Pricing Approaches on Airbnb. The Case of 2020 New Listings in Porto

The COVID-19 pandemic had serious economic effects, forcing businesses to adjust their strategies to survive. The tourism sector was one of the most affected due to the imposed travel restrictions; both traditional units and people providing services to tourists through the sharing economy platforms had to adapt. The objective of this paper is to build a hedonic price model to identify the attributes that significantly influence the price of the room, using the WLS regression model. Despite the general negative trend, there were also hosts who considered that opening a new listing during these times may represent a business opportunity. Therefore, the focus of the article is on newly opened listings on the Airbnb platform during 2020. The approach used included the main categories of variables discussed previously in the literature: listing attributes, listing location, listing reputation, rental policies, and hosts characteristics/involvement. The maximum number of guests accepted in the property, the type of listing, and the availability of air conditioning (AC) and parking represent the main characteristics that influence the prices. Changes in travel behaviour due to increased health and safety concerns made hosts aware that guests are willing to pay more to stay in central locations or in places owned by Superhosts.