Corporate hosts: The rise of professional management in the short-term rental industry
This paper explores the rise of short-term rental (STR) management companies and reveals the transition from a sharing economy activity to the consolidation of a professional industry hinging on what we call ‘corporate hosts’. By relying on interviews with companies operating in Lisbon and Porto, Po...
| Autores: | , , , |
|---|---|
| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2021 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad de Sevilla (US) |
| Repositorio: | idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:idus.us.es:11441/139362 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/11441/139362 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2021.100879 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Short-term rentals Airbnb Sharing economy Vertical integration Platform economy Digital technology High growth firms Professionalization |
| Sumario: | This paper explores the rise of short-term rental (STR) management companies and reveals the transition from a sharing economy activity to the consolidation of a professional industry hinging on what we call ‘corporate hosts’. By relying on interviews with companies operating in Lisbon and Porto, Portugal, we found: first, that a phenomenon of market concentration occurred in which individual hosts have outsourced the management of their properties to corporate hosts; second, that through the use of digital technology and vertical integration, corporate hosts are able to enhance the profitability of large portfolios of STRs; and, third, that corporate hosts imitate practices from the hotel industry, leading to the formation of a hybrid product in which the lines between hotels and STRs have blurred. We argue that corporate hosts constitute a new layer of intermediation that challenges the way we understand the STR industry and the overall functioning of this market. |
|---|