Resumo

The peer-to-peer accommodation services have been recently configured as one of the most representative and impactful hospitality business models, attracting users, managers, and companies on a global scale. Through a broad model of consumer behavior (BPM), this study systematizes the main reasons why guests opt to use (and not to use) these services considered by relevant research, strengthening consumer conduct predictions and enabling the development of marketing strategies to overcome challenges of the sector.

Despite several studies have been focused on exploring why guests use peer-to-peer liquid hospitality services, their results have been poorly integrated. To overcome this gap, this research aims to gather the findings from recent and relevant hospitality and tourism literature, producing a broad comprehension of guests’ reasons for usage of these services. Furthermore, the purpose of this study is to produce a trustworthy tool for consumer behavior prediction in the peer-to-peer accommodation sector, useful for marketing strategy production.

This research is driven by two theoretical grounds. The first refers to liquid consumption, characterized by transactions that are more ephemeral and access-based (Bardhi and Eckhardt, 2017). In the hospitality sector, companies like Airbnb, HomeAway, and Vrbo are committed to this mode of consumption (Belarmino and Koh, 2020). The second literature is related to the behavioral perspective model (BPM), an extensive and inclusive mechanism for predicting consumer behavior (Foxall, 1992). Taking them together, this work confers a greater view of peer-to-peer liquid hospitality consumption.

To reach its proposed objective, this study followed three methodological steps: (i) an integrative literature review of the tourism and hospitality literature focused to investigate guests’ reasons to use peer-to-peer accommodation services; (ii) application of the BPM to the selected studies’ findings; and (iii) development of marketing strategies based on the pattern of consequences detected. Nineteen recent (2015-on) and impactful (Q1 at Scimago Journal & Country Rank – SJR) works were investigated (nreasons = 98).

The investigated literature agrees that guests opt for peer-to-peer hospitality services primarily for utilitarian reasons more than for informational purposes. In this sense, social dynamics play a positive major role in their participation, while security is seen as either a negative or a positive explanation for the avoidance or the use of these hospitality platforms. The hedonism pattern (high utilitarian, low informational) of operant class of behavior identified in their services reveals opportunities to develop the sector.

This work concludes that the functional aspects attached to the peer-to-peer hospitality services surpass the symbolic ones, which possibly explains the survival of this business. However, unless peer-to-peer platforms safeguard guests' utilitarian needs attendance (e.g., support from hosts and increased control over the place) while enhancing platforms’ informational benefits (e.g., sense of uniqueness during the stay) their market gains are expected to be constrained.

Bardhi, F. and Eckhardt, G. M. (2017). Liquid consumption. Journal of Consumer Research, 44(3), 582–597. Belarmino, A. and Koh, Y. (2020). A critical review of research regarding peer-to-peer accommodations. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 84, 102–315. Foxall, G. R. (1992). The behavioral perspective model of purchase and consumption: From consumer theory to marketing practice. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 20(2), 189–198.