Morrison, Alastair ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0754-1083 (2024) The sharing economy and urban sustainability. In: Maxim, Cristina, Morrison, Alastair ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0754-1083, Day, Jonathon and Coca-Stefaniak, J. Andres ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5711-519X, (eds.) Handbook of Sustainable Urban Tourism. Research Handbooks in Tourism series - Geography, Planning and Tourism 2024 . Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., Cheltenham, UK; and Northampton, Massachusetts USA, pp. 217-233. ISBN 978-1803926735; 978-1803926742 (doi:10.4337/9781803926742.00024)

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Abstract

The International Journal of Tourism Cities (IJTC) in 2020 published a Special Issue entitled Overtourism and the sharing economy. The Guest Editors stated that “this breakthrough innovation has changed the tourism ecosystem and tourism destinations at all levels” (Moreno-Gil and Coca-Stefaniak, 2020, p. 1). The coupling of overtourism and the sharing economy is a common theme as the platform models are often blamed for disrupting urban communities (Grisdale, 2021; Jover and Díaz-Parra, 2022; Richards, Brown, and Dilettuso, 2020). In fact, many of the sources one reads about the sharing economy and tourism are critical and focus on the dark side (Malhotra and Van Alstyne, 2014; Rinne, 2018) of this relationship in urban areas. However, there are many positives to the sharing economy that must be considered to arrive at a fair and impartial view of this concept. Thus, the main aim of this chapter is to present a balanced account of the impacts of the sharing economy on urban sustainability based mainly on academic and practitioner literature sources. The specific objectives are to: 1. Identify the catalysts for the emergence of the sharing economy; 2. Review the perceived positive and negative impacts of the sharing economy on sustainable urban tourism; 3. Examine the corporate social responsibility initiatives of major sharing economy providers; 4. Explore stakeholder involvement and attitudes toward the sharing economy; 5. Describe the relationship of the sharing economy and sustainability; and 6. Consider the future outlook for the sharing economy in urban areas. Many contributions have been made to the academic literature on the sharing economy, and particularly since 2013. In these ten years, articles span multiple journals across numerous disciplines. A search of the Web of Science Core Collection in February 2023 indicated 2,026 sources for sharing economy * tourism, and 616 for sharing economy * hospitality. The first article involving tourism was published in 2013 by Molz in Annals of Tourism Research (Molz, 2013) and reviewed Couchsurfing.com. The most cited article was “Trust and reputation in the sharing economy: The role of personal photos in Airbnb” by Ert, Fleischer, and Magen in 2016 in Tourism Management with 724 citations. For hospitality, the most cited (487 citations) was “Sharing economy: A review and agenda for future research” by Cheng (2016), published in the International Journal of Hospitality Management. There were 245 sources for sharing economy * urban tourism, the most cited (185 citations) being “Holiday rentals: The research battlefront” in Sociological Research Online by Gant (2016). Kuhzady, Olya, Farmaki, and Ertaş (2021, p. 556), in a systematic literature review, noted a remarkable growth in publications on hospitality and tourism and the sharing economy from 2017 onward. Overall, the most cited article (1,474 citations) on the sharing economy in general was “The sharing economy: Why people participate in collaborative consumption” by Hamari, Sjöklint, and Ukkonen (2016) in the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. Several literature review articles have been published on the sharing economy and collaborative consumption that provide convenient summaries of the academic contributions to date. These include Abdalla, Amankwah-Amoah, and Badewi (2023), sharing economy ecosystems; Belarmino and Koh, (2020), peer-to-peer accommodation; Cheng (2016), sharing economy; Jin, Kong, Wu, and Sui (2018), ridesharing; and Kuhzady, Olya, Farmaki, and Ertaş (2021), sharing economy in hospitality and tourism.

Item Type:	Book Section
Uncontrolled Keywords:	collaborative consumption; Corporate social responsibility (CSR); crowdfunding; gentrification; millennials; overtourism; paradox; peer-to-peer; platform models; regulation; shared mobility; sharing economy; Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); touristification
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Business Greenwich Business School > Tourism and Marketing Research Centre (TMRC) Greenwich Business School > Networks and Urban Systems Centre (NUSC)
Last Modified:	02 Dec 2024 16:26
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/46909

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