Sharing Economy: Challenges and Opportunities in Tourism

In the last decades, our society and the economy have undergone great changes that led to the emergence of new economic models. These models emerged in the developed countries. Subsequently, the informational revolution has expanded across the globe, and contributed to the development of these new models. The sharing economy is one of them. Through technology and the internet, tools that provide instant access to information from anywhere in the world, the collaborative economy expands and grows continuously. This allows for easier interaction between people of all categories. The aim of this paper is to highlight the challenges, opportunities and benefits brought by the sharing economy regarding the national and international tourism, as well as to find out to what extent is the availability, accessibility, consumer and stakeholders' degree of acceptance towards the current technological infrastructure. The paper contains the analysis of a study case regarding the Airbnb business model, company that has been involved in the economic transition of the last years and contributed to the emergence of the sharing economy. As well, the article contains a study of collected data with regards to the distributed spaces on the company's site from 5 Romanian cities, and 5 European cities, in a certain period, statistical data regarding the online bookings made in member countries of the European Union, and data about the accommodation units in Romania, the number of overnight stays and arrivals. This research is useful for all individuals or legal entities involved in the tourism field in order to acknowledge in what way and to what extent the accommodation units in Romania are evaluated and rated. Moreover, the possible options for touristic improvement and development through the sharing economy, in terms of quality, technological infrastructure and approach are evaluated. We consider that it is important how the sharing economy impacts and influences Romania to a lesser extent, and what repercussions or changes will occur in the future.