Peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodations have scaled up in the wave of enthusiasm for innovative internet technologies, which challenge the conventional hotel industry. Pricing is a significant lever a P2P lodging host needs to improve profitability. The purpose of the present study was to examine pricing determinants of P2P accommodations considering their spatial dependency. Two spatial hedonic pricing models (HPM) were examined for site attributes and situation attributes, respectively. Three site indicators (count of bedrooms, accommodated person capacity, and overall review score) and four situation indicators (counts of P2P lodging listings, population density, unemployment counts, median income) contributed to the price of a P2P lodging list. The application of spatial HPM provides marketers and hosts on P2P lodging platforms more in-depth analysis and effective strategies for pricing.

Introduction

Sharing economy as a shift from ownership of goods to temporary rental of them has emerged since 2009 due to the global economic recession, cumulative trust of world wide web, and development of online payment system (Dillahunt and Malone, 2015). The lodging industry is probably one of the sectors most impacted by the meteoric development of sharing economy (Johnson and Neuhofer, 2017). A peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation platform serves as an intermediary that connects hosts who rent residential properties and guests who need temporary spaces (Brochado et al., 2017). The P2P lodging contributes to the revitalization of homestays, bed & breakfasts (B&B), and multicultural hospitality networks (e.g., https://usservas.org/) (Lampinen and Cheshire, 2016). Airbnb has risen as a dominant player of P2P accommodation platforms (Zervas et al., 2015). Although still at its nascent stage, Airbnb was valued up to $31 billion in 2017, which was worth more than that of any top international chain hotel companies (e.g., Hilton and Hyatt) except Marriott (valuation of $39 billion) (Tharakan and Reuters, 2017). Therefore, many hospitality scholars have agreed that Airbnb is a gateway for them to embark on the research of P2P accommodations (e.g., Chen and Xie, 2017; Guttentag and Smith, 2017). Research on P2P accommodations has emerged since 2014 and soared after 2016 (Liang et al., 2018). The studies on this topic published on the leading hospitality and tourism journals are summarized in Table 1. These studies are classified into four themes, including marketing, competition/comparison with hotels, strategic management, and pricing/valuation.