Bao, Helen X. H. “The Impact of Home Sharing on Residential Real Estate Markets.” Journal of Risk and Financial Management 13, no. 8. Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, 2020.
https://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/13/8/161/htm
Initially as a startup, Airbnb became popular from Internet reviews and by “word-of-mouth.” Airbnb’s goal is to improve the “sharing economy” and markets their rental spots as novel experiences. There are different reasons clients choose Airbnb. Identified as “Interactive novelty seekers,” these clients want to interact with the host and feel that they can have an authentic experience as living like a local. However most clients “money savers,” choose Airbnb for pragmatic reasons. Researchers used an online survey dating from July to October 2015 in Amazon, Facebook, and Mechanical Turf and received 923 responses total describing the experiences, reasons, and opinions of Airbnb. A majority of the respondents were female and highly educated. Due to the rapid success of Airbnb, it is seen as a threat to other hotel companies. Most clients choose Airbnb for cost affordability, in comparison to paying extra per night at a hotel. Additionally, clients can choose among many different locations for ease and convenience. Airbnb has made it easier to sign up for rental spots. Of note, clients highly regard Airbnb in comparison to other hotel companies. However, some competing hotel companies do not see Airbnb as a threat. For instance, most clients do not stay for business trips, but for leisure. 22% of people have been reported to use the service only once. Looking further, upscale hotels such as Holiday Inn and Hilton are not adversely affected by Airbnb.
“CERRITOS, CA CRIME RATES.” NeighborhoodScout, 2020.
From NeighborhoodScout, Cerritos has a crime index of 8, meaning it is “Safer than 8% of U.S. Cities.” There are few Airbnb listings in Cerritos due to the high crime rate. This shows the gentrification of Airbnb listings moving in wealthier tenants and also decreasing the amount of short-term rentals in Los Angeles City, leading to the breaking down of communities into poorer, higher crime neighborhoods.
Cocola-Gant, Augustin and Ana Gago. “Airbnb, buy-to-let investment and tourism-driven displacement. A case study in Lisbon.” Environment and Planning A. ResearchGate, 2019. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334731376_Airbnb_buy-to-let_investment_and_tourism-driven_displacement_A_case_study_in_Lisbon
This article is an Airbnb case study in Lisbon, which argues that STRs (short term rentals) are mainly concentrated in city centres and tourist hotspots, and that, in such areas, a large proportion of Airbnb listings are entire apartments rented to tourists permanently rather than occasional home-sharing as Airbnb claims. Authors have linked Airbnb with gentrification and have suggested that landlords change their apartments from long-term rentals to STRs, meaning that in the process they replace tenants with visitors. The research was funded by the Portuguese Science and Technology Research Council (FCT) within the scope of the SMARTOUR project. This resource is important because it covers the conversion from residential to tourist uses is inherent to Airbnb-led gentrification. The finding of the research also states that Airbnb is portrayed as a buy-to-let gentrification, in which different players make profits from rents and displace residents with tourists. This is significant in addressing one of our project’s research questions in regards to gentrification. For our project, this case study can be used as a guide to understand the strategies of Airbnb investors in our research area, Los Angeles.
Edelman, Benjamin G., and Michael Luca. “Digital discrimination: The case of Airbnb. com.” Harvard Business School NOM Unit Working Paper 14-054 (2014).
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2377353
Edelman and Luca empirically evaluate the extent of racial discrimination against Airbnb hosts by comparing earnings for similar listings across black and non-black hosts. By evaluating a dataset of New York Airbnb listings, the researchers note that non-black hosts charge about 12% more than black hosts for considerably equivalent listings. The investigators cite articles from economics, marketing research, and human resources journals to build their argument around the larger issue of systemic racism in a plethora of in-person and online marketplaces. The authors specifically investigate evidence of fraud and discrimination based on race and gender in Yelp reviews, car prices, and the housing market. This article is important and relevant to exposing how online marketplaces function, in which non-black vendors and hosts are typically seen earning and benefiting more than black vendors and hosts for similar products. In relation to our research thesis, this article elevates the prevalence of discrimination in online marketplaces, and enables our group to further explore how AirBnb fails to “share the market” and “build trust” to the extent to which they boast.
Fradkin, A., E. Grewal, D. Holtz, and M. Pearson. “Bias and Reciprocity in Online Reviews: Evidence from Field Experiments on Airbnb.” Working Paper. Semantic Scholar, 2014. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Bias-and-Reciprocity-in-Online-Reviews%3A-Evidence-on-Fradkin-Grewal/159485ce42f0462f3f01d6d732cf1e5452588f72
This study uses the setting of Airbnb to study the determinants of reviewing behavior, the extent to which reviews are biased, and whether changes in the design of reputation systems can reduce that bias. Reputation is thought to be particularly important for transactions on Airbnb because guests and hosts interact in person, often in the primary home of the host. The research uses journal articles and field experiments as evidence. For instance, the incentivized review experiment and the simultaneous reveal experiment. This research allows us to explore predominantly positive reviews that may genuinely reflect positive experiences of guests or may be the result of biases in the reputation system. This research can be incorporated in our project if we were to look at the Airbnb reviews, as through this article, we have become aware of the biases in these reviews.
Garcia-López, Miquel-Àngel, Jordi Jofre-Monseny, Rodrigo Martínez-Mazza and Mariona Segú. “Do short-term rental platforms affect housing markets? Evidence from Airbnb in Barcelona.” Journal of Urban Economics 119. Science Direct, 2020. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119020300498
In this paper, the authors assessed the impact of Airbnb on housing rents and prices in the city of Barcelona. They examined very detailed data on rents and both transactions and posted prices and used several econometric approaches that exploit the exact timing and geography of Airbnb activity in the city, including panel fixed-effects models and event-study. They found out that for the average neighborhood, Airbnb activity has increased rents by 1.9%, transaction prices by 4.6% and posted prices by 3.7%. This source relates to our research questions by illustrating the effect Airbnb has on housing markets. In the case of Barcelone, the estimated impact in neighborhoods with high Airbnb activity is substantial. For neighborhoods in the top decile of Airbnb activity distribution, rents are estimated to have increased by 7%, while increases in transaction (posted) prices are estimated at 17% (14%). This paper is very detailed and logical as its conclusions are all based on its scientific research and evidence. It is a great support to our research questions.
Guttentag, Daniel. “Airbnb: Disruptive Innovation and the Rise of an Informal Tourism Accommodation Sector.” Current Issues in Tourism 18, no. 12. Science Direct, 2013.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2013.827159
In this article, the author explores the emergence of Airbnb, a company whose website permits ordinary people to rent out their residences as tourist accommodation. The company was just recently established, but it has grown extremely rapidly and is now selling many millions of room nights annually. The article related to our research question as it shows how Airbnb disrupts tourism. This rise of Airbnb is examined through the lens of disruptive innovation theory, which describes how products that lack in traditionally favoured attributes but offer alternative benefits can, over time, transform a market and capture mainstream consumers. The concepts of disruptive innovation are used to consider Airbnb’s novel business model, which is built around modern internet technologies, and Airbnb’s distinct appeal, which centres on cost-savings, household amenities, and the potential for more authentic local experiences. This article also shows that despite Airbnb’s growing popularity, many Airbnb rentals are actually illegal due to short-term rental regulations. These legality issues and their corresponding tax concerns are discussed, with an overview of the current state of regulatory flux and a possible path for resolution. In conclusion, this article considers Airbnb’s potential to significantly disrupt the traditional accommodation sector, and the positive and negative impacts Airbnb may have on destinations. This article is central to our research questions as it provides the data for the disruption of the tourism industry due to the rise of Airbnb directly. It incorporated numerous data sets which made the source reliable.
Guttentag, Daniel. “Airbnb: Why Tourists Choose It and How They Use It.” University of Waterloo, 2016. https://www.dg-research.com/Papers/Summary%20doc%20-%20Airbnb.pdf
This report presents a summary of the key findings and implications from a study entitled “Why tourists choose Airbnb: A motivation-based segmentation study underpinned by innovation concepts.” It investigated the reasons why tourists choose to stay in Airbnb accommodations instead of other options like hotels, and to explore the ways in which tourists use the service. The study involved an online survey completed by people who had stayed in an Airbnb accommodation during the previous year. Traditional word-of-mouth and electronic word-of-mouth are the primary communication channels driving Airbnb awareness and initial use. Airbnb guests generally feel high levels of satisfaction with their stays, and likewise exhibit high levels of loyalty towards the company. Airbnb guests also often identify strongly with the Airbnb brand, and perceive Airbnb as much “cooler” than hotel chains such as Holiday Inn or Hilton. This relates to our research question as it illustrates the relationship between the amenities of the Airbnb and customer’s reviews. The report is a good reference for our research questions as it is detailed and supported by research.
Guttentag, Daniel. “Progress on Airbnb: a literature review.” Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology. ResearchGate, 2019. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333880155_Progress_on_Airbnb_a_literature_review
In this paper, the author reviewed the extant literature on Airbnb, and divided the research themes into six categories: Airbnb guests, Airbnb hosts, Airbnb supply and its impacts on destinations, Airbnb regulation, Airbnb’s impacts on the tourism sector and the Airbnb company. Researchers use peer-reviewed journal articles that focus explicitly on Airbnb as evidence. Besides, numerous online databases were searched — ScienceDirect Journals, EBSCOhost Hospitality and Tourism Complete, Emerald Insight etc. This resource is an important source because it employed quantitative methods and qualitative studies to obtain data with regards to the geographic location of the Airbnbs, the subcategories of the themes, and tackling questions like “how guests choose their Airbnb accommodation”, “hosts’ motivations”, “Airbnb accommodation pricing” etc. Consistent findings have also begun to emerge on several important topics, including guests’ motivations and the geographical dispersion of listings. For our project, we can explore our research questions on the correlation of Airbnb pricing and hosts using this resource.
Hardonk, Loïs C. “Gender Discrimination on Airbnb:the Effect of Host Ethnicity.” Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences Theses. Utrecht University, 2020.
http://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/397480
There is evidence that hosts are engaging in gender discrimination, in which females are more likely to be approved by hosts than males. Men are at a disadvantage, potentially due to gender stereotypes such as aggressiveness, dominance, and assertiveness. Females may have an advantage, stereotypically seen as submissive, cooperative, and caring. This is because hosts are lending to the clients their property. Hosts are afraid their property could be damaged or stolen. Additionally the hosts want to protect their own safety from clients (avoiding harassment and fights). Moreover hosts do not have much information about their clients, essentially knowing only their name, gender, and contact information.The method involved using a technique from a previous research by Bertrand and Mullainathan relating to labor discrimination. Four profiles were used, two having white names and two with African American names. There was one male and female profile for each race. Control variables taken into account were age, gender, and ethnicity of hosts. Linear regression was used with either gender/ethnicity (or both) as the independent variables and acceptance as the dependent variable. The results showed there was a slight advantage females had over males, 4.5%. Finally, the researchers admit the data in this article was gathered from only black/white ethnicities and could not include different ethnicities, limiting the scope of their research.
Horn, Keren, and Mark Merante. “Is Home Sharing Driving up Rents? Evidence from Airbnb in Boston.” Journal of Housing Economics 38. Science Direct, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhe.2017.08.002.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1051137717300876
In this study, researchers examine whether “the increasing presence of Airbnb raises asking rents”, and does so by investigating the effect of Airbnb on the rental market in Boston, a city in which rents have been rapidly increasing. Researchers employed a fixed effects model in order to estimate the effect that Airbnb home sharing had on the amount of housing offered for rent. Researchers attempted to account for confounding factors that could explain the increase in rent, including decreasing crime rate, increasing development, and increasing desirability of neighborhoods indicated by the number of restaurants. The study found that Airbnb listing density does have a positive statistically significant association with rental price; they also note that the effect is more pronounced for the asking prices of two or more bedroom units as opposed to single bedrooms. This is relevant to our project because it confirms that the prevalence of Airbnbs is indeed having an impact on the rental economy, and that we may want to explore this further. The study also found that over 80% of hosts have only one listing, suggesting that they are renting out their own homes for extra income. This begs the question of whether the 20% of hosts with multiple listings are in predominantly affluent neighborhoods. The results of the study support the findings of previous literature on the subject, including similar studies conducted in New York and San Francisco, but that there is a lower bound on the effect of Airbnbs on the housing market given that Airbnb use is a smaller share of total housing supply in Boston.
Koster, Hans R.A, Jos van Ommeren, and Nicolas Volkhausen. “Short-term rentals and the housing market: Quasi-experimental evidence from Airbnb in Los Angeles.” CEPR Discussion Paper. 2019. https://economics.smu.edu.sg/sites/economics.smu.edu.sg/files/economics/pdf/Seminar/2019/20190403.pdf.
By analyzing just the Los Angeles County, 18 cities introduced Home Sharing Ordinances from 2014-2018 which stopped Airbnb owners from being allowed to rent out their homes on Airbnb without an official registration number. Due to this, the researchers found that the introduction of Airbnbs has decreased housing prices by 3% as well as rental costs by 3%. By just looking at housing listings, there has been a 50% decrease in listings due to the impact of Airbnbs due to the Home Sharing Ordinances. Because Airbnb and rentals went down, we can see that with a decrease in Airbnbs, the trend shifts back to the long-term buying market for properties. Another major problem with Airbnbs is tax avoidance. However, if these regulations were set in place, homeowners using the Airbnb platform would ultimately lose money.
Lane, Jamie, and R. Mark Woodworth. “The sharing economy checks in: An analysis of Airbnb in the United States.” CBRE Hotel’s Americas Research (2016).
http://rss.hsyndicate.com/file/152006265.pdf
Lane and Woodworth unpack the potential implications of the expansion of Airbnb’s platform on hotel development and economic performance, as the platform has grown into a market leader for the short-term rental industry. The authors argue that Airbnb may be affecting U.S. hotel performance, specifically when it comes to multi-unit Airbnb hosts who take a business-like approach to the market platform. This resource gathers its evidence by tracking 400,000 Airbnb listings in 5,000 cities and generating data reports that highlight occupancy rates, demand, and revenue, then compares the data with numbers reported by hotels across those cities across the globe. This resource is important because it explains the potential effect of Airbnbs on the hotel industry, in which it is more difficult for a hotels to raise rates, initiate new construction, and remain competitive. In relation to our data, Los Angeles is the second of the five major cities that contributed to the overall $2.4 billion generated in lodging revenues in the United States in a one-year period (from October 2014 to September 2015). In fact, this resource highlights that Los Angeles is the top U.S. market for AirBnb revenue as a percentage of hotel room revenue, implying the high levels of supply and demand for AirBnbs in the Los Angeles short-term rental market. Of course, this resource has some limitations, as Airbnb data mainly offers performance estimates, and the source did not include other short-term rental sites in the data analysis.
Lee, Dayne. “How Airbnb short-term rentals exacerbate Los Angeles’s affordable housing crisis: Analysis and policy recommendations.” Harv. L. & Pol’y Rev. 10 (2016): 229-233.
https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/harlpolrv10&div=13&g_sent=1&casa_token=jIlYNiITpCgAAAAA:fog0HW7Je2Q9gOSXqcDJqZ1rxPZHTXnxlrEUOMAGaGs7A6DgU_DvzSPT6usJ3ShAbNKOf28&collection=journals
Lee digs into the harmful effects of Airbnb listings on affordable housing in Los Angeles, which has come to be one of America’s least affordable rental housing markets; the “hotelization” of formerly residential homes and apartments to create more Airbnbs is only escalating this effect. Lee argues that Airbnb host’s are practically incentivized to rent out residential locations to tourists rather than individuals residing in Los Angeles, thereby decreasing the supply of housing and spurring “displacement, gentrification, and segregation” (229). The author gathers data and journal articles focused on Los Angeles urban planning, zoning codes, and financial revenues related to the housing market. This resource is important for looking at Airbnb from a local policymaker’s perspective, as Lee argues how Airbnb inappropriately merges tourism markets with residential areas and what he believes policymakers should do to regulate hotelization. This resource benefits our research thesis by giving us a more cynical look at how Airbnb listings may irresponsibly expand tourism locations and shift the industry, leading to a decline in housing availability and rise in prices. We can get a better grasp of the perspectives of policymakers and urban planners w
Mare, Shrirang, Franziska Roesner, and Tadayoshi Kohno. “Smart Devices in Airbnbs: Considering Privacy and Security for both Guests and Hosts.” Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies 2020, no. 2. Sciendo, 2020. https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/popets/2020/2/article-p436.xml
An Amazon MTurk survey was conducted of 82 hosts,554 guests, with the iterative design process, improving the survey during the study. Care was taken in making the survey questionnaire through randomly rearranging the answers and not having leading questions. The survey occurred from 2018 to 2019 and focused on the United States. Inductive thematic analysis was used for qualitative, open ended responses. 12% of the surveys were removed due to poor response data. There were an almost equal number of male and female participants in the survey. A majority of the guests were well-educated and aged around 25-34. 74% of guests chose Airbnb for its affordability. The study notes both hosts and clients are aware of the need for smart devices, however hosts want to keep certain data on clients, while clients want to have some privacy protection from hosts. From the data gathered, guests strongly preferred mainly these 3 smart devices: SmartTVs, smart door lock, and Security system. Guests were divided for the other smart devices listed if they should be in the rental spot or not.. They preferred the smart door lock and security system for safety. Reasons other devices guests preferred include convenience and entertainment (as with the SmartTV and gaming console). For hosts the survey stated the most common smart devices in their rental spot are SmartTVs, voice assistants, and smart door locks. Most smart devices were in the bedroom and living room. In particular, there were more smart devices for room rentals than house rentals. Interestingly, approximately 90% of the hosts shared Wi-Fi connection passwords with their renters. Hosts were concerned with their property and wished for more security monitoring of their rental space, but the hosts are aware of the power conflict of guest privacy versus the host’s property. Some hosts instead decide to check in on their guests to see if house rules are abided by. The article brings up a followup question: what is the risk versus benefit of smart devices?
Mitra, Somjita. “AIRBNB IN LOS ANGELES AN ECONOMIC IMPACT ANALYSIS”. Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, 2017.
https://www.southbaycities.org/sites/default/files/documents/11.17Airbnb_LA_Economic_Impact-LAEDC%20rept.pdf
The article argues that Airbnb will have a vital impact in Los Angeles: creating $39.1 million on transient occupancy taxes (3). The study claims Los Angeles had 31.1 visitors during 2016 (7). More than three-quarters of tourists stated Airbnb has influenced their future decision to visit Los Angeles again. This is because tourists choose Airbnb for its affordability and location, enabling them to stay more nights and to experience life as a local, with a majority of Airbnb clients staying for leisure. $40 million in host taxes were used to fund public service programs and the researchers state this could both improve the market for short-term rentals and remove homelessness (2). Data was officially used from Airbnb, in particular, client spending and nights stayed. Money flows from tourist spending too, since they use it for entertainment such as attending sport games, eating at restaurants, and mall shopping. This in turn could reduce the unemployment rate. The Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC) projects that there would be “$52.5 million in state and local taxes” (5).
Oskam, Jeroen and Albert Boswijk. “Airbnb: the future of networked hospitality businesses.” Journal of Tourism Futures 2, no. 1, p 22-42. Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2016.
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JTF-11-2015-0048/full/html
With the increasing popularity of Airbnbs, many issues have arisen concerning taxation,
visitor streams, information ownership, safety, consumer protection, fair competition, and
the housing market. The main issue is that Airbnbs are not easily controlled and tracked,
so it is difficult to gauge how much it is impacting the hospitality industry as well as the
tourism industry in many cities. Generally, Airbnbs are creating a positive impact on
tourism, but hotels are declining in profits. Airbnbs are part of a “sharing economy,” but
due to the novelty of Airbnbs, there should be new regulations in place. The regulation
void is a prominent issue that governments are looking to fix and put into place.
Quattrone, Giovanni, Davide Proserpio, Daniele Quercia, Licia Capra, and Mirco Musolesi. “Who Benefits from the ‘Sharing’ Economy of Airbnb?” Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on World Wide Web – WWW ’16, ACM Digital Library, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1145/2872427.2874815.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2872427.2874815
This study examines Airbnb data from London from 2012-2015, and explores the varying effect of Airbnbs on regions with ranging socio-economic conditions. Researchers used a cross-correlation matrix analysis to investigate the correlation between characteristics of the listings and neighborhoods and the demand for Airbnbs, and concluded that specific neighborhood socio-economic conditions are indeed related to Airbnb demand and supply. The study argues that socio-economic conditions may be associated with listing types, noting distinction between entire homes/apartments and private rooms; researchers determined that rooms tend to be available in areas with educated, foreign renters, while homes tend to be available in areas with higher-priced homes. Since this study confirms previous literature that suggests that socio-economic conditions are associated with demand and supply for Airbnb listings, this is definitely a question we should consider exploring in our thesis, along with other factors that can contribute to variation in demand. Furthermore, the study investigated how Airbnb listings changed over time, and what factors affect this change. The study notes that in 2012, the most significant predictor for whether listings were offered was geography. Renters also tended to be young, ethnically-diverse, and likely university students. From 2013 to 2015, researchers note that offerings became more dispersed around central areas such as a major city or downtown region, as opposed to clustered around them, and later on, hosts, who often did not own their own properties, used Airbnbs as a source of extra income. Change in demand and characteristics of hosts over time may also be something we choose to explore.
“QuickFacts – Compton city, California.” United States Census Bureau, 2019.
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/comptoncitycalifornia
In a study from the 2018 American Community Survey (ACS) reported by the United States Census Bureau, 21.9% of individuals are living in poverty. This shows that there are less Airbnb listings in working-class communities and more Airbnb listings in tourist areas. The U.S. Census Bureau stated the finding from ACS is not comparable to other poverty findings due to different data methods used.
Samaan, Roy. “AIRBNB, RISING RENT, AND THE HOUSING CRISIS IN LOS ANGELES.” laane. 2015.
https://www.laane.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/AirBnB-Final.pdf
Researchers argue three main points: the Airbnb market’s impact on the Los Angeles housing industry is even more profound than previously understood, as they identified over 11,000 units within LA alone; the units are not actually “shared spaces” as they are predominantly listed as entire units or two or more units; finally, researchers claim that the Airbnb market hurts renters by taking thousands of units off of the rental market. These claims are supported by data analysis and visualization generated from data scraped from the Airbnb website; the researchers utilize segmented bar graphs and basic geospatial mapping to show the percent of listing types by city, the revenue generation by listing agent type, and revenue generation by region. This source is important because it not only conducts sound statistical analysis, but uses that statistical analysis coupled with contextual information about the surrounding housing and tourism market to construct a narrative about the impact of Airbnb. This is relevant to our project because this is not unlike what we will attempt to do, and similarly we may want to conceptualize the effects of Airbnb by comparing Airbnbs to hotel rooms, and seeing how many hospitality jobs are outsourced.
Sarkar, Avijit, Mehrdad Koohikamali, and James B. Pick. “SPATIOTEMPORAL PATTERNS AND SOCIOECONOMIC DIMENSIONS OF SHARED ACCOMMODATIONS: THE CASE OF AIRBNB IN LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA.” ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences 2. Copernicus Publication, 2017.
https://www.isprs-ann-photogramm-remote-sens-spatial-inf-sci.net/IV-4-W2/107/2017/isprs-annals-IV-4-W2-107-2017.pdf
The study focuses on the “sharing economy,” who is involved and where in Los Angeles there is economic participation. Data was taken for three property types: entire homes, private rooms, and shared rooms for the years 2015-2017. A GIS was used for mapping properties. From an earlier study by Rossa, many sharing economy laborers are highly educated. The researchers believed those with higher education are more likely to share rentals. The data’s origin comes from the InsideAirbnb.com website. Host participation increased in coastal regions of Los Angeles and in entertainment spots including Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Additionally, more inland suburbs including Glendale and El Mote were reported to have a 200% property listing density growth. On the flip side, there is little host participation in working class communities in Los Angeles such as Cerritos, Compton, and Lakewood which relate to the transportation business. There may have been a drop in entire home rentals due to the increased demand for room sharing. Positively, Airbnb has improved employment in FIRE finance, insurance, and real estate industries.
Tussyadiah, Iis. “Strategic Self-presentation in the Sharing Economy: Implications for Host Branding.” Inversini A., Schegg R. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2016. Springer, Cham, 2016.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28231-2_50.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-28231-2_50
This study explores how host branding, self-presentation, and behavior affects performance in the Airbnb economy. Researchers used data from the Inside Airbnb website, the same source we are getting our data from, to conduct a text analysis in which researchers identified certain high frequency keywords and how they reveal what a host wants to communicate to potential renters, how hosts “articulate their identity online”. The study categorized hosts into 5 distinct clusters: The Global Citizen, The Local Expert, The Personable, The Established, and The Creative. Notably, however, the study does not explore whether any particular buzz words are associated with greater performance in terms of number of listings and positive reviews. Perhaps this is because it would be too computationally expensive to do so, but this might be an interesting question for us to consider in our project. Researchers also considered whether certain aspects of host behavior like acceptance rate and response rate were correlated with their respective self-branding clusters. They concluded that property types between clusters is not a statistically significant predictor. Furthermore, they noted that The Established cluster does differ significantly in behavior from the other clusters. Although the study did not explore whether individual words were associated with guest ratings, researchers did investigate an association between host clusters and ratings. They found that only guest ratings on accuracy and communication are associated with host clusters, while ratings on location and value vary based on the property. For our project, although it may be too computationally expensive or difficult to parse through the strings of host descriptions, we can certainly explore whether certain numeric and binary variables such as host response rate and whether host is a superhost affect Airbnb demand measured by review frequency and quality.
Wachsmuth, David and Alexander Weisler. “Airbnb and the Rent Gap: Gentrification Through the Sharing Economy.” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space. ResearchGate, 2018.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318281320_Airbnb_and_the_Rent_Gap_Gentrification_Through_the_Sharing_Economy.
The short rental span of Airbnbs are affecting populations by increasing gentrification. With the state of the shared economy, the researchers performed an analysis of Airbnbs in New York City. In this three year study, the researchers calculated and tracked new revenue opportunities for the short term rental market. The researchers also found out which neighborhoods were more prominently affected by the short term rental market as well as which areas were more susceptible to gentrification. The researchers also found out which places had a revenue loss for rental housing due to Airbnbs. In New York City, Manhattan, and Brooklyn, the share of residential rent that was attributed to Airbnb increased 20.2%, 46.5%, and 13.1%, respectively, from 2015 to 2016. The uneven distribution of Airbnbs is causing increased gentrification by increasing revenue in those popular Airbnb areas, attracting more wealthy people into the area. On top of this, the government is concerned with the regulatory conflicts with Airbnbs as well as labor issues with not receiving proper benefits but also not requiring certain licenses.
Zervas, Georgios, Davide Proserpio, and John Byers. “A first look at online reputation on
Airbnb, where every stay is above average.” Where Every Stay is Above Average
(January 28, 2015) (2015).
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2554500
Zervas et al. argue that Airbnb reviews are niche in terms of how travelers leave reviews in comparison to hotels, as Airbnb ratings are dramatically more positive than those on well-established platforms, such as TripAdvisor, due to the personal motives of hosts to give guests a 5-star experience. The researchers note an average Airbnb user rating of 4.5 or 5 stars compared to average hotel ratings being less than 3.8 stars and having greater variance in their reviews. The authors gather their evidence from the TripAdvisor and Airbnb sites, as well as journals of economics, management and marketing research, communications, and search algorithms. This article is important because it investigates how Airbnb “shares the economy” with hotels and why these short-rental platforms may have such different ratings and consumer expectations. The article also assists our research questions of how the reputation of hosts and the amount of their amenities may affect a customer’s willingness to review, as well as the overall ratings.
