Pricing Rental Tourist Accommodation: Airbnb in Barcelona

Pricing Rental Tourist Accommodation: Airbnb in Barcelona

Josep Lladós-Masllorens, Antoni Meseguer-Artola
Copyright: © 2020 |Pages: 18
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-9928-9.ch004
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Abstract

Digital marketplaces are rapidly flourishing, especially in travel and tourism services. Airbnb is providing one of the most evident examples of this successful evolution. Prices are a crucial factor to understand the business model and the economic performance in hospitality businesses. This chapter studies how prices are formed in Airbnb, focusing the analysis on a wide sample of accommodations listed in Barcelona (Spain). Contextual factors, lodging amenities and some hosts' attributes critically influence pricing in the digital platform. The accommodations located closer to the main tourist amenities concentrate most of the supply of rental services whereas consumer preferences for privacy and host identification give rise to higher prices. The research also confirms that commercial hosts exacerbate the upward movement of rental prices in the central districts of the city.
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Airbnb In The Universe Of Sharing Economy

Oskam and Boswijk (2016) represent the different types of value-generating networks that operate on the basis of digital platforms. Airbnb is placed in the field of network capitalism along with other major Internet operators, such as Facebook or Uber.

Figure 1.

Typologies of networks operating as digital platforms

978-1-5225-9928-9.ch004.f01
Source: Oskam and Boswijk (2016)

The company was created in 2008 and it has rapidly become a paradigmatic case of exponential organization, with a very fast evolution as its market was growing (Ismail et al, 2014). To understand this striking development, it is necessary to analyze the determining factors of economic success in networked accommodation. The platform acts like a two-sided market, facilitating transactions between individuals and adding value to both sides of the platform by providing a context of trust and reliability to both users and suppliers which otherwise would not be involved in the marketplace.

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