This paper aims to understand the key factors influencing Thai travelers to choose Airbnb as their accommodation when traveling abroad. Therefore, this research would help to investigate the factors that influence the decision of Thai tourists to choose to stay with Airbnb during their trips abroad. What are the key factors influencing Thai travelers' decision to choose Airbnb when traveling abroad?
The purpose of this study is to explore and investigate the factors that influence the decision of Thai travelers when choosing Airbnb as their accommodation when traveling abroad.
Research Scope
Expected Benefit
Sharing Economy
About Airbnb
In addition, if tourists are interested or have any questions, they can directly communicate with the hosts by sending messages. Additionally, payment can be made directly through the Airbnb website, which charges hosts a 3% commission for each booking made. Most Airbnb guests typically rent the entire house during their stay and spend 2-4 nights on each trip.
A relatively large proportion of Airbnb users have only used the service once, and most have only used it a handful of times” (Guttentag, 2016).
Airbnb Impacts on the Hotel Industry
In addition, Airbnb guests are quite satisfied with the service, which is a good indicator that they would repeat their stay and recommend it to others (Guttentag, 2016). The study found that there was a 0.37% decrease in hotel room revenue for every 10% increase in Airbnb listings in Texas, USA. In 2015, the company caused an estimated $451 million in losses to New York City hotels.
Furthermore, the study mentioned that most guests use Airbnb as a substitute for hotels, especially a substitute for mid-range hotels, budget hotels, bed and breakfasts, and motels.
Motivations for choosing Airbnb
In addition, Airbnb also limits the ability of hotels to raise their room rates during the peak season because hotels must ensure that their rates are competitive with residents who rent out accommodation on Airbnb, who also use the peak period to find customers. The property hosts usually offer a range of household amenities to their guests (Guttentag, 2016). Finally, authentic local experiences, this factor drives tourists who want to experience the destinations from the local perspective (Gumbs, Griffin, & Dodds, n.d.).
Meeting new people and having direct contact with locals can be a driving force, being part of the local society and experiencing local life while traveling.
Conceptual Framework
If the individual's belief that performing a certain behavior will lead to a positive outcome, they will have a positive feeling toward that behavior and lead to a stronger intention to perform it. Second, subjective norms refer to the individual's perception of a particular behavior that will be influenced by social pressure. Third, perceived behavioral control refers to the individual's ability to perform a certain behavior and also whether or not the person has confidence in their own capacity.
This part refers to both the individual's previously experienced and perceived future difficulties and obstacles (Ajzen, 1991).
Literature Review Summary
METHDOLOGY
Research Design
Data Collection
Sample Size
Questionnaire Design
- Screening questions
- Demographic questions
- Travel information
- Tourists intention for choosing Airbnb
Data Analysis
Demographic
The largest group of respondents consists of people in the age category between 21 and 30 years (67.5%). The vast majority of respondents have a bachelor's degree at 66.7%, followed by a master's degree at 29.1% and a doctorate at 4.3%. Subsequently, a small proportion of respondents work as government officials (6.0%) and in other industries (5.1%).
Travel Information
Other countries that Thais use Airbnb service are Vietnam 2.6%, France 4.3%, Italy 3.4%, Germany 3.4% and Australia 1.7%, in addition the rest of the countries have the same percentage of 0 .9% which is China, Shanghai, Hong Kong, India, Russia, New Zealand and Switzerland. The majority of tourists stay in an Airbnb accommodation for 3-4 nights, accounting for 38.0% of the total respondents. Surprisingly, there used to be up to 17 guests staying together in the same Airbnb property.
Main Findings
Convenient location is the most important factor that drives tourists to make their decision to stay at Airbnb. They may find that Airbnb properties are located in an area that is easy and convenient to travel to. Then comes reviews and rating factor as the second important factor, with the average of 3.50.
Reviews and ratings from previous guests can make the tourist decide to book the accommodation. Tourists can take a look at the impressions and comments made by former guests, which will give tourists the information and confidence that the property is of good standard and quality. Especially from their relatives such as friends or family who already experience it or they have a good perception towards Airbnb, which affects the decision of tourists whether or not they should choose this type of accommodation.
In addition, the mean of the large space factor is 3.03 and the housewares factor is 3.02, as follows. Some of them may find that Airbnb offers more space than other types of accommodation and will be more comfortable when staying with many people. In addition, the benefits and facilities that Airbnb offers to its guests can be one of the important factors in the decision.
Tourists may find that there are useful household appliances to use during their stay, such as a kitchen or a washing machine. Finally, New Experience has a mean of 2.44 and Authentic Local Life 1.97, which can be said that these factors generally did not motivate tourists to choose Airbnb accommodation as the other factors.
Group Comparisons
This part is a comparison between motivation factors and age group of tourists. There is also a significant difference in mean scores between age groups for the price factor. In addition, the p-value of the price factor is 0.010, which is less than 0.05, which can be explained that the younger age group sees price as more important than the older age group people.
Since the younger age group may be more aware and concerned about the money they will have to spend while traveling, this is an important factor when making decisions. On the other hand, the older age group is less concerned about the price when booking an Airbnb accommodation. This part is the comparison between the motivation factors and the number of times tourists booked their accommodation with Airbnb.
The table above compares the number of times Thai tourists have used Airbnb accommodation, with the factors influencing their decisions. The results show that the p-value of the word-of-mouth factor is 0.005, which is lower than 0.05. The graph above clearly shows the relationship between the number of Airbnb accommodation bookings among tourists and the "word of mouth" factor.
There was a sharp drop from 3.50 to 2.90, as the number of times tourists book accommodation increases. This part is the comparison between motivation factors of travelers and educational level.
Correlation
From the table below, there is a significant difference in mean scores between two education levels and the Convenient Location factor. The result shows that respondents who have a master's degree rate Convenient Location as more important than those who have a bachelor's degree. However, when looking at the correlations between these variables, the outcome shows that the p-values are all above 0.05, which means that the correlation is not significant.
On the other hand, the results also show that there are some connections between the motivation factors themselves. First, the strongest positive correlation is between the factor Authentic Local Life and New experience, which shows a 62.9% correlation. This can be interpreted as tourists choosing Airbnb accommodation because they want to explore local life and at the same time have a chance to have new experiences.
Therefore, it can be interpreted that tourists who prefer to book an accommodation based on the location of the property will also tend to read about the comments and ratings made by previous guests in order to consider this information whether to book the accommodation or not. Finally, there is a moderate positive correlation between reviews and ratings and the word-of-mouth factors, a correlation at 44.5%. Tourists who look at reviews and ratings of accommodations are also concerned about the information they get from the people around them as well.
CONCLUSION
- Discussions
- Recommendations
- Limitations
- Future Research
Therefore, the current hosts of Airbnb properties can be more attentive in providing the information about the location of their property to the guests. There should be pictures and clear directions showing the way to the property to show how it is convenient and easy to reach. In addition, the reviews and ratings made by the previous guests have a strong influence on the decision of the future guests.
It is important that properties look the same and have all the amenities offered as advertised on the Airbnb website in order to meet customer expectations. Thus, they can adapt the way they operate and try to offer new types of products and services to tourists in order to be able to meet their current demands. This research only focuses on the factors that drive Thai travelers to book their accommodations with Airbnb, but it did not go into deeper details of each factor.
Therefore, to increase the accuracy and see the details of each factor, some sub-questions can be added under each factor to illustrate which aspects of the factor are seen as the most important by tourists. As Airbnb is now considered one of the competitive threats to the hotel industry, a suggestion for future research is to ask respondents if they had to choose between Airbnb and hotels in a similar location in the future, what type of accommodation would they they chose and also the reason for their decision. Retrieved from https://www.htrmresearch.ca/project/the-secret-under-thesheets-the-truth-back-your-next-booking-with-airbnb/.
The Rise of the Sharing Economy: Assessing Airbnb's Impact on the Hotel Industry. The survey was conducted as part of research for a Thematic Paper at Mahidol University's College of Management.
1. Gender
The purpose of this study is to investigate the key factors influencing Thai travelers' decision to choose Airbnb as their accommodation when traveling abroad. How many times have you stayed in an Airbnb property (including the most recent one). On a scale of 1-4, rate which of the following factors influenced your decision to use Airbnb instead of other accommodations.
