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Last year I posted on this forum seeking assistance with my Ph.D. research exploring why people choose Airbnb and how they use it. The study is now complete, so I’m back to share the findings.
Thank you, Daniel. I enjoyed reading that and your findings correspond with my hosting experience. I had a husband and wife stay with me this year who are professional travelers and used to stay in a number of VRBOs, then switch back exclusively to hotels (not sure why). Mine was their first Airbnb (private townhome where I do not reside) and they also stayed at another Air place in my city for three nights after my place (a whole house where the host lives when there are no guests), and they wrote a blog about their experience. I will send it to you, if you are interested.
Good work. Thanks for returning to share. We get a lot of requests for PhD assistance and I sometimes wonder if they are real or not. Obviously yours is. Interesting study.
Something seems to be wrong with their website at the moment because all I get is code. But, here is the link if you want to try to access it in the future. They listed some pros and cons (pros included living space, kitchen and quiet; cons – no restaurant on the premises). They also said that staying in someone’s home that really is their home included family pictures and unique odors, which they did not like.
There are so many interesting results from the survey. To me one of the most important ones is that we are not always competing with hostels and budget hotels. It seems that our major competitors are mid-range hotels.
Because I have a permanent bee in my bonnet that hosts shouldn’t reduce prices wherever possible, I think this is great news.
Indeed. Of course different types of Airbnb listings (e.g., entire home vs private room) will differ to some degree in terms of who they’re generally competing with.
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Because I have a permanent bee in my bonnet that hosts shouldn’t reduce prices wherever possible, I think this is great news.[/quote]
Yes, actually some of my new, current research is on Airbnb pricing. It’s an interesting topic, as there are so many relatively unique factors that influence hosts’ pricing decisions.