IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/tefoso/v167y2021ics0040162521001657.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Covid-19 pandemic and the accommodation sharing sector: Effects and prospects for recovery

Author

Listed:
  • Gerwe, Oksana

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has spread like wildfire across the globe. The hospitality industry, including the accommodation sharing sector, has been one of the hardest hit. Renting an Airbnb property, sharing a room via Couchsurfing and exchanging homes via LoveHomeSwap became almost impossible under the new restrictions. This paper analyses the effects of the Covid-19 crisis on the accommodation sharing sector and conceptually uncovers the underlying reasons for its disruption. We submit that the main strengths of the accommodation sharing sector, which originally drove its rise, became its weaknesses during the pandemic. An asset-light business model, the intermediation of physical transactions via online platforms, a reliance on individually owned and underused properties, and the popularization of access over ownership propelled the initial expansion of this sector. However, these all backfired during the pandemic. The paper outlines potential avenues for the post-pandemic recovery of accommodation sharing and presents future directions for research.

Suggested Citation

  • Gerwe, Oksana, 2021. "The Covid-19 pandemic and the accommodation sharing sector: Effects and prospects for recovery," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:167:y:2021:i:c:s0040162521001657
    DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2021.120733
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162521001657
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.techfore.2021.120733?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ert, Eyal & Fleischer, Aliza & Magen, Nathan, 2016. "Trust and reputation in the sharing economy: The role of personal photos in Airbnb," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 62-73.
    2. Liran Einav & Chiara Farronato & Jonathan Levin, 2016. "Peer-to-Peer Markets," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 615-635, October.
    3. Dolnicar, Sara & Zare, Samira, 2020. "COVID19 and Airbnb – Disrupting the Disruptor," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    4. Belk, Russell, 2014. "You are what you can access: Sharing and collaborative consumption online," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(8), pages 1595-1600.
    5. Koen Frenken & Juliet Schor, 2019. "Putting the sharing economy into perspective," Chapters, in: Oksana Mont (ed.), A Research Agenda for Sustainable Consumption Governance, chapter 8, pages 121-135, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Sundararajan, Arun, 2016. "The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262034573, April.
    7. Juho Hamari & Mimmi Sjöklint & Antti Ukkonen, 2016. "The sharing economy: Why people participate in collaborative consumption," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 67(9), pages 2047-2059, September.
    8. Škare, Marinko & Soriano, Domingo Riberio & Porada-Rochoń, Małgorzata, 2021. "Impact of COVID-19 on the travel and tourism industry," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    9. Pantano, Eleonora & Pizzi, Gabriele & Scarpi, Daniele & Dennis, Charles, 2020. "Competing during a pandemic? Retailers’ ups and downs during the COVID-19 outbreak," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 209-213.
    10. Alex Stephany, 2015. "The Business of Sharing," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-37618-3, December.
    11. Karl Taeuscher, 2019. "Uncertainty kills the long tail: demand concentration in peer-to-peer marketplaces," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 29(4), pages 649-660, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Savvas Papagiannidis & Dinara Davlembayeva, 2022. "Bringing Smart Home Technology to Peer-to-Peer Accommodation: Exploring the Drivers of Intention to Stay in Smart Accommodation," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 1189-1208, August.
    2. Tan, Hua & Iqbal, Nadeem & Wu, Zhengzhong, 2022. "Evaluating the impact of stakeholder engagement for renewable energy sources and economic growth for CO2 emission," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 999-1007.
    3. Xiang, Diandian & Li, Xia & Hampson, Daniel Peter, 2023. "Service exchange activities in the sharing economy: Professional versus amateur peer providers," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    4. Joanna Kowalczyk-Anioł & Karolina Kacprzak & Ewa Szafrańska, 2022. "How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected the Functioning of Tourist Short-Term Rental Platforms (Airbnb and Vrbo) in Polish Cities," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(14), pages 1-23, July.
    5. Ender Demir & Renatas Kizys & Wael Rouatbi & Adam Zaremba, 2022. "Sail Away to a Safe Harbor? COVID-19 Vaccinations and the Volatility of Travel and Leisure Companies," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-21, April.
    6. Usep Nugraha & Budy P. Resosudarmo & Rus’an Nasrudin, 2023. "Examining the impact of urban compactness on work and social life disruption during COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from Jakarta, Indonesia," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 1-26, December.
    7. Maria del Mar Alonso-Almeida, 2023. "Could Failures in Peer to Peer Accommodation Be a Threat to Public Health and Safety? An Analysis of Users Experiences after the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-14, January.
    8. Liu, Yang & Dilanchiev, Azer & Xu, Kaifei & Hajiyeva, Aytan Merdan, 2022. "Financing SMEs and business development as new post Covid-19 economic recovery determinants," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 554-567.
    9. Catalina Llaneza Hesse & Josep Maria Raya Vílchez, 2022. "The effect of COVID-19 on the peer-to-peer rental market," Tourism Economics, , vol. 28(1), pages 222-247, February.
    10. Elżbieta Szaruga & Bartosz Pilecki & Marta Sidorkiewicz, 2023. "The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Transport Accessibility, and Accommodation Accessibility on the Energy Intensity of Public Tourist Transport," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-27, October.
    11. Vrain, Emilie & Wilson, Charlie & Andrews, Barnaby, 2022. "The discontinuance of low carbon digital products and services," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hossain, Mokter & Mozahem, Najib Ali, 2022. "Drivers’ perceptions of the sharing economy for transport services," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    2. Tünde Zita Kovács & Forest David & Adrián Nagy & István Szűcs & András Nábrádi, 2021. "An Analysis of the Demand-Side, Platform-Based Collaborative Economy: Creation of a Clear Classification Taxonomy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-20, March.
    3. S. Mahmuda & T. Sigler & E. Knight & J. Corcoran, 2020. "Sectoral evolution and shifting service delivery models in the sharing economy," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 13(2), pages 663-684, July.
    4. Asad Mohsin & Jorge Lengler, 2021. "Airbnb Hospitality: Exploring Users and Non-Users’ Perceptions and Intentions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-20, September.
    5. Francesco Pasimeni, 2020. "The Origin of the Sharing Economy Meets the Legacy of Fractional Ownership," SPRU Working Paper Series 2020-19, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    6. Waqar Nadeem & Mari Juntunen & Nick Hajli & Mina Tajvidi, 2021. "The Role of Ethical Perceptions in Consumers’ Participation and Value Co-creation on Sharing Economy Platforms," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 169(3), pages 421-441, March.
    7. Hung-Tai Tsou & Ja-Shen Chen & Cindy Yunhsin Chou & Tzu-Wen Chen, 2019. "Sharing Economy Service Experience and Its Effects on Behavioral Intention," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-25, September.
    8. Sutherland, Will & Jarrahi, Mohammad Hossein, 2018. "The sharing economy and digital platforms: A review and research agenda," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 328-341.
    9. Ruggero Sainaghi & Mehmet Ali Köseoglu & Fuad Mehraliyev, 2021. "The intellectual structure of the sharing economy," Tourism Economics, , vol. 27(5), pages 1137-1156, August.
    10. Lutz, Christoph & Newlands, Gemma, 2018. "Consumer segmentation within the sharing economy: The case of Airbnb," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 187-196.
    11. Geissinger, Andrea & Laurell, Christofer & Sandström, Christian, 2020. "Digital Disruption beyond Uber and Airbnb—Tracking the long tail of the sharing economy," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    12. Bergh, Andreas & Funcke, Alexander & Wernberg, Joakim, 2021. "The Sharing Economy: Definition, Measurement and its Relationship to Capitalism," Working Paper Series 1380, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    13. Yuanyuan Guo & Yanqing Wang & Chaoyou Wang, 2019. "Exploring the Salient Attributes of Short-Term Rental Experience: An Analysis of Online Reviews from Chinese Guests," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-19, August.
    14. Venkateswaran, Viswanathan & S Kumar, Deepak & Gupta, Deepak, 2021. "‘To Trust or Not’: Impact of camouflage strategies on trust in the sharing economy," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 110-126.
    15. Lindblom, Arto & Lindblom, Taru & Wechtler, Heidi, 2018. "Collaborative consumption as C2C trading: Analyzing the effects of materialism and price consciousness," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 244-252.
    16. Apostolos Filippas & John J. Horton & Richard J. Zeckhauser, 2020. "Owning, Using, and Renting: Some Simple Economics of the “Sharing Economy”," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(9), pages 4152-4172, September.
    17. Sengupta, Pooja & Biswas, Baidyanath & Kumar, Ajay & Shankar, Ravi & Gupta, Shivam, 2021. "Examining the predictors of successful Airbnb bookings with Hurdle models: Evidence from Europe, Australia, USA and Asia-Pacific cities," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 538-554.
    18. Enzo Bivona & Federico Cosenz, 2021. "Designing a Multi‐Sided Platform business model assessment framework: a Dynamic Performance Management perspective," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(1), pages 93-107, January.
    19. Karl Taeuscher, 2019. "Uncertainty kills the long tail: demand concentration in peer-to-peer marketplaces," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 29(4), pages 649-660, December.
    20. Stéphanie Nguyen & Sylvie Llosa, 2018. "On The Difficulty To Define The Sharing Economy And Collaborative Consumption – Literature Review And Proposing A Different Approach With The Introduction Of 'Collaborative Services'
      [De La Difficu      ," Working Papers halshs-01820276, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:167:y:2021:i:c:s0040162521001657. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00401625 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.