The impact of the sharing economy on the hospitality industry: The case of Airbnb

Web 2.0 has changed the way people connect with communities and has also affected the way people get information, enabling people to receive and share information online at the same time. Sharing economy platforms are systems in which there are three different sides: suppliers of goods or services, consumers and a platform as an intermediary. Thanks to platforms, transaction costs decrease and the degree of substitution increases. Consumers; benefit from the lower prices, more choices, better quality and convenience, and also suppliers earn additional income. The fact that platforms have zero or very low marginal costs and also violate legal regulations and requirements such as licenses and taxation causes informality and unfair competition. In addition, rentals subject to short-term accommodation also operate illegally in many cities. In the study, together with the qualitative data analysis method, the effects of this phenomenon were examined with a case study specific to Airbnb. It can be said that the market with the participants in the procurement part of the Airbnb platform has a structure similar to the monopolistic competition market. It has been seen that three regulatory strategies can be mentioned for in network hospitality: "Taxation, registration requirement for listings, and prohibition of short-term rentals". In the cities of New York and San Francisco examined in the study, it was seen that Airbnb is more dominant than VRBO in the in-network hospitality services market and Airbnb offers cheaper alternatives with the "Private Room" option in competition with hotels.