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Airbnb prominently argues to promote more inclusive forms of tourism through enabling ordinary households to occasionally share their home with tourists. This conventional understanding of 'home-sharing' has been challenged, however, with critics arguing that property owners and landlords use the platform for the commercial provision of permanent holiday homes. This article uses Airbnb provision practices and the dichotomy of 'home-sharing' and commercial provision as an empirical entry point into the debate to what extent Airbnb promotes more inclusive tourism development. While existing studies on Airbnb provision practices in the European context have predominantly focused on the major tourism centres with the biggest tourism numbers, we consider a second-rank European tourist city with a rapidly growing Airbnb supply, Vienna, Austria. Methodologically, we critically review and extend common approaches to identify commercial practices. Based on a new dataset of Airbnb listings, quantitative statistics and GIS, we find that, in Vienna, the notion of 'home-sharing' is insufficient to fully explain the characteristics of the Airbnb supply, with commercial practices playing a considerable part, yet in geographically uneven ways. Our extended methodological framework provides further, more differentiated insights into provision practices than previous studies. We conclude by relating our findings back to debates on inclusive tourism development and discuss questions for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research sheds light on consumer motivations for participating in the sharing economy and examines downstream consequences of the uncovered motivations. We use text-mining techniques to extract Airbnb hosts' motivations from their responses to the question "why did you start hosting." We find that hosts are driven not only by the monetary motivation "to earn cash" but also by intrinsic motivations such as "to share beauty" and "to meet people." Using extensive transaction-level data, we find that hosts with intrinsic motivations post more property photos and write longer property descriptions, demonstrating greater engagement with the platform. Consequently, these hosts receive higher guest satisfaction ratings. Compared to hosts who want to earn cash, hosts motivated to meet people are more likely to keep hosting and to stay active on the platform, and hosts motivated to share beauty charge higher prices. As a result, these intrinsically motivated hosts have a higher customer lifetime value compared to those with a monetary motivation. We employ a multimethod approach including text mining, Bayesian latent attrition models, and lab experiments to derive these insights. Our research provides an easy-to-implement approach to uncovering consumer motivations in practice and highlights the consequential role of these motivations for firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Barcelona, one of the main destinations for Airbnb users, has turned into one of the main stages for the now global debate around short-term rentals and their impacts on resident communities. Criticism has mostly focused on the conversion of housing into conventional tourist apartments while less attention has been paid to the problematization of short-term rentals in primary residences. Important questions thus arise as to whether these allegedly genuine forms of home-sharing should be 'formalised' at all through a regulation, and which type of controls should be applied. Our research helps to excavate this issue, shedding further light on the different logics and practices behind the development of home-sharing, and discusses the limitations of a regulation which is being introduced. To this end, it offers an in-depth analysis of the home-sharing supply in Barcelona, tackling its social and spatial logics, which is framed in the broader debate on processes of social change affecting inner cities. It then focuses on el Raval, one of Barcelona's core neighbourhoods where home-sharing practices have become more diffused, revealing how these practices are strongly correlated with high residential mobility and the presence of a single-dweller childless European resident population. Finally, we argue that home-sharing becomes an equally problematic agency of conversion of housing into a mooring for mobile communities, further contributing to potential gentrification and the displacement of residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As cities accommodate, resist, and negotiate with the spread of so-called 'sharing economy' companies, the question of how these businesses actively construct new markets (or sub-markets) through political mobilization and rhetorical strategy has become increasingly salient. This paper explores the ways in which the home-sharing platform Airbnb has sought to carve out a regulatory and discursive space for operation through the political mobilization of its 'hosts' in New York City. Based on nearly two years of ethnographic research, the paper argues that host clubs are not merely top-down transmission belts for the company's political lobbying strategy; beyond political organizing, they are also sites in which the very practices of hosting through Airbnb are affirmed, rehearsed, learned, and debated. On the one hand, Airbnb host clubs are both physical embodiments of, and mechanisms for, the narrative framing of 'home-sharing' as a particular kind of economic activity that is more democratic, inclusive, and sustainable than the traditional hospitality industry. On the other hand, Airbnb host clubs reveal and reflect the tensions – between hosts and Airbnb, and among hosts themselves – that persist over the practice of home-sharing. As the calls for tighter regulation and increased penalties for illegal short-term rentals continue to grow, however, the question of whether host clubs constitute a viable mechanism for political mobilization and regulatory reform remains an open one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sharing economy is a controversial concept built around the advancement of information and communication technologies, digital platforms, and the exchange (usually occasional and for a limited time) of underused assets between suppliers and consumers. Airbnb, the leading digital platform connecting hosts with guests, argues that its activities respond to this new economic model, especially the service of shared rental housing. This article, based on the treatment and refinement of different statistical and cartographic sources: (1) broadens the base of empirical evidence on Airbnb's activities in a medium-sized European city like Bilbao; and (2) analyses what Airbnb's offer in Bilbao tells us about the degree to which Airbnb contributes to the sharing economy. The analysis clearly shows that ‘home sharing’ is relevant, but the commercial offer is also highly significant, although geographically uneven, in the way that the platform operates in the city. Digital platforms are an increasingly relevant part of tourist accommodation activities worldwide, and it is, therefore, necessary to go deeper into the debate on the relationship between platforms and the sharing economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sharing economy is a controversial concept built around the advancement of information and communication technologies, digital platforms, and the exchange (usually occasional and for a limited time) of underused assets between suppliers and consumers. Airbnb, the leading digital platform connecting hosts with guests, argues that its activities respond to this new economic model, especially the service of shared rental housing. This article, based on the treatment and refinement of different statistical and cartographic sources: (1) broadens the base of empirical evidence on Airbnb's activities in a medium-sized European city like Bilbao; and (2) analyses what Airbnb's offer in Bilbao tells us about the degree to which Airbnb contributes to the sharing economy. The analysis clearly shows that ‘home-sharing’ is relevant, but the commercial offer is also highly significant, although geographically uneven, in the way that the platform operates in the city. Digital platforms are an increasingly relevant part of tourist accommodation activities worldwide, and it is, therefore, necessary to go deeper into the debate on the relationship between platforms and the sharing economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that Airbnb should be understood as a new urban institution that is transforming relations between market, state, and civil society actors. Taking the Airbnb Citizen advocacy initiative as my case, I examine how this transnational "home sharing" platform achieves such transformations, which in turn requires an investigation into the specific nature of Airbnb as an institutional form. Assuming the agenda-setting role of the urban "regulatory entrepreneur," Airbnb aims to co-shape the terms of current and future policy debates pertaining not just to home sharing/short-term rental but also to the very fabric of city life. It pursues this mode of "platform urbanism" by mobilizing its user base, which it frames as a community of entrepreneurial middle-class citizens looking to supplement their income in a climate of economic insecurity and tech-enabled opportunity. Yet, who is the "Airbnb Citizen" and what are the opportunities and risks associated with platform-mediated citizenship? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the proliferation of short‐term home rentals (STRs) in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, to consider how contemporary technologies of platform urbanism leverage the human infrastructure of emotional labour as a technique for value production. Bringing theories of emotional labour and gentrification together with recent writing on the spatialities of platforms, I argue that for the production of value and the capture of profit, STR platforms like Airbnb rely on neighbours' emotional labour of performing home. Because this strategy operates through banal practices in quite ordinary neighbourhood spaces, it hides in plain sight – and yet, for neighbours who find themselves enrolled without remuneration into the productive machinery of platform capitalism, it simultaneously creates feelings of alienation and exhaustion. Drawing on interviews with neighbourhood residents and Airbnb hosts in New Orleans, I show how neighbours' unremunerated performances of home contribute to their own feelings of displacement in place while simultaneously operating as an apparatus of value production for the platform. Although I focus on the case of Airbnb in New Orleans, this study also broadly demonstrates the invisibilisation of value, the challenges of opting out of the digital economy, and the embodied ways in which relations of platform urbanism can impact the everyday life of people with no formal obligation to platforms themselves. This paper explores the proliferation of short‐term home rentals (STRs) in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, to consider how contemporary technologies of platform urbanism leverage the human infrastructure of emotional labour as a technique for value production. Drawing on interviews with neighbourhood residents and Airbnb hosts in New Orleans, I show how neighbours' unremunerated performances of home contribute to their own feelings of displacement in place while, simultaneously, operating as an apparatus of value production for the platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article evaluates whether Airbnb rentals affect the rents in the private rental sector in eight cities in France. We estimate a hedonic equation for each city on individual data for apartments, allowing for heteroscedasticity and spatial error autocorrelation of unknown forms and using a large variety of structural and contextual characteristics of the apartments. We show that the density of Airbnb rentals puts upward pressure on rents in Lyon, Montpellier, and Paris, whereas it has no significant effect in other cities. If we restrict the analysis to the professional business of Airbnb rentals, which we define as the lodgings owned by an investor who rents either several "entire home" dwellings (regardless of the number of days) or an "entire home" dwelling for more than 120 days a year, we find a greater effect, which concerns only the two largest cities of France, that is, Marseille and Paris. When we focus on new tenancy agreements, the impact is even higher and concerns Paris, Marseille, and Montpellier. The impact of the Airbnb activity on rents is shown to increase with the proportion of owner-occupiers and decrease with hotel density, both in Montpellier and Paris. However, the share of second homes leads to contrasting effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of Internet technologies, P2P sharing economy models have emerged. This study aims to reveal the socio-economic effects of Airbnb, one of the P2P sharing economy housing platforms. In this study, the Airbnb concept was investigated first by the literature review. The volume of Airbnb in Istanbul was analyzed by accessing the Airbnb website. Besiktas district, which is one of the most used areas of Airbnb, was selected for the case study. For the case study, three groups of actors were identified: (i) the hosts, (ii) the guests and (iii) the neighbors. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with a sample (n=40) of these actors. According to the results of the field study, the hosts derive economic benefits, and also they enjoy the time spent with guests from different cultural backgrounds. The guests benefit from affordable and unique accommodation options where they feel more like a local. Some of the neighbors are in the opinion that Airbnb poses security threats for the fact that they do not know the people who rent these short-term accommodations. On the other hand, some of the neighbors are pleased that Airbnb reinvigorates the economy in the neighborhoods. With this study, codes such as economic benefit, cross-cultural sharing, socialization, noise, robbery, racism, thrust, hygiene, security threat etc. developed within the context of the relationship of actors are generated in relation to Airbnb's impact on dynamics of neighborhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spread of sharing economics platforms in the world of travels has highlighted the little known phenomenon of the rental of houses and apartments with a non-enterprise management. These accommodations in Italy do not require any guest registration or start-up notification, but the use of websites such as Airbnb has led to a heated debate among the actors operating in the travel and tourism industry. In fact, the regulatory vacuum and the easy-to-use websites would help circumvent the rules in order to "hide away" some business activities. Based on these assumptions, this paper analyses the case of Iseo Lake in the Northern Italy, pointing out the discussions about this new trend in travels and involving not only economic and legal aspects, but also social issues that cannot be ignored. The paper presents "sharing tourism" as an opportunity for territorial regeneration in destinations characterized by the presence of few hotel facilities, but also of many empty apartments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of the sharing economy has received increasing attention from economists. Some researchers have examined how these new business models shape market mechanisms and, in the case of home sharing, economists have examined how the sharing economy affects the hotel industry. There is currently limited evidence on whether home sharing affects the housing market, despite the obvious overlap between these two markets. As a result, policy makers grappling with the effects of the rapid growth of home sharing have inadequate information on which to make reasoned policy decisions. In this paper, we add to the small but growing body of knowledge on how the sharing economy is shaping the housing market by focusing on the short-term effects of the growth of Airbnb in Boston neighborhoods on the rental market, relying on individual rental listings. We examine whether the increasing presence of Airbnb raises asking rents and whether the change in rents may be driven by a decline in the supply of housing offered for rent. We show that a one standard deviation increase in Airbnb listings is associated with an increase in asking rents of 0.4%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem, research strategy, and findings:The online accommodation platform Airbnb has expanded globally, raising substantial planning and regulatory concerns. We ask whether Airbnb rentals generate significant neighborhood impacts like noise, congestion, and competition for parking; reduce the permanent rental housing supply and increase rental prices; or provide income opportunities that help “hosts” afford their own housing. We focus on Sydney, the largest region in Australia with 4.4 million people in 28 individual municipalities, which has experienced both rapidly rising housing costs and exponential growth in Airbnb listings since 2011. Airbnb’s growth has raised concerns serious enough to result in a formal Parliamentary Inquiry by the state of New South Wales. We analyze stakeholder submissions to this inquiry and review local planning regulations, Airbnb listings data, and housing market and census statistics. We find that online homesharing platforms for visitor accommodations blur traditional boundaries between residential and tourist areas so Airbnb listings may fall outside of existing land use regulations or evade detection until neighbors complain. Our findings are constrained by the difficulties of monitoring online operations and the rapid changes in the industry. Takeaway for practice:Planners and policymakers in cities with increasing numbers of Airbnb rentals need to review how well local planning controls manage the neighborhood nuisances, traffic, and parking problems that may be associated with them while acting to protect the permanent rental housing supply. Local planners need to ensure that zoning and residential development controls distinguish between different forms of short-term Airbnb accommodation listings and their potential impacts on neighborhoods and housing markets. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]