Exploring the role of social function integrated in peer-to-peer property rental platform: evidence from Airbnb in Beijing

In 2017, Airbnb launched a pilot integrated social function (i.e., Stories) in China. This study focuses on the Stories feature where users in China locales can share experience and recommend accommodations via stories, exploring the effects of this feature on guests’ booking behavior and hosts’ performance. This study draws three findings. First, accommodations recommended by stories are more likely to attract bookings. Second, for multi-listing hosts, once one of their properties has been recommended by a story, the rest listings will also benefit from the story. Third, the story’s effectiveness is heterogeneous, significantly depending on the attractiveness of its content.