The Sharing Economy: User – Generated Rating and the Quality of Service in Tourism

The impact of the sharing economy business model continues to grow at a remarkable rate in many sectors. Consumers need to deal with independent service providers (e.g., Airbnb) and not commercial businesses (e.g., hotel chains). We are exploring scientific facts about product quality based on user-generated ratings. We compared Airbnb place ratings with TripAdvisor and analysed why these ratings in the sharing economy platform are so high. Our analysis showed more than 285 properties holding an average user-generated rating score of 5 stars. This directed us to analyse where the review platforms generate doubtful distributions of star ratings, which are questionable reflections of true service quality. In addition, we found considerable variability in ratings. This discrepancy made us question how these distributions occur in the sharing economy, particularly in home-sharing tourism, where rating variability is small compared to that in the traditional hotel industry.

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Contributors

Greicy K Silva

Claudia Silva

Llussá Fernanda

Conference

Publication date: July 2018

Publication date (Print): July 2018

Pages: 1-5

Affiliations

[0001]Faculty of Sciences & Technology (UNL)

Lisbon, 2267057, Portugal

[0002]Madeira Interactive

Technologies Institute

Funchal, 2267057, Portugal

[0003]New University of Lisbon

Lisbon, 2267057, Portugal

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/HCI2018.137

SO-VID: 6c68d843-d9b1-4385-b7ad-7a91d6873742

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Proceedings of the 32nd International BCS Human Computer Interaction Conference

Conference acronym: HCI

Conference number: 32

Conference location: Belfast, UK

Conference date: 4 - 6 July 2018

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Human Computer Interaction Conference

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1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI2018.137

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

References

Copyright © Massachusetts Institute of Arun Sandararajan and 1977-2017 All rights 2016 April 13 2017 Crowd-Based Capitalism? Empowering Entrepreneurs in the Sharing Economy MIT Sloan Management Review. from http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/crowd-based-capitalism-empowering-entrepreneurs-in-the-sharing-economy/
Russell Belk 2014 You are what you can access: Sharing and collaborative consumption online Journal of Business Research 67 8 1595 1600
Rachel Botsman 2015 The Changing Rules of Trust in the Digital Age Harvard Business Review March 29 2017 from http://hbr.org/2015/10/the-changing-rules-of-trust-in-the-digital-age
Boyd CohenJan Kietzmann 2014 Ride On! Mobility Business Models for the Sharing Economy Organization & Environment 27 3 279 296
Nan HuJie ZhangPaul A. Pavlou 2009 Overcoming the J-shaped Distribution of Product Reviews Commun. ACM 52 10 144 147
hughrileyblog 2016 The Sharing Economy & Its Impact on Caribbean Tourism Hugh Riley August 6 2017 from http://hughriley.org/2016/09/26/the-sharing-economy-its-impact-on-caribbean-tourism/
Xinxin LiLorin M. Hitt 2007 Self Selection and Information Role of Online Product Reviews Social Science Research Network Rochester, NY
Chris NoskoSteven Tadelis 2015 The Limits of Reputation in Platform Markets: An Empirical Analysis and Field Experiment Social Science Research Network Rochester, NY
Andrea ProtheroSusan DobschaJim Freund 2011 Sustainable Consumption: Opportunities for Consumer Research and Public Policy Social Science Research Network Rochester, NY
Igor Savič 2016 Mediatization of companies as a factor of their communication power and the new role of public relations Public Relations Review 42 4 607 615
Georgios ZervasDavide ProserpioJohn Byers 2015 A First Look at Online Reputation on Airbnb, Where Every Stay is Above Average Social Science Research Network Rochester, NY
Disruptive Innovation. Clayton Christensen 2012 April 22 2017 from http://www.claytonchristensen.com/key-concepts/
Collaborative consumption: Determinants of satisfaction and the likelihood of using a sharing economy option again ResearchGate May 27 2017 from http://www.researchgate.net/publication/272890505_Collaborative_consumption_Determinants_of_satisfaction_and_the_likelihood_of_using_a_sharing_economy_option_again
Airbnb vs Rent: City of Los Angeles - Inside Airbnb Adding data to the debate August 7 2017 Inside Airbnb. from http://insideairbnb.com/airbnb-vs-rent-city-of-la/ .

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Copyright © Massachusetts Institute of Arun Sandararajan and 1977-2017 All rights 2016 April 13 2017 Crowd-Based Capitalism? Empowering Entrepreneurs in the Sharing Economy MIT Sloan Management Review. from http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/crowd-based-capitalism-empowering-entrepreneurs-in-the-sharing-economy/

[2] Russell Belk 2014 You are what you can access: Sharing and collaborative consumption online Journal of Business Research 67 8 1595 1600

[3] Rachel Botsman 2015 The Changing Rules of Trust in the Digital Age Harvard Business Review March 29 2017 from http://hbr.org/2015/10/the-changing-rules-of-trust-in-the-digital-age

[4] Boyd CohenJan Kietzmann 2014 Ride On! Mobility Business Models for the Sharing Economy Organization & Environment 27 3 279 296

[5] Nan HuJie ZhangPaul A. Pavlou 2009 Overcoming the J-shaped Distribution of Product Reviews Commun. ACM 52 10 144 147

[6] hughrileyblog 2016 The Sharing Economy & Its Impact on Caribbean Tourism Hugh Riley August 6 2017 from http://hughriley.org/2016/09/26/the-sharing-economy-its-impact-on-caribbean-tourism/

[7] Xinxin LiLorin M. Hitt 2007 Self Selection and Information Role of Online Product Reviews Social Science Research Network Rochester, NY

[8] Chris NoskoSteven Tadelis 2015 The Limits of Reputation in Platform Markets: An Empirical Analysis and Field Experiment Social Science Research Network Rochester, NY

[9] Andrea ProtheroSusan DobschaJim Freund 2011 Sustainable Consumption: Opportunities for Consumer Research and Public Policy Social Science Research Network Rochester, NY

[10] Igor Savič 2016 Mediatization of companies as a factor of their communication power and the new role of public relations Public Relations Review 42 4 607 615

[11] Georgios ZervasDavide ProserpioJohn Byers 2015 A First Look at Online Reputation on Airbnb, Where Every Stay is Above Average Social Science Research Network Rochester, NY

[12] Disruptive Innovation. Clayton Christensen 2012 April 22 2017 from http://www.claytonchristensen.com/key-concepts/

[13] Collaborative consumption: Determinants of satisfaction and the likelihood of using a sharing economy option again ResearchGate May 27 2017 from http://www.researchgate.net/publication/272890505_Collaborative_consumption_Determinants_of_satisfaction_and_the_likelihood_of_using_a_sharing_economy_option_again

[14] Airbnb vs Rent: City of Los Angeles - Inside Airbnb Adding data to the debate August 7 2017 Inside Airbnb. from http://insideairbnb.com/airbnb-vs-rent-city-of-la/ .

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