A critical review of sharing economy in tourism

The purpose of this contribute is to propose a conceptual framework on sharing economy in tourism, with a focus on the online collaborative platforms. A critical and systematic literature review on the topic of sharing economy in tourism is provided, which is useful to identify key factors and drivers that characterize the business models of the online collaborative platforms in tourism. According to Hamari et al. (2016), the term sharing economy includes the sharing of consumption through online platforms. On the basis of World Economic Forum data, the phenomenon of the sharing economy has continued to grow since 2013. It is estimated that by 2025 the value of this phenomenon will reach 335 billion dollars (PwC, 2014). Most of this growth will depend on the tourism sector, where the sharing economy brought the concept of online collaborative platforms as a valid alternative to professional tourism services (Tussyadiah & Pesonen, 2018; Tussyadiah & Zach, 2017; Young, Corsun & Xie, 2017). The spread of sharing economy in some tourism services, such as accommodation and transport, is undergoing profound changes in the traditional business models. As a consequence, in the long term huge changes will have in the structure of the whole sector (Forbes, 2015). Despite the wide potential of sharing economy in tourism, the phenomenon is still little known and the scientific contributions, largely fragmented, do not provide a clear definition of the functioning of the online collaborative platforms and do not examine in depth their related business models. In order to contribute to the scientific advancement on this topic, 107 papers on the sharing economy in tourism have been identified and critically reviewed. Three of the largest and most popular online databases and search engines have been used to select the papers: Scopus, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar (Buhalis and Law, 2008). As a first step, the papers were reviewed one by one and key information were collected, such as publication trends, location studies, methodology, tourism contexts, and main topics. These information have allowed to obtain a descriptive analysis of the sharing economy in tourism and of the collaborative platforms that operate in the sector. As a second step, a critical systematization of the identified literature on the topic has allowed to reveal relevant elements of sharing economy, which are useful to create a conceptual framework. In detail, the main features of the phenomenon of sharing economy in tourism have been identified; the inexistence of a common definition of sharing economy in tourism is arisen, as well as the differences with collaborative consumption have been highlighted. The different business models that are at the basis of the main online collaborative platforms and the main impacts that different business models have on the success of the platforms are provided. Finally, the study wants to provide main theoretical and managerial implications useful for both scholars and practitioners who are facing the topic of sharing economy in tourism. In particular, the study wants to identify new issues for a research agenda useful to face the challenge of sharing economy in tourism in the future. This study contributes to the literature on the sharing economy in tourism and, more specifically, the study proposes a conceptual framework to better understand how the online collaborative platforms operates in the sector.