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In sharing economy we trust: the effects of host attributes on short-term rental purchases

Jiang Wu (School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China and Center for E-commerce Research and Development, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China)
Panhao Ma (School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China and Center for E-commerce Research and Development, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China)
Karen L. Xie (Daniels College of Business, University of Denver, Denver, Colorado, USA)

International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management

ISSN: 0959-6119

Article publication date: 13 November 2017

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Abstract

Purpose

Trust has been widely recognized as the crucial factor of consumer purchase intention when shopping on peer-to-peer short-term rental platforms where hosts and renters are strangers. However, the specific attributes of hosts that help build trust with potential renters and drive their purchase of short-term rentals remain unknown. This study aims to explore the effects of host attributes on renter purchases made on Xiaozhu.com, one of the top short-term rental platforms in China, while controlling for short-term rental characteristics.

Design/methodology/approach

A crawler program was developed by Python to collect the host attributes and their short-term rental characteristics of 935 hosts in Beijing from November 18, 2015 to February 14, 2016. The authors use Poisson regression models to estimate the effects of host attributes on renter reservations. They also conduct a series of robustness checks for the estimated results.

Findings

The authors found that host attributes such as the time of reservation confirmation, the acceptance rate of renter reservations, the number of listings owned, whether a personal profile page is disclosed and gender of the host significantly affect renter reservations, whereas the response rate of the host does not influence renters when purchasing short-term rentals online.

Originality/value

This study identifies which host attributes are perceived as trustworthy and affect renters’ purchase decisions, a topic of both theoretical and practical importance but currently less researched. The findings add to emerging literature by providing insights on trust-building in the peer-to-peer economy. Useful suggestions are also provided on strengthening the trust mechanism on short-term rental platforms to facilitate peer-to-peer transactions. Notably, the study is the first attempt to examine the perception of Chinese users toward short-term rentals despite its global prevalence. The analytical insights revealed from large scale but granular online observations data of host attributes and actual renter reservations greatly supplement findings of extant literature using survey and experiment approaches.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the editors and three reviewers for providing us many helpful and constructive comments. This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Numbers: 71373194 and 71332001).

Citation

Wu, J., Ma, P. and Xie, K.L. (2017), "In sharing economy we trust: the effects of host attributes on short-term rental purchases", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 29 No. 11, pp. 2962-2976. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-08-2016-0480

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited

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