’ aspirations.

Current state and development of Airbnb accommodation offer in 167 countries

“…It offers for rent more than 7 million homes, apartments and rooms in almost all countries (Airbnb, 2019). The platform has gained public and scholarly attention due to its disruptive effects on hospitality industry, impacts on housing markets, and legal conflicts over housing, taxation and consumer regulations (Guttentag, 2015;Dann, Teubner, & Weinhardt, 2019;Hassanli, Small, & Darcy, 2019).…”

Airbnb Offer in Spain—Spatial Analysis of the Pattern and Determinants of Its Distribution

“…After 10 years of its existence, Airbnb has become an important subject of research within tourism and urban studies, as well as within other fields of social sciences. Review papers [2][3][4] and edited books [5,6] outline some of the research topics undertaken in these studies. These include competition between peer-to-peer rentals and traditional hospitality industry [7][8][9][10][11], general contribution to destinations' economies [12][13][14], social impacts [15][16][17][18], with special attention given to the impact on housing markets [19][20][21][22][23], policy and regulations on P2P rental platforms [24][25][26][27], costumer satisfaction of the service provided [28][29][30] and the impact of these new practices on travel patterns [31].…”

Impacts of the peer-to-peer market on tourist accommodation on the Balearic Islands of Mallorca and Menorca

“…The recent expansion of the p2p market for tourist accommodation represents an additional consideration in debates about the benefits and drawbacks of tourist expansion in islands. The interest of researchers for this phenomenon has generated a substantial number of contributions, all very diverse in terms of domains, methods, and scope (Belarmino & Koh, 2020;Dann, Teubner, & Weinhardt, 2019;Dolnicar, 2019;Guttentag, 2019). Previous analyses of Airbnb were focused, among other things, on finding out what motivates suppliers and demanders to participate in this market (Karlsson & Dolnicar, 2016;So, Oh, & Min, 2018); on its potential discriminatory effect against certain groups (Edelman et al, 2017;Kakar, Franco, Voelz, & Wu, 2016); on the established reputation mechanisms (Fradkin, Grewal, Holtz, & Pearson, 2015;Zervas, Proserpio, & Byers, 2015); on the variables that may or may not determine price (Benítez-Aurioles, 2018a; Wang & Nicolau, 2017); and on the repercussions that it has had on hotels (Heo, Blal, & Choi, 2019;Zervas et al, 2017), employment (Fang, Ye, & Law, 2016;Mao, Tian, & Ye, 2018), and the housing market (Barron, Kung, & Proserpio, 2018;Horn & Merante, 2017).…”