The Copycat Effect: Do Hotel-Like Features Drive Airbnb Performance?

Abstract

While touting its distinctiveness from conventional hotels, Airbnb listings are appearing increasingly like hotels with professional features such as “instant booking” and “work collection” distinction. Does such isomorphism provide a financial advantage to Airbnb? Using large-scale Airbnb trajectory data from 10 major U.S. metropolitan areas over 3 years, we find superior financial performance for Airbnb listings that imitate hotels compared with those that do not. Yet, as more Airbnb listings enter a local market, the performance-driving advantage of work collection is attenuated while instant booking becomes stronger. Suggestions for future research regarding a legitimacy-tipping point in institutional theory are provided.