Airbnb landlords and price strategy: Have they learnt price discrimination from the hotel industry? Evidence from Barcelona

The hospitality industry is facing a major disruption as a consequence of Airbnb and similar peer-to-peer platforms. This empirical research analyses the impact of perceived quality in pricing differences according to seasonality. Upper-scale hotels show less difference comparing peak and low season prices than do middle-scale hotels. Airbnb landlords discriminate prices according to seasonality, but contrary to the hotels, there are generally no differences between weekday and weekend pricing. Perceived quality seems to have a lower effect on prices for Airbnb apartments compared to the hotel industry, suggesting the idea of two clearly different business models.