IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rcitxx/v18y2015i12p1192-1217.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Airbnb: disruptive innovation and the rise of an informal tourism accommodation sector

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Guttentag

Abstract

This article 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. This rise 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. 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. Thereafter, the article considers Airbnb's potential to significantly disrupt the traditional accommodation sector, and the positive and negative impacts Airbnb may have on destinations. Finally, numerous questions for future research are proposed.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Guttentag, 2015. "Airbnb: disruptive innovation and the rise of an informal tourism accommodation sector," Current Issues in Tourism, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(12), pages 1192-1217, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:rcitxx:v:18:y:2015:i:12:p:1192-1217
    DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2013.827159
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13683500.2013.827159
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13683500.2013.827159?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.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:taf:rcitxx:v:18:y:2015:i:12:p:1192-1217. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/rcit .

    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.