LAUSR

The purpose of our study is to analyse whether consumers’ preferences—evaluated through social media—to different tourist sites have a significant impact on Airbnb’s prices. With this purpose, we develop an empirical application in the city of Barcelona where we evaluate the impact of Instagram—identifying the main points of interest in this city—on listings’ prices. We estimate a micro-territorial hedonic model on Airbnb’s prices against different subsamples established according to listings’ characteristics. Our results show a negative and significant effect for the representative variable of the geographic distance of Airbnb’s listings to the tourist sites on Instagram. In particular, each additional 10% increase in the distance from Instagram tourist spots to Airbnb’s listings resulted in a 2.7% decrease in Airbnb’s listing price in Barcelona. This study provides additional evidence about the relevant role of social networks when accommodation offerings are examined, even when we consider accommodations included in the sharing economy.