Towards an Understanding of the Indian Tourist Buying Airbnb Services

Towards an Understanding of the Indian Tourist Buying Airbnb Services

Swati Sharma
Copyright: © 2021 |Pages: 14
DOI: 10.4018/IJABIM.20210701.oa1
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Abstract

The business ecosystem has changed drastically. Advances in information technology, access to the internet, and pervasive use of mobile phones have given a spurt to various new age businesses adopting new business models. The empirical paper identifies the room sharing company as a new age platform business model. The study proposes and tests a conceptual model to study the factors influencing the consumers' attitudes towards Airbnb and their intention to purchase the services of Airbnb. The findings reveal that hedonistic values, social values, and financial value, along with e-word of mouth have a direct impact on consumers' attitudes towards Airbnb. Existing available literature is largely in the Western context and qualitative in nature. This paper is unique as it adopts a quantitative approach and provides insight about what really influences the consumers' attitudes towards this new and unique business model, thus enabling marketers to strategize accordingly.
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Background Literature

Since last decade ICT and emerging business models have been a subject of interest among academicians (Baden-Fuller, & Haefliger, 2013). The new age organizations aim at models that have an element of innovation and market orientation, which consequently gives business a strategic and competitive edge. This brings to desk the discussion on innovation in business models. Business model innovation is the adoption of a new business model in an already existing business (Markides, 2006), for example Amazon in retail, Uber, Ola in taxi services, Airbnb in room renting services, Paytm in digital wallets. Business model innovators redefine the attributes of the existing product and service by using new technologies/platforms to capitalize on it. Jo caudron and D. V Peteghem in their book “ Digital Transformation” list out few emerging business models such as subscription model (locking in repeat customer by subscription fee e.g. Netflix, freemium model where the users have free access and in turn their data is used (LinkedIn), free model where users have free access and money flows in from advertising (Facebook), or digital marketplace (eBay, amazon) to name a few. Disruptive technology has been a catalyst to new business models. These technological advancements shake the conventional wisdom of the old stalwarts and their inability to adapt to the new model (Rosenbloom, Christensen, 1994) gives rise to new age companies with innovative business models.

“What is yours is mine” is the sobriquet that is used for the millennial. They believe in sharing of goods and services rather than owning it (Bardhi & Eckhardt, 2012). Massive success of Zip car, Uber, Airbnb prove that this trend is here to stay. The tendency or belief in sharing has stimulated peer to peer based activity of sharing of goods and services which is enabled by Web 2.0 and Information technology advancement through sharing platforms. Although sharing has been central to collectivist societies, his business model is new and disruptive. The sharing of goods and services is an age-old phenomenon; the key enabler to this marketplace operating at scale has been the technology enabled platforms that facilitate far more of these transactions. The sharing platforms have virtually made the world one flat market space bringing together the buyers and seller dyad.

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