Exploring the relationship between Airbnb and traditional accommodation for regional variations of tourism markets

Abstract

The relationship between Airbnb-based and traditional accommodation is mainly documented for key tourist destinations with a large tourism sector, while there is almost no evidence on this for other destinations. This article focuses on regional variations in the relationship between Airbnb-based and traditional accommodation across primary and secondary tourist destinations in Norway. Through an exploratory cluster analysis and a panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model with forecast error decomposition of shocks (unobserved effects), it finds evidence of spillovers from Airbnb-based accommodation to traditional accommodation in secondary destinations. The demand for traditional accommodation is positively affected by Airbnb demand in the long run. Interestingly, a smaller effect is found with the supply-side of regional tourism markets in the Norwegian secondary tourist destinations. The growth of Airbnb may, thus, spur growth in the general tourism sector in such less frequented destinations.