Sharing economy in the new hospitality: consumer perspective

Abstract

Purpose The aim of the paper is to assist hospitality business, operating in a sharing economy model and responding to coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) crisis. It is argued that the creation of a strategy to face COVID-19 crisis should be focussed on what the guests valued most. The paper focusses on the Airbnb service, which is the leading platform in accommodation inside the sharing economy, to explore the consumer profile and analyse its motivations to use hospitality service, based on socio-demographic characteristics and user experience. Design/methodology/approach The research uses a questionnaire survey targeting tourists who have experience using the Airbnb service. A total of 380 valid responses were analysed with statistical package programme for the social sciences (SPSS), performing a multivariate variance analyses (MANOVA) and univariate analysis (UNIANOVA), which corresponds to five of the main motivations regarding Airbnb booking. Findings The results show a motivation increase towards the sharing economy and benefits of the sharing economy for customers between 41 and 60 years of age. It was also observed that consumers with a monthly income below the average salary level are less keen to prefer the sharing economy philosophy. Controversially, the results also show that more than 80% of the guests do not want to share the room with people they are not related to. Originality/value The paper contributes to the understanding of consumers' behaviour by discussing the potential of the accommodation sharing model for the post-COVID recovery of the hospitality sector.