The Peer-to-Peer market for tourist accommodation in Latin America. Supply, Demand and Prices

Abstract

Purpose: Providing empírica! evidence on the hosts, product and price farmation of the p2p market far tourist accommodation in faur Latin American cities, comparing results and highlighting its main characteristics with regards to consolidated tourist destinations.

Designlmethodology/approach: Data comes from a total of 53,836 listings scraped in mid-March 2019 ofthe listings on the Airbnb platfarm far the cities of Buenos Aires (Argentina), Mexico City (Mexico ), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and Santiago (Chile) that are among the most visited in the world. The theoretical is based on an economic hedonic price regression model; and using variables measuring host and accommodation attributes, location, booking policy, number of reviews and amenities, identifies among those what determines supply, demand and pricing.

Findings: The p2p market in Latin America has a wide margin to continue growing and to configure itself as a professional market far the renta! of entire homes in the short term. There is high concentration of demand in a few accommodations. Relations between variables hint that hosts are not exploiting the full capacity to efficiently manage their accommodation prices. Ali this suggests that, in emerging markets, unlike in mature tourist destinations, the incorporation of specific elements, such as those related to equity and the distribution of added value, is pertinent in a global framework far the valuation of the social welfare generated by trade made through Airbnb.

Research limitationslimplications: The fact that the number of reviews has been used as a proxy is a limitation and adds a provisional character to our results and encourages the replication of our analysis with data on the effective occupation of the accommodation, to which we did not have access to in our case. Similarly, if possible, other smaller Latin American cities could be studied.

Practica/ implications: The differences detected in price farmation in faur Latin American cities with respect to previously analyzed consolidated destinations could suggest that, in certain regions, hosts are not taking full advantage of the potential of the market, which might be an opportunity far the propasa! of programs improving the management capacity of individual owners.

Social implications: Given the inequality detected across hosts, if a policy priority is a more equalitarian distribution of income that is brought by tourist rentals to locals, a system that allocates permits according to the criteria reflected by social preferences could be tested.

Originalitylvalue: This research represents the first analysis of the peer-to-peer market far tourist accommodation that takes as a reference severa! Latin American cities, with theoretical and practica! implications that could be extended to other emerging markets, paying special attention to the potential far the development of tourism and the distributional implications.