TY - JOUR
T1 - The evolution of trust in Airbnb
T2 - A case of home rental
AU - Ert, Eyal
AU - Fleischer, Aliza
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2019/3
Y1 - 2019/3
N2 - Airbnb, a leader of P2P accommodation markets, has acknowledged that “trust is what makes Airbnb work” and has implemented several trust indicators over the years: reputation system, impression formation, and certification. We evaluate the changes in these indicators over time: 1. the modification of the reputation system, 2. the removal of hosts’ photos from the main search screen, and 3. the introduction of the Superhost program. We find that the change of the rating system was associated with a small, yet significant, reduction in ratings, that the removal of the hosts’ photos might have eliminated the price premium of trustworthy images, and that Superhost certification involves a price premium, but does not seem to compensate for established reputation. This article also launches the Annals of Tourism Research Curated Collection on Peer-to-peer accommodation networks, a special selection of research in this field.
AB - Airbnb, a leader of P2P accommodation markets, has acknowledged that “trust is what makes Airbnb work” and has implemented several trust indicators over the years: reputation system, impression formation, and certification. We evaluate the changes in these indicators over time: 1. the modification of the reputation system, 2. the removal of hosts’ photos from the main search screen, and 3. the introduction of the Superhost program. We find that the change of the rating system was associated with a small, yet significant, reduction in ratings, that the removal of the hosts’ photos might have eliminated the price premium of trustworthy images, and that Superhost certification involves a price premium, but does not seem to compensate for established reputation. This article also launches the Annals of Tourism Research Curated Collection on Peer-to-peer accommodation networks, a special selection of research in this field.
KW - Certification
KW - Peer-to-peer accommodation
KW - Reputation
KW - Sharing economy
KW - Trust
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85060100069&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.annals.2019.01.004
DO - 10.1016/j.annals.2019.01.004
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AN - SCOPUS:85060100069
SN - 0160-7383
VL - 75
SP - 279
EP - 287
JO - Annals of Tourism Research
JF - Annals of Tourism Research
ER -