DOI: 10.11118/978-80-7509-820-7-0405

SHARED ACCOMMODATION: CURRENT STATE AND POSSIBILITIES OF ITS DEVELOPMENT ON THE ISLAND OF MADEIRA

Petr JANEČEK, Alena PUCOVÁ

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to analyse the current state and identify the potential for the development of shared accommodation in Madeira Island. Next goal is to identify barriers of its development based on the results of research about this type of accommodation and reduce them.
Design/methodology/approach: The literature review offers the basic understanding about information about sharing economy, but bigger focus is then on shared accommodation. The literature review also targets on the regulation of AirBnB in the world and the situation with AirBnB in the world. The research itself was divided into two sections. The first section is based on online questionings and the second on individual interviews. Online questionnaire survey is split up into two parts, the first part is focused on visitors from all over the world, who use shared accommodation, trying to find out, how travellers evaluate this specific type of accommodation and the second part is focused on providers of shared accommodation on the island of Madeira. To find out more opinions about shared accommodation, 10 individuals were approached. The individuals were asked questions, which were similar to the first survey, but more in depth. Respondents were asked for reasons and any thoughts about AirBnB. The data from both surveys were processed in program PSPP and Microsoft Excel.
Findings: Based on questionnaires it turned out that in many ways, answers of demand and supply are similar. Most respondents found out about AirBnB on the internet, the majority of both groups think that AirBnB is better than hotels and that AirBnB helps to develop tourism in the area but also that AirBnB is turning mainly into businesses and does not meet the main purpose of shared accommodation. The results also show that people are greatly influenced by reviews and without them, the chance of booking the accommodation is getting lower. Other answers indicate that most visitors prefer separated accommodations and most providers provide the entire homes with full privacy, so it collaborates very well. The research did not show significant difference in answers between genders. Respondents of demand shared their negative experiences such as noise, smell, not good communication with the host, not clean place but also positive experiences such as a little gift, clean place, reasonable price, kind host etc. The negative findings were recorded as barriers of the development and some tips how to improve their offer were suggested to providers, Tips how to behave when choosing and staying in AirBnB were also suggested to visitors. Individual interviews helped to understand why people prefer AirBnB rather than hotels and it is mostly because of privacy, the kitchen area and the unique experience.
Research limitations: The biggest limit is the focus on local environment of Island of Madeira that could be specific then overall worldwide environment. The second limit is based in research methodology. It was used online survey and research sample is limited (157 users and 30 providers of shared accommodation). The last limitation is time of research. The conditions of tourism and also shared accommodation are very influenced by COVID-19 pandemic.

Klíčová slova: AirBnB, shared economy, shared accommodation, Madeira Island

stránky: 405-417, Publikováno: 2021, online: 2021