Sharing economy

About: Sharing economy is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4357 publications have been published within this topic receiving 85493 citations. The topic is also known as: shareconomy & collaborative commons.

Hosting via Airbnb Motivations and operational complexities

Abstract: The collaborative, or sharing, economy has experienced tremendous growth. For instance, in an often cited study, PWC suggests that by 2025 sales revenue in the sharing economy will rise to 335 billion dollars from 15 billion in 2013 (PWC, 2015), with the effects of COVID-19 on the sharing economy yet to be ascertained. Uber, the ride hailing app, has increased trips per year from 140 million in 2014 to 6.9 billion in 2019 (Iqbal, 2021). Since its launch in 2017, Lime Scooters, who rent e-scooters, is now operating in more than 120 cities across more than 30 countries (Glasner, 2020). Airbnb is another prime example of this success (Dolnicar, 2020; Fagerstrøm et al., 2017; Oskam & Boswijk, 2016; Prothero et al., 2011). Yet, the vulnerability of the sharing economy has been exposed since COVID-19 started in 2020. For example, evidence from Australia suggests that the financial loss as result of the pandemic is around AUS $14 million for Airbnb hosts (89.5% reduction in income) from January to August 2020, suggesting that hosts suffered 6.5 times more than the Airbnb platform itself (Chen et al., 2020). On the contrary, UberEats and the other three main food delivery apps in the US (DoorDash, Grubhub and Postmates) saw a collective rise in revenue of more than US $3 billion during the pandemic (Sumagaysay, 2020). These suggest that the effects of the pandemic on the sharing economy are not always negative. This chapter focuses on one specific player in the sharing economy, Airbnb, with implications for other peer-to-peer accommodation providers and beyond.