Price-setting behavior in a tourism sharing economy accommodation market: A hedonic price analysis of AirBnB hosts in the caribbean

Abstract

This study investigated the price-setting behaviour of hosts in the tourism sharing economy in the Caribbean. Generally speaking, we find that site, reputation, convenience, personal and amenities attributes, along with country-level indicators significantly affect prices in the Caribbean. More specifically, most attributes have a positive effect on price-setting. Larger accommodations charge higher prices. Hosts with superior reputations charge higher prices. However, listings with a larger number of ratings are associated with lower prices.This may be an artefact of tourists' preferences for cheaper sharing accommodations, resulting in a relatively higher volume of reviews for properties at the lower end of the price spectrum. Provision of Convenience options have an overall positive effect on prices, although there is evidence that some options can result in lower prices for tourists. The sole Personal attribute investigated is associated with higher price-setting behaviour. Virtually all amenities examined result in greater prices being charged for the space. Results indicate that geography has significant effects on price-setting behaviour. Listings in countries with greater economic and infrastructural development, greater biodiversity, but weaker exchange rates have higher prices. On the other hand, prices are lower in countries where there is more competition for customers.

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

“…Gibbs et al, 2018;Guttentag & Smith, 2017;Wang & Nicolau, 2017;Xie & Kwok, 2017), mainly aff ecting two and three-star traditional hotels at destination. Airbnb's market share presents a diverse off er of accommodations, consisting of super-host, multi-listing host, and single-listing host lodgings, mostly belonging to one existing host (DiNatale et al, 2018;Lorde et al, 2019), with traditionally a higher rent for private rooms than for entire houses. On the other hand, Adamiak (2018) showed that the diff erence between the rent of rooms, houses, and apartments is primarily based on the destinations' level of tourist attractions.…”

“…Th e innovative element of Airbnb is the off ering via Internet of short-to long-term lodging to tourists (Lorde, Jacob, & Weekes, 2019) sharing at low cost private rooms, apartments or homes, randomly available in the society. Airbnb's sharing model is disruptive compared to the classical way tourist have been lodged in hotels, a system applied for decades (Guttentag, 2015).…”

Non-monetary price perceived in e-peer-to peer accommodation. Airbnb guests’ perspective

“…On the other hand, several publications point to hedonistic motives as an important factor for online shopping (Parsons 2002, Wolfinbarger andGilly 2003). Not in vain, the study focused on Airbnb in the Caribbean found that, among others, convenience, personal and amenities services, significantly affect prices (Lorde et al 2019). Additionally, and according to Guttentag (2019), Airbnb offers an alternative value proposition to guests centered around the potential for a more authentic local experience (hedonism).…”

Booking Prediction Models for Peer-to-peer Accommodation Listings using Logistics Regression, Decision Tree, K-Nearest Neighbor, and Random Forest Classifiers

“…Variables related to the price include the environment, the social aspect, the accessibility, and the spillover impacts [21]. A study from [22] involved twelve countries in the Caribbean and macro-financial data. A study from [23] involved eleven cities in the US and focused on how 137 amenities factors influence pricing.…”