earticle

영어

Airbnb is a privately owned accommodation rental platform which enables hosts to rent out their properties or rooms to guests (Statista, n.d.). The Airbnb community spans 191 countries and 65,000 cities in 2017 (Airbnb, 2017). Despite the fast growing popularity of Airbnb in the hospitality industry, there are concerns for guests, such as safety, security and discrimination issues. However, there has been little research conducted about consumers’ perceived risk and its impacts on Airbnb use. Since Airbnb is a new type of accommodation, consumers may focus more on potential risks that they may face if they use. Accommodations are often considered as a high-risk product due to the heterogeneity (Jun, Vogt, and MacKay, 2010). In addition, consumers’ perceived risk is more important due to the intangible nature of Airbnb services (Park and Tussyadiah, 2016). Several researchers have suggested that brand credibility is a central cue in the consumer decision-making process especially for the intangible and heterogeneous products (Kerstetter and Cho, 2004). Several scholars have suggested that brands are valuable to consumers because they reduce perceived risk of consumption and they economize decision-making process (Sweeney and Swait, 2008). In addition, researchers in the travel and tourism research have found that prior knowledge, specifically past use experience, is one of the primary variables which influence consumers’ risk perceptions and their subsequent decision behavior (Kerstetter and Cho, 2004). Therefore, this study investigates effects of consumers’ perceived risk, brand credibility and past experience on intention to stay at an Airbnb place. According to the study results, brand credibility was significantly positively associated with intention to stay at an Airbnb place, followed by physical risk and performance risk. Psychological risk was significantly negatively associated with intention to stay, followed by social risk. Due to the significant interaction effect of brand credibility and past experience on intention to stay, further analyses were conducted. For the Airbnb users, brand credibility and performance risk were positively associated with intention to stay and psychological risk and social risk were negatively associated with intention to stay. For non-users, brand credibility was positively associated with intention to stay and psychological risk was negatively associated with intention to stay. The study findings, implications and limitations will be discussed at the presentation.