Who Benefits from the "Sharing" Economy of Airbnb?

Abstract

Sharing economy platforms have become extremely popular in the last few years, and they have changed the way in which we commute, travel, and borrow among many other activities. Despite their popularity among consumers, such companies are poorly regulated. For example, Airbnb, one of the most successful examples of sharing economy platform, is often criticized by regulators and policy makers. While, in theory, municipalities should regulate the emergence of Airbnb through evidence-based policy making, in practice, they engage in a false dichotomy: some municipalities allow the business without imposing any regulation, while others ban it altogether. That is because there is no evidence upon which to draft policies. Here we propose to gather evidence from the Web. After crawling Airbnb data for the entire city of London, we find out where and when Airbnb listings are offered and, by matching such listing information with census and hotel data, we determine the socio-economic conditions of the areas that actually benefit from the hospitality platform. The reality is more nuanced than one would expect, and it has changed over the years. Airbnb demand and offering have changed over time, and traditional regulations have not been able to respond to those changes. That is why, finally, we rely on our data analysis to envision regulations that are responsive to real-time demands, contributing to the emerging idea of "algorithmic regulation".

Airbnb and the Hotel Industry in Warsaw: An Example of the Sharing Economy?

“…The spatial pattern of Airbnb has been discussed by Quattrone et al (2016), who examine the Airbnb network in London and show that it covers a larger area of the city than traditional hotels. However, the number of listings decreases as the distance from the various city centres increases.…”

“…Advocates of Airbnb argue that the platform generates income for owners of assets and facilitates the spread of tourism to new places (Quattrone et al 2016). On the other hand, Airbnb may create negative externalities, depending on the structure and characteristics of offers.…”

A socio-economic analysis of Airbnb in New York City

“…These platforms are by-products of a larger economic-technological phenomenon called the sharing economy (Hamari et al 2016, Malhotra-Alstyne 2014, Pizam 2014) also known as collaborative consumption (Botsman-Rogers 2010, Gutiérrez et al 2016. The phenomenon itself is not new, but the Internet is accelerating its implementation into everyday life as it empowers users to share and make use of underutilised assets and services (Quattrone et al 2016, Sundararajan 2016 by enabling a match between sellers, who are willing to share their idle capacities and services, and buyers who need them (Azevedo-Weyl 2016, Ke 2017. Services covered by the sharing economy range from transportation (Uber, Lyft, BlaBlaCar) to finance (Kickstarter, Prosper) to accommodation (Airbnb, Couchsurfing, HomeAway); however, P2P marketplaces associated with the sharing economy operate particularly within the field of travel and tourism (Ert et al 2016).…”

“…Airbnb describes itself as a 'trusted community marketplace for people to list, discover, and book unique accommodations around the world -online or from a mobile phone or tablet' (Airbnb 2017). In other words, it connects people who have a spare room to rent with guests who need a place to stay (Ke 2017, Quattrone et al 2016. The company was founded in 2008; since then it has grown exponentially, and now is present in more than 34,000 cities and 191 countries, has more than two million global listings (Airbnb 2017), and surpasses the major hotel chains in accommodation offered and market valuation (Guttentag 2015, Oskam 2016, Oskam-Boswijk 2016, Samaan 2015, Slee 2016.…”

The visualization of the spatiality of Airbnb in Budapest using 3-band raster representation

“…However, there is a rising interest in the spatial distribution of hotels and Airbnb listings (Gutiérrez et al, 2016;Quattrone et al, 2016) within major cities to locate those parts of the city, which have seen the greatest pressure from tourism or "touristification" and its negative impacts on cities and residents diagnosed in a few studies (Blickhan et al, 2014;Oskam & Boswijk, 2016).…”