Profiling of Airbnb's activities in Ecuador's main cities

Abstract

Airbnb in Ecuador is a platform offering since 2008 a new lodging concept that best can be described as a sharing economy model through the rental of private rooms and apartments. The article provides an overview of Airbnb’s activities in Ecuador, more in particular in 22 cities, respectively the capitals of 22 provinces, using the 16 metrics available on the platform of AirDNA. Factor analysis was applied to reduce the number of variables to three main surrogate variables (lodging typology, prices and rates, market metrics) that characterizes Airbnb and retains the original factor variability. Additionally, based on the occupation frequency of Airbnb’s rental places the cluster analysis permitted to group the cities in which Airbnb is active on the basis of the following indicators: amazon destinations, traditions, sun and beach, nature culture and events, and the country’s capital. The research provided a clear image of Airbnb’s approach and impact on the formal accommodation sector, which ultimately will enable the sector to come up with innovative products to compete more efficiently Airbnb’s market range.