A perceived service quality model in the sharing economy: The case of airbnb

Abstract

The shift from ownership to access, the results of endless hyper-consumption, and the change in value mindsets initiated a new phenomenon, which is Sharing Economy (SE). SE has given rise to the humanization of consumer-supplier relationship in tourism and hospitality (TH), and sharing has become a mainstream practice. Airbnb has revolutionized the TH service in a new form of the contractual relationship and gained well-grounded popularity. The customers’ willingness to share accommodation with a host in Airbnb as opposed to using a private hotel room has implications for TH in terms of perceived service quality of customers. In this study, a perceived service quality (PSQ) model is researched by text mining on user generated content in the Airbnb context. We first collect a massive amount of Airbnb guests’ textual review data, which is publicly available. Then, we analyze Airbnb guests’ Big5 personalities using these personal texts by linguistic analytics and state the psychometric insights. We find that Airbnb guests score high in extraversion and openness dimensions of Big5. Then, using the personality traits of consumers as a basis, we test our PSQ model, which is a combination of the seminal SERVQUAL service quality framework and additional cognitive and attitudinal factors. The findings include that the SERVQUAL model requires adjustment in this context, and it is well-enhanced by cognitive and attitudinal factors, including intimacy, authenticity, privacy, and security. The study also discusses additional exploratory findings on Airbnb guests’ textual review data through text mining.