The construction of home feeling by Airbnb guests in the sharing economy: A semantics perspective

Abstract

Although the literature of peer-to-peer accommodation is increasingly recognizing the importance of home feeling, little has been done to theorize the construction of home feeling and its impacts on Airbnb guests’ future intention. To fill in this gap, this study systematically unpacked how Airbnb guests construct the feeling of home. A total of 42,085 review comments containing the feeling of home from three major cities in the USA were analyzed from a semantics perspective. Based on our findings we conceptualize home feeling as a PASS_h process, which contains multiple dimensions: physical and spatial, social, and affective, coupled with hospitality. Essentially, the home feeling with the interaction of these dimensions fulfills the daily hybrid needs of the guests.