Abstract Background: Value co-creation emerged at the beginning of the 21st century as a new way of understanding of value and its creation which occurs around individualized experiences of co-creation, leading to the creation of value that is exclusive to every person. In the essence of the concept of value co-creation lays the service-dominant logic of marketing. The investigation of value co-creation within brand communities has been emphasized in recent years. The practices of brand community members play a significant role in the value co-creation. Since Airbnb has never been looked as a brand community in the value co-creation literature, it remained unclear how value can be co-created through the practices of Airbnb community members. Purpose: How value is co-created between brand community members of Airbnb (between hosts and guests and guests themselves) through their practices in their experiences within the corporeal world? Method: In order to meet the purpose of this study, authors applied a qualitative method. Further, a netnographic strategy has been employed which led us to collect online-posted reviews of Airbnb guests from Airbnb website. Authors used purposive sampling by selecting the only guests who had the previous experience of stay in Airbnb accommodations in cases of on-site hospitality. 155 reviews of different guests from 31 accommodation profiles were collected in three waves of data collection. Moreover, a grounded theory coding was employed in order to analyze the data. Conclusion: We identified 14 sub-categories of value-creating practices that emerged under four major categories, namely: practice of sharing, practice of communicating, practice of saving, and practice of authenticating. Further, in the process of elaboration of main elements of practices (i.e. objects, doings, and meanings), we found general connections of these elements within the practices of hosts and guests (i.e. Airbnb community members) that helped us to understand how value is co-created in their experiences within the corporeal world.

Since 2014, Airbnb has been the poster-child for an impassioned debate over how to best regulate short-term home rentals (STR’s) in New Orleans, Louisiana. As critical perspectives toward on-demand economic practice become increasingly common, it is important to understand how the impacts of STR platforms like Airbnb extend beyond the realm of what is traditionally conceptualized as the economic (i.e., pressure on housing markets). In this thesis, I explore the ways in which Airbnb recalibrates the spatial and temporal rhythms of everyday neighborhood life for people external to the formal trappings of an STR contract. Drawing in particular on theories of authenticity and feminist political economy, I argue that locals’ emotional labor of “playing host” is necessarily enrolled into the creation of value for Airbnb, and is essential to the reproduction of the platform’s business model and marketing rhetoric.

This thesis discusses the increased amount of information available online, and how we use it in our daily lives to make decisions. It aims to open a discussion on the complexity of accessing and evaluating digital information. As the Internet has grown, the amount of information available to the public has exploded. Not only have we gained access to what seems to be an unlimited amount of sources, but also the number of producers has grown. By means of a case study, this thesis explores practices of trust assessment within the shared economy. Through the lens of Actor-Network-Theory as well as Modern Social Imaginaries, media practices are studied by using the example of Airbnb, an online, shared economy platform for accommodation. Airbnb users as well as other travelers are asked about their media practices through an online survey with 229 respondents as well as in-depth interviews with 7 users of Airbnb. Results show that practices of trust assessment differ within and outside of the platform. There is a strong dependency on social information, produced by fellow platform users, especially in the form of reviews. In addition the study finds support for a social imaginary, in which the platform defines the accepted behavior for the users of the platform, who within the economic constraint comply with the social norm set by the organization, in order to be able to use the services of Airbnb.

Airbnb as one of examples of sharing accommodation is changing the way of travel. More and more consumers from all over the world are attracted to use the platform of Airbnb to book a local individual sharing house to access the authentic and unique local experience. Airbnb has also received attention from scholars recently, and they mainly focus on why consumers choose Airbnb. However, most of the studies have focused on European or American consumers, and there is less attention put on Chinses consumers. We aim to fill in this research gap in this thesis, and we develop a study on the motivation and constrain factors influencing the attitude of Chinese consumers toward Airbnb. Drawing inspiration from previous research (So, Oh and Min, 2018), we employ a mixed-method research design in this thesis to collect empirical data including semi-structure interview and questionnaire. We conduct an online survey with 316 respondents, and analyze it through SPSS. Our qualitative research confirms the 8 factors, price value, enjoyment, trust, insecurity, home benefit, authenticity, social interaction and perceived risk are factors to influence Chinese consumers’ attitude toward Airbnb. For the quantitative research, the first four factors mentioned above are tested as significant factors to influence Chinese consumers and the last four factors are tested as insignificant factors. Comparing with American and Canadian consumers studied by So et al. (2018), “price value” and “enjoyment” take significant influence both on American and Canadian consumers and Chinese consumers. Both the two groups are not influenced by “authenticity”, “social interaction” or “perceived risk” significantly. American and Canadian consumer concern “home benefit”, but Chinese consumers don’t. Insecurity significantly influences Chinese consumers, but not for American and Canadian consumers. Distrust significantly influences American and Canadian consumers, while trust motivate significantly Chinese consumers’ attitude.

This diploma thesis Business plan: Flats for rent to foreign tourists shows the reader the solution of business plan and project management in the real world. Theoretical part of this thesis focuses on the basic structure of a business plan, financial part of this diploma thesis and shortly describes the legal issues of rent the flat in the Czech Republic. Everything is applied in the practical part of this thesis, where the project is described, after that analysis of the inner and outer environment are made. The next chapter describes in detail the conditions for the implementation of marketing strategy. The last chapter of this thesis is devoted to financial plan, in which are calculated few scenarios of the business idea and possible risks of this project. The processing of the business plan is focused on practical application and is designed as instructions on how to start a business in this subject.

Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to develop a conceptualized model, which identifies the significant variables of perceived risk for current Airbnb users towards becoming a host of their own residence on Airbnb’s platform. There is a lack of information concerning the host’s risk perception to cross the trust barrier in order to become a host on Airbnb (Ter Huurne, et al., 2017). For Airbnb it is of significant importance to provide new residences since it contributes to the growth of its platform. Likewise, it applies to managing potential risks in order to generate a positive vicious circle with the absence of trusted authorities or third parties (Wu, et al., 2017). Methods A new applicable model was constructed that served as the conceptual framework for this thesis. The model consists of twelve variables, where each variable has a possible influence on the overall perceived risk for Airbnb users to become a host of their own residence on Airbnb’s platform. The survey embodied the perceived risk variables and applied a predetermined set of answers. A prerequisite was that the respondents were familiar with the platform Airbnb by having a registered account. Findings There was found to be a discrepancy between millennials’ and non-millennials’ perception of risk. Millennials found financial risk, privacy risk (payment), social risk (neighbours), physical risk, and lack of control risk to be significant. Non-millennials found performance risk, privacy risk (in-house), and lack of control risk to be significant. Both models showed that the variable ‘lack of control’ was the biggest influencer on overall perceived risk. The results also indicate that millennials are more susceptible to let financial benefits outweigh their perceived risk in comparison to non-millennials, whereas social benefits are perceived similarly. On a last note, non-millennials’ overall risk perception was found to be considerably higher than for millennials. Implications The results present a conceptual model that is based on perceived risk for e-commerce (Featherman & Pavlou, 2003). Moreover, this conceptual model added the components physical risk (Jacoby & Kaplan, 1972) and lack of control risk (Das & Teng, 2004) in order to identify overall perceived risk for Airbnb users to become a host of their own residence on Airbnb’s platform.

隨著時代變遷，每個人的家庭結構、生活型態、消費行為及價值觀…等方面，也隨之改變。再加上人們休閒時間的增加，因此外出旅遊的次數也隨之上升。而伴隨著網路時代的來臨，共享經濟（Sharing Economy）一詞逐漸被大眾知曉，其概念是強調將自己的閒置資源，透過網路平台分享、出租的方式，以合理的價格與其他有需要的人共用資源。也就是使用者以「租賃」取代「購買」。這一概念的出現，使得人們在出外旅遊時多了一種除了飯店與民宿之外的住宿選擇。 以P2P住房網站中的Aribnb為例，在預定該平台上之房源前，我們僅能參考房東所提供之房源照片及資訊，但無法證實這些資訊之真實性。而租賃雙方只能依靠網站上所述之評價來評斷對方之品行。但這一切的資訊都是可以造假的，因此我們該如何信任該平台上之對方，是一件很重要的事情。因此，我們可以透過區塊鏈技術來加強租賃雙方之見的信任，以及改善目前該住房網站所面臨的一些問題與痛點。 而區塊鏈是一種不依賴第三方、通過自身分散式節點進行網路數據的存儲、驗證、傳遞和交流的一種技術。該技術主要具有去中心化、透明性、開放性、不可竄改性及安全性…等性質。我們可以利用這些性質去強化租賃雙方之間的信任，以及確保儲存在該網站之所有資訊的真實性，使得使用該平台的所有用戶都擁有極大的安全性。因此，本研究將以共享經濟中著名的案例—Airbnb為例，探討目前Airbnb的營運模式、區塊鏈技術，以及加入區塊鏈技術後對Airbnb這個住房網站所帶來之影響。 / The number of outbound travel had increased a lot because of new living style. The sharing economy has also been emerged from the new internet age. The concept of sharing economy is to utilize idle resources, through the Internet platform to share, rent them at a reasonable price and other people in need. That is, people have new option to "lease" instead of "buy". In the case of sharing economy of housing such as Aribnb in the P2P housing website, people can only refer to the housing photos and information provided by the landlord before booking the premises on the platform, but people is not able to confirm the authenticity of the information. And both parties can only rely on the lease on the evaluation of the site to judge each other's conduct. But all this information might be false, so how do we trust the other side on the platform, is a very important issue. As a result, we can strengthen the trust of both parties through the blockchain technology and improve some of the problems and pain points facing the P2P housing website. Blockchain is a technology that doesn't rely on third parties to store, validate, transmit and communicate network data through its own distributed nodes. The technology has the characteristics of decentralized, transparency, openness and security and so on. These characteristics can strengthen the trust between the two parties and to ensure that all the information stored in the blockchain. Therefore, this thesis uses Airbnb as a case to discuss the current Airbnb operating model and the impact on business model with the addition of blockchain.

The thesis concentrates on the impact of the sharing economy on consumer behavior in tourism. The theoretical part focuses on several approaches towards consumer behavior and the importance of mobile technologies for the growth of the sharing economy. The second part later deals with characterization of the sharing economy, determination of the key players and most importantly researches the impact of this phenomenon on consumer behavior in tourism, especially in the area of accommodation and transportation.

The thesis focuses on the phenomenon of the sharing economy. Using Airbnb as an example to show the opportunities and threats that the sharing economy may bring to companies, individuals and society. The thesis is divided into several chapters, the theoretical part is devoted to the analysis of the marketing environment, marketing strategy, the specifics of marketing mix of tourism and the theoretical background of sharing economy. The practical part is dedicated to company introduction and analyzes marketing activities of Airbnb both in Czech republic and abroad. The main goal of this thesis is to reveal the potential od Czech market for Airbnb through market research, identify the future goals of the company and suggest how to achieve these goals.

In recent years, a new wave power of sharing economy, or known as collaborative consumption has emerged in accommodation, and tourism marketplaces (Guttentag, 2015). Airbnb is one of the most talked-about among the sharing hospitality companies, which is an online marketplace and a platform connecting worldwide travelers with local hosts somewhere. Although Airbnb has two types of users, guests and hosts, in current studies of Airbnb hosts, most researchers focus on the hosts from a business perspective. This study aimed to identify and understand hosts’ motivations to start the Airbnb business, and the benefits and challenges in a host’s experience. The informal interview was the method for the study, and data were processed by thematic analysis. The results find that motivations varied from host to host when sharing nature in common. The benefits overweighed the challenges in each host’s experience since participants could gain economic benefits (extra income), mental health (brain exercise for old hosts) and well-being (cross-cultural social learning) in sharing economy. Worries about security and extra physical work did not bother most hosts, and the effects of a tax on Airbnb hosts were not obvious.