Motives and barriers of Airbnb users: Findings from mixed-methods approach

Purpose: This study aims to investigate motives and barriers for Egyptian users to use Airbnb “as a platform of peer-to-peer accommodation instead of hotels” and how it affects the overall attitude towards Airbnb, behavioral intentions and actual usage of Airbnb. Design/Methodology: A sequential mixed methods approach was adopted in this study and a comprehensive research model was adapted from both literature and results of qualitative phase and then tested via an online questionnaire. Results/Findings: The findings revealed that motives: price, home benefits, privacy, and online reviews significantly explained the overall attitude towards Airbnb. In addition, the main barriers found were perceived risk and distrust, which can predict the overall attitude. Furthermore, from subjective norms, only social influence can predict behavioral intention to use Airbnb. Theoretical and practical implications: This study contributes theoretically to the current literature by providing meaningful insights into the main motives of choosing Airbnb as accommodation other than traditional accommodations like hotels. Moreover, it deepens understanding regarding the barriers of not using Airbnb. The findings include several practical implications for industry. Hence, this study’s conceptual effort provided a ‘big’ picture of how Airbnb consumers arrive at choosing (or not choosing) Airbnb for their trip. Additionally, the analytic effort of this study provided a holistic evaluation of the role of each motive and barrier. One critical question in this case is whether marketers should allocate an equal amount of resources to each variable or not. By assessing the importance of each variable, the researcher attempted to clarify the comparative importance of each variable in predicting purchase intentions and decision to use Airbnb. Originality /value: This study fills the gap between the motives and barriers of Airbnb and their effect on overall attitude, behavioral intention and actual usage. Most previous studies focused only on the effect of motives and barriers on behavioral intentions without taking into consideration the actual usage. Similarly, previous studies focused on western contexts. However, this study focuses on one of the developing countries in the Middle East, Egypt, which has many travellers who are already using Airbnb. This study is considered one of the pioneer studies in this topic. Introduction During the past few years, a huge number of tourists chose not to stay in traditional forms of tourism accommodation, such as hotels. Instead, they preferred to stay in strangers’ accommodations, which they found online via Airbnb. The idea of locals renting their houses informally to tourists had existed for centuries. However, new mobile and internet technologies have transformed this practice and allowed it to scale completely by facilitating virtual markets between hosts and guests where communication and trust are established (Guttentag, 2015). The rise of sharing economy affects the tourism and hospitality industry significantly (Zhu et al., 2017). Specifically, peer-to-peer business platforms such as Airbnb, which is considered a disruptive innovation that enables consumers to participate in collaborative consumption, where they can jointly share the underutilized assets such as rooms and cars (Botsman & Rogers, 2010; Zervas et al., 2014). Collaborative consumption is “a peer-to-peer-based activity of getting, giving, or sharing the access to certain products and services, organized through community-based online services (Hamari et The Business and Management Review, Volume 11 Number 1 August 2020 Conference proceedings of the Centre for Business & Economic Research, ICBED-2020, 20-22 August 187 al., 2016, p. 3). Airbnb is considered one of the most known examples of such consumption model; it provides an alternative way of renting short-term accommodations that vary from private rooms, entire homes to shared rooms (Zervas et al., 2014). When Airbnb was established in 2008, most people were uncertain about the idea of a business that based on tourists who pay in order to stay with strangers. In comparison with traditional accommodations, Airbnb residences show many clear weaknesses; the most obvious one is that guests have to trust a stranger, who is generally unlicensed. This stranger has to guarantee them the cleanliness, security, and quality of the place where they will sleep, instead of simply depending on a well-established accommodation with a well-known global brand. As a result of the popularity of Airbnb, many researchers started to study the factors that may encourage or discourage users from choosing Airbnb (e.g. Guttentag, 2015, Guttentag, 2016; Tussyadiah 2015). A few numbers of academic researchers have started the process of exploring this question. Lamb (2011) used qualitative methods to investigate the motivations of CouchSurfing and Airbnb users. Guttentag (2015) introduced a conceptual review of Airbnb and its assumed key attractions from the perspective of disruptive innovation. Tussyadiah (2015) and Tussyaiah and Pesonen (2015) surveyed users of peer to peer short-term rentals (PSR) on their motives for using PSRs. They added analyses in the collaborative consumption literature. In addition, research of some (non-academic) researchers has also begun to explore why tourists choose Airbnb. Moreover, the tourism research company, Phocuswright, investigated the reasons beyond using PSRs by some users (Hennessey, 2014; Quinby & Gasdia, 2014). Research arm of Morgan Stanley, a financial services company, conducted a consumer survey to investigate motivations for using Airbnb. This research was part of an investigation of the potential impacts of Airbnb on online travel agencies and hotels (Nowak et al., 2015). These studies highlight different reasons why tourists choose Airbnb, such as its low price and perceived authenticity, thereby providing some valuable initial insights into this line of inquiry. Furthermore, past research on the sharing economy showed that the consumers’ perceived value is a significant factor in determining their attitude and intention towards the innovation (Zhu et al., 2018). However, further studies found that there are other factors that can also motivate people to use peer-topeer accommodations. Other motives might be social benefits (Tussyadiah, 2016) and social interactions (Guttentag et al., 2017). This study aims to investigate the motives and barriers for Egyptian users to use Airbnb as a platform of peer-to-peer accommodation instead of other traditional accommodations such as hotels, the effect of those motives and barriers on the overall attitude towards Airbnb and how it affect the decision to use Airbnb. Literature Review & Hypothesis Development 2.1 Motives of using Airbnb 2.1. 1 Price So et al. (2018) revealed that price is influential in determining how consumers perceived Airbnb as an alternative accommodation. Inspired from a previous study, Gong and Zheng (2018) found that price value has a significant influence on Chinese consumer's decision to use Airbnb. Moreover, Guttentag (2016) discovered that the low cost of Airbnb accommodations, in comparison to the cost of traditional accommodation, was the highest motive for using Airbnb. Furthermore, Rimer (2017) found that price is one of the most strongly agreed upon motivations for choosing Airbnb rather than other different forms of accommodations such as hotels. 2.1. 2 Home benefits Home benefits represent functional attributes of a home ‘household amenities,’ ‘homely feel,’ and ‘large space” (Guttentag, 2016). Airbnb accommodations provide many benefits similar to those coming from a home environment. Some tourists may prefer the feeling of being at home while staying in a hotel as they can access practical residential amenities such as a full kitchen, a washing machine and a dryer (Guttentag, 2015). In So et al. (2018) study of motivations and constraints of Airbnb users, home benefits were influential in determining how consumers perceived Airbnb as an alternative accommodation. Unlike another study that was investigating the motivations and constraints of Chinese users, Gong and Zheng (2018) found that home benefits are insignificant in determining the users’ decision to use Airbnb. Similarly, in an earlier study conducted to explore the motives and barriers to choose Airbnb, Guttentag The Business and Management Review, Volume 11 Number 1 August 2020 Conference proceedings of the Centre for Business & Economic Research, ICBED-2020, 20-22 August 188 (2015) concluded that the access to household amenities was considered the next most strongly agreed upon motive, he also found that the desire of users to feel at home and have a spacious house was very strong too. These findings are consistent with the findings of Phocuswright (Quinby & Gasdia, 2014) and Morgan Stanley’s studies (Nowak et al., 2015). 2.1. 3 Authenticity A number of past hospitality studies have highlighted the importance of authenticity as a motive for Airbnb users including Guttentag (2015) where he concluded that users have a strong desire to have authentic local experience but the importance of this factor was found to be lower than the importance of lower prices, household facilities and location convenience. However, when So et al. (2018) studied the effect of authenticity in the same model with other motives such as price and home benefits, he found that the effect of authenticity on both overall attitude towards Airbnb and behavioural intention seemed to be insignificant. 2.1. 4 Novelty Novelty is defined as travellers’ personal feelings acquired from using non-standardized, individually tailored tourist goods and services. This is conceptually similar to what Mao and Lyu (2017) called unique experience. Guttentag (2016) concluded that travellers are encouraged to choose Airbnb by some degree of novelty-seeking. This finding