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This study aims to analyze the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the peer-to-peer (p2p) market for tourist accommodation.

Using monthly panel data from Airbnb listings in 22 cities worldwide, the authors run a differences-in-differences analysis comparing the period of February–October 2020 to the previous year.

Besides a decline in accommodation supply, the pandemic made prices and demand fall in all cities significantly, after controlling for room characteristics, host traits, booking policies and individual fixed effects. There is also evidence of an alteration of the influence on prices of certain variables such as superhost and instant booking.

The main limitations are related to the reference spatial and temporal environment. Besides, the samples are limited to listings that stayed before and after the pandemic; therefore, it is possible that the real effect on review growth and/or prices is actually more negative.

The analysis performed shows a scenario that represents an opportunity for public managers to test more imaginative regulations that overcome the limitations of those implemented so far. Likewise, hosts who aspire to make their accommodations profitable must adapt to the conditions imposed by the economic environment of the cities in which they operate.

This is the first study to econometrically estimate the impact of COVID-19 on prices in the p2p market for tourist accommodation in a set of cities worldwide.

The purpose of this paper is to verify the hypothesis that seasonality in the peer-to-peer (p2p) market for tourist accommodation is smaller than the existing in conventional markets, taking the case of the island of Majorca as a reference. This paper will also determine the role of professional hosts in the management of prices and in the marketing of accommodation according to seasonal demand variations.

From the information obtained through web scrapings of Airbnb listings and from data provided by official statistics, comparable indicators of seasonality are developed. Likewise, econometric estimates are provided to detect differences regarding the determination of accommodation prices between professional and nonprofessional hosts.

The p2p market is less subject to seasonality than the conventional one. In the particular case of Palma de Majorca, fluctuations in accommodation demand are even smaller than in the rest of the island's municipalities. Professional hosts apply marketing techniques related to price and product promotion and are sensitive to demand variations altering prices and responding to the economic stimuli in this way. At an academic level, these findings suggest, on the one hand, the relevance of considering the heterogeneity of the touristic market when constructing theoretical models. And, on the other hand, basic economic principles should be applied to explain agent behavior in the p2p market.

This work does not use a direct demand measurement. Instead, it approximates demand through the reviews left by guests in p2p markets. At least in the case of the island of Majorca, the touristic demand represents a reduced percentage of touristic demand in total.

So far, both public and private strategies to combat seasonality have focused on increasing occupancy in conventional accommodation. Still, the fact that hotel demand and private accommodation demand are different has relevant implications for price management, touristic products, supply planning and the implementation of marketing campaigns. Also, advertising could be aimed at alleviating the undesirable effects of seasonality.

The evidence presented helps the design of public policy strategies aimed at mitigating the problem of seasonality in touristic demand to accommodate it to social preferences in each area.

This is the first piece of research, as far as we are aware of, that addresses the phenomenon of demand seasonality in the p2p market for tourist accommodation. In addition, a comparison is made with the seasonal patterns that characterize the conventional hotel market. New ideas are provided for the design of a comprehensive touristic policy in which both markets are considered.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of sociopolitical instability on the peer-to-peer market for tourist accommodation.

The author studies for the case of Barcelona the impacts of the events occurring in the past months of 2017, which consisted of a terrorist attack and the calling for a referendum on the independence of Catalonia, by fitting a fixed effects regression model to a data panel of Airbnb listings, using New York and Paris as a control group.

The results show that, after controlling for individual and time effects, listing reviews and revenues fall in the last quarter of 2017 and do not recover until the second quarter of the next year, in spite of a notable effort to decrease prices in the same period. They also indicate that peer-to-peer hosts react fast to demand shocks and as those from traditional markets.

This is the first study to evaluate the impact of terrorism or political uncertainty in the peer-to-peer market and the first to evaluate their combined effect in any market.