Sustainability framings of accommodation sharing

- Accommodation sharing comprises rental, reciprocal and free platforms.
- The paper investigates how operators and users of these platforms frame sustainability of accommodation sharing.
- We study literature and empirical data from 10 interviews and 86 responses to a qualitative structured online questionnaire.
- We find that current sustainability framings of accommodation sharing vary among the three platform types.
- This has implications for the role of these platforms in advancing different types of sustainability.

The existing research often overlooks the fact that accommodation sharing is not a homogeneous sector but comprises rental, reciprocal and free platforms. This paper aims to compare sustainability narratives held by operators and users of the three platform types with the narratives identified in the literature. First, drawing on framing theory, environmental, economic and social framings of accommodation sharing are mapped based on the extant literature and expert interviews. Second, sustainability framings of operators and users from the three types of accommodation sharing platforms are presented. The data is collected via 10 in-depth interviews and 86 responses to a qualitative structured online questionnaire. We find that current framings of sustainability implications of accommodation sharing vary among those who formulate them as well as among the three platform types. This has implications for the role of these platforms in advancing different types of sustainability.