Remedying Airbnb COVID-19 disruption through tourism clusters and community resilience

Peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation markets have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, little attention is paid to how to remedy the disruption in terms of P2P accommodation performance. This study empirically investigates the spatially heterogeneous COVID-19 disruptions in the Airbnb business and offers place-based remedying strategies through local resources, including tourism clusters and community resilience. Using real data on Airbnb operating performance and local resources in Florida, we employ spatial econometric models and visualization techniques to estimate the pandemic-disrupted Airbnb performance model. The results show that leisure and hospitality clusters and three resilience resources-social, community capital, and environmental-had spatially heterogeneous effects on Airbnb revenue and booking performance across Floridian counties during the pandemic. Furthermore, community resilience moderated the effect of tourism clusters on Airbnb performance across individual and subclustered counties. These findings enable P2P accommodation hosts and policymakers to adopt destination-specific remedying strategies to cope with the pandemic.

Automated summary

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation markets, particularly in Airbnb business. This study found that the pandemic had spatially heterogeneous effects on Airbnb revenue and booking performance in different counties of Florida. By utilizing local resources such as tourism clusters and community resilience, targeted strategies can be adopted to cope with the challenges brought by the pandemic.