Airbnb's users voice: User-generated content representativeness, sentiment analysis and social media impact (TDX)

Supervisors:

Dra. Berta Ferrer Rosell

Dra. Eva Martin Fuentes

Summary:

Sharing economy has heavily transformed the tourism industry, particularly the accommodation sector. Furthermore, the CoViD-19 pandemic implemented lockdowns and mobility restrictions that global society had never experienced before. This thesis aims to address the situation of shared economy accommodation in Spanish tourism before, during, and after the pandemic. To begin with, a review of the literature on the two keywords "Airbnb" and "rentals" has been carried out, allowing us to get the actual picture of what has been published on the topic so far. Secondly, this thesis will also analyze more than 16 thousand of listings in Barcelona and 16 thousand more in Madrid on Airbnb (for short-term rentals) and Fotocasa (for long-term rentals) platforms, from Barcelona and Madrid, during recent years. On Airbnb it can be observed different trends referring to the volume of listings, types of accommodation, and whether the listings have been licensed or not. Afterward, based on this, the thesis also seeks to examine how the legislation of these two Spanish cities regarding the sharing economy accommodation market has impacted the collaborative economy offers. Thus, considering the data intervals (pre, during, and post-pandemic), the changes in the market trends will be analyzed focusing on the new users’ interests, such as the digital nomads. Finally, this thesis also aims to determine the reliability of the percentage of individuals who participated in writing reviews on Airbnb.