Impact of Airbnb on Customers' Behavior In the UK Hotel Industry

Abstract

The sharing economy is nowadays disrupting the hotel industry. Airbnb is one of the best examples of such an issue. In order to find approaches for hotels to mitigate the threat from these new accommodation forms, the present article focuses on the major elements influencing customers to choose this new platform and other related aspects affecting the future of the hotel industry. Previous studies have looked at how Airbnb influences customer behavior, but this is one of the first studies dealing with an analysis of the impact of Airbnb on the UK hotel industry. In this way, the article majorly focuses on evaluating the impact of this new accommodation and services platform on customers' behavior within the UK hotel industry. Particularly, it seeks to determine how the hospitality and hotel sectors can mitigate the threats posed by Airbnb. As a result, the article also provides managerial and industrial recommendations of the research findings.

Budget and midrange hotel managers’ perceptions of and responses to Airbnb

“…While Airbnb hosts derive economic and social benefits by renting their idle spaces to guests (Alrawadieh and Alrawadieh, 2018), traditional hotels may lose revenue because of Airbnb’s increasing competition (Guttentag and Smith, 2017; Zervas et al , 2017; Benítez-Aurioles, 2019). Airbnb has several key strengths including economic value and the opportunity for more authentic local experiences (Guttentag, 2015; Guttentag et al , 2018; Lin et al , 2019; Lu and Tabari, 2019). Indeed, numerous studies into Airbnb guest motivations have highlighted the particular importance of economic value as a motivator for Airbnb stays (Guttentag et al , 2018; Sthapit and Jiménez-Barreto, 2018; Tussyadiah, 2015; Tussyadiah and Pesonen, 2018).…”

“…For example, Mody et al (2017) surveyed Airbnb and hotel guests and found that the former were more likely to have had experiences relating to all of the experiential dimensions measured (entertainment, education, escapism, esthetics, serendipity, localness, communities and personalization). For Airbnb guests, these various benefits apparently outweigh the potential drawbacks of Airbnb stays, which may include lack of privacy, safety issues and/or unfamiliarity with sharing platforms (Sedlacek, 2016; Tussyadiah and Pesonen, 2018; Poon and Huang, 2017; Lu and Tabari, 2019).…”

“…In particular, smaller and independent hotels tend to perceive a greater threat from competitors like Airbnb operating in the informal economy (Williams and Horodnic, 2017). Moreover, less expensive hotels are especially vulnerable to Airbnb because they generally cater to leisure (vs business) travelers (Li and Srinivasan, 2019), just like Airbnb does, plus Airbnb hosts have much lower operating costs and therefore can offer lodging at very competitive rates that appeal to budget travelers (Guttentag, 2015; Richard and Cleveland, 2016; Zervas et al , 2017; Lu and Tabari, 2019). Despite the fairly direct competition that Airbnb seemingly poses for budget and midrange hotels, little is known about how budget and midrange hotel managers perceive Airbnb or how they have responded to the emergence of Airbnb with the development of appropriate competitive strategies.…”

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

“…Last but not least, Airbnb stimulates locals to become more entrepreneurial by putting fraction of their property available for the lodging of tourists and by the creation of additional jobs, such as maintenance, renovation of property, etc. (Lu & Tabari, 2019).…”

KNOWCON 2020. Knowledge on Economics and Management: Conference Proceedings

“…The literature review and analysis reveal an array of factors that are influencing attitude, behavioural intentions or actual behaviour of individuals in the sharing economy context. Primarily, studies consider economic advantages as a dominant factor which drives consumers to choose sharing economy offerings (Amirkiaee & Evangelopoulos, 2018;Godelnik, 2017;Hallem et al, 2019;Lu & Tabari, 2019;Pappas, 2017;Tran & Filimonau, 2020). However, Hamari et al (2016) and Laurenti & Acuña (2020) pointed out opposite claims.…”