{"title":"The “Beauty Premium” Phenomenon: Appearance Discrimination in the P2p Market","authors":"Hengyun Li, Danting Cai, Gang Li, Mingming Hu","doi":"10.1177/00472875241227611","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The online P2P accommodation market, including Airbnb, encourages accommodation hosts to upload profile photos. However, the inclusion of a profile photo may carry consequences such as appearance discrimination. Using secondary Airbnb data from Beijing, China, this study investigates the presence of the “beauty premium” in the relatively low-priced accommodation market and examines the extent to which consumers discriminate based on hosts’ facial appearance from a supply perspective. Three experiments were conducted to respectively examine the impacts of hosts’ facial beauty on customers’ willingness-to-pay, boundary conditions, and underlying mechanisms. The findings emphasize the importance of hosts’ visual self-disclosure in reducing appearance-based discrimination. By providing practical implications for P2P platform operators and accommodation hosts, this research contributes to a better understanding of appearance-based biases in the online accommodation market and reveals strategies for mitigating negative effects.","PeriodicalId":48435,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Travel Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Travel Research","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00472875241227611","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HOSPITALITY, LEISURE, SPORT & TOURISM","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The online P2P accommodation market, including Airbnb, encourages accommodation hosts to upload profile photos. However, the inclusion of a profile photo may carry consequences such as appearance discrimination. Using secondary Airbnb data from Beijing, China, this study investigates the presence of the “beauty premium” in the relatively low-priced accommodation market and examines the extent to which consumers discriminate based on hosts’ facial appearance from a supply perspective. Three experiments were conducted to respectively examine the impacts of hosts’ facial beauty on customers’ willingness-to-pay, boundary conditions, and underlying mechanisms. The findings emphasize the importance of hosts’ visual self-disclosure in reducing appearance-based discrimination. By providing practical implications for P2P platform operators and accommodation hosts, this research contributes to a better understanding of appearance-based biases in the online accommodation market and reveals strategies for mitigating negative effects.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Travel Research (JTR) stands as the preeminent, peer-reviewed research journal dedicated to exploring the intricacies of the travel and tourism industry, encompassing development, management, marketing, economics, and behavior. Offering a wealth of up-to-date, meticulously curated research, JTR serves as an invaluable resource for researchers, educators, and industry professionals alike, shedding light on behavioral trends and management theories within one of the most influential and dynamic sectors. Established in 1961, JTR holds the distinction of being the longest-standing among the world’s top-ranked scholarly journals singularly focused on travel and tourism, underscoring the global significance of this multifaceted industry, both economically and socially.