Sharing Economy: The Relationship between Airbnb, the Accommodation Industry and New Tourist Flows. The Case of Bologna Metropolitan Area (Italy)

The aim of this paper is to assess the relationship between tourist accommodations managed through sharing-economy portals and the tourist facilities professionally managed (typically hotels) in terms of direct and indirect competition. Moreover, the analysis of the turnover associated with differen...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Matteo Beghelli
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Bologna 2020-08-01
Series:Almatourism
Subjects:
Online Access:https://almatourism.unibo.it/article/view/10728
id doaj-5bd989821ebc40419f73fc98f9c3df55
record_format Article
spelling doaj-5bd989821ebc40419f73fc98f9c3df552021-05-04T07:35:44ZengUniversity of BolognaAlmatourism2036-51952020-08-0111217910710.6092/issn.2036-5195/107289122Sharing Economy: The Relationship between Airbnb, the Accommodation Industry and New Tourist Flows. The Case of Bologna Metropolitan Area (Italy)Matteo Beghelli0Unioncamere Emilia-RomagnaThe aim of this paper is to assess the relationship between tourist accommodations managed through sharing-economy portals and the tourist facilities professionally managed (typically hotels) in terms of direct and indirect competition. Moreover, the analysis of the turnover associated with different kinds of facilities bookable on Airbnb, the most widely used sharing-economy portal for tourism, allow to assess the ratio of “core sharing” (the sharing-economy in its proper meaning) in Airbnb business and to estimate new tourist flows brought about by the portal. The analysis has been carried out for the metropolitan area of Bologna (Italy) in the years 2015-18. This work shows that only 20% of the turnover recorded by Airbnb in Bologna metro area can be associated to “pure” sharing-economy, meanwhile the remaining 80% have various levels of professional management that, in many cases (though not all), undermine the peer-to-peer nature of the relationship established between the parties involved (peer-to-peer relationship is a must of proper sharing-economy). Of this 80% of turnover, while 44% is associated with facilities that can be considered in direct competition with hotels, 36% is made by tourist accommodations that, to a various degrees, play indirect competition with hotels, thus activating new tourist flows towards Bologna metro area.https://almatourism.unibo.it/article/view/10728sharing hospitalitysharing economyover-tourismurban competitionbologna
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Matteo Beghelli
spellingShingle Matteo Beghelli
Sharing Economy: The Relationship between Airbnb, the Accommodation Industry and New Tourist Flows. The Case of Bologna Metropolitan Area (Italy)
Almatourism
sharing hospitality
sharing economy
over-tourism
urban competition
bologna
author_facet Matteo Beghelli
author_sort Matteo Beghelli
title Sharing Economy: The Relationship between Airbnb, the Accommodation Industry and New Tourist Flows. The Case of Bologna Metropolitan Area (Italy)
title_short Sharing Economy: The Relationship between Airbnb, the Accommodation Industry and New Tourist Flows. The Case of Bologna Metropolitan Area (Italy)
title_full Sharing Economy: The Relationship between Airbnb, the Accommodation Industry and New Tourist Flows. The Case of Bologna Metropolitan Area (Italy)
title_fullStr Sharing Economy: The Relationship between Airbnb, the Accommodation Industry and New Tourist Flows. The Case of Bologna Metropolitan Area (Italy)
title_full_unstemmed Sharing Economy: The Relationship between Airbnb, the Accommodation Industry and New Tourist Flows. The Case of Bologna Metropolitan Area (Italy)
title_sort sharing economy: the relationship between airbnb, the accommodation industry and new tourist flows. the case of bologna metropolitan area (italy)
publisher University of Bologna
series Almatourism
issn 2036-5195
publishDate 2020-08-01
description The aim of this paper is to assess the relationship between tourist accommodations managed through sharing-economy portals and the tourist facilities professionally managed (typically hotels) in terms of direct and indirect competition. Moreover, the analysis of the turnover associated with different kinds of facilities bookable on Airbnb, the most widely used sharing-economy portal for tourism, allow to assess the ratio of “core sharing” (the sharing-economy in its proper meaning) in Airbnb business and to estimate new tourist flows brought about by the portal. The analysis has been carried out for the metropolitan area of Bologna (Italy) in the years 2015-18. This work shows that only 20% of the turnover recorded by Airbnb in Bologna metro area can be associated to “pure” sharing-economy, meanwhile the remaining 80% have various levels of professional management that, in many cases (though not all), undermine the peer-to-peer nature of the relationship established between the parties involved (peer-to-peer relationship is a must of proper sharing-economy). Of this 80% of turnover, while 44% is associated with facilities that can be considered in direct competition with hotels, 36% is made by tourist accommodations that, to a various degrees, play indirect competition with hotels, thus activating new tourist flows towards Bologna metro area.
topic sharing hospitality
sharing economy
over-tourism
urban competition
bologna
url https://almatourism.unibo.it/article/view/10728
work_keys_str_mv AT matteobeghelli sharingeconomytherelationshipbetweenairbnbtheaccommodationindustryandnewtouristflowsthecaseofbolognametropolitanareaitaly
_version_ 1721479730499158016