Peer-to-peer accommodation services in the sharing economy: Effects of psychological distances on guest loyalty
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management
ISSN: 0959-6119
Article publication date: 7 June 2019
Issue publication date: 4 September 2019
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to focus on peer-to-peer accommodation services in the sharing economy. Adopting construal level theory as the theoretical foundation, this study investigates the main and interaction effects of social and spatial distances on guest loyalty toward peer-to-peer accommodation.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a secondary source of online observational data archived on Xiaozhu, a leading peer-to-peer accommodation sharing platform in China. It consists of 2,612 observations of 1,304 unique travelers who stayed at 559 listings managed by 281 hosts in four major metropolitan areas of China over four years from August 2012 to August 2016. Non-linear binary choice panel models of probability regressions were used to estimate the effects of psychological distances (social and spatial) between hosts and guests on the likelihood of repeat purchase. The software used for the econometric analyses is STATA 14.
Findings
The results indicate that social distance negatively affects guest loyalty toward the listing hosts, while spatial distance has a positive influence on guest loyalty. The results also show significant interactions between the two psychological distance dimensions in influencing loyalty. The findings provide important insight into the influences of psychological distances on travelers’ repeat purchase behavior toward peer-to-peer accommodation providers.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence that supports the importance of psychological distances in forming a loyal relationship between hosts and guests in the peer-to-peer accommodation sector of the sharing economy.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Numbers: 71373194 and 71874131) and also supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.
Citation
So, K.K.F., Xie, K.L. and Wu, J. (2019), "Peer-to-peer accommodation services in the sharing economy: Effects of psychological distances on guest loyalty", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 31 No. 8, pp. 3212-3230. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-09-2018-0730
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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