Where access meets sustainability: a qualitative multi-city reading of accessibility and green disclosure in peer-to-peer short-term rental platforms
Damla Karagozlu, Ahmet Adalier, Kian JazayeriPurpose
This paper examines whether accessibility and sustainability are pursued together or separately in peer-to-peer short-term rental accommodation, and what this implies for platforms, hosts and destinations advancing Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8.9 and SDG 10.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative comparative content analysis covered all 624,581 public listings in twenty-two developed and emerging short-term rental markets. One set of coding rules, with word lists in the main local languages, separated access provision from access barriers and environmental equipment from everyday practice. Guest reviews from Albany and New York City served as depth cases.
Findings
The platform's amenity vocabulary contains environmental terminology but no accessibility terminology. Hosts mention access barriers far more often than provision, and the two topics rarely appear together. Developed markets mention access about three times as often as emerging markets, which mention environmental equipment twice as often. Disclosure concentrates among professionalized operators without commercial penalty. In both depth cases, guest reviews reported obstacles that listings had not disclosed.
Practical implications
The binding constraint on inclusive short-term rental accommodation is informational rather than physical, and inexpensive to relieve. An action agenda is offered for platforms, hosts, destination managers and regulators.
Social implications
Absent access information shifts search cost to the traveler least able to absorb it, touching SDG 10.2, SDG 11.7 and the risk that SDG 12 progress leaves SDG 10 behind.
Originality/value
This paper offers a comparative analysis across twenty-two developed and emerging markets, introduces the disclosed barrier as an analytical category and reads together SDG targets ordinarily invoked separately.