Beyond Airbnb. Determinants of Customer Satisfaction in P2P Accommodation in Time of COVID-19

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

- Add to the Introduction and Abstract what is P2P;

- please, emphasize the research gap;

- Why do you use Web of Science? Google Scholar is wider. If you use Google Scholar you can analyze more value studies.

- Discussion, What is similar and what is different from previous studies?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors:

The manuscript discussed the determinants of customer satisfaction, host service quality, and facility service quality of P2P accommodation markets by regression analysis. It is an interesting perspective that customers could give a different perception of accommodation experience when using other accommodation platforms. However, several issues need to be considered.

Firstly, two significant issues exist in the literature review and research method. From the manuscript, I doubt the authors’ literature search capability, for plenty of literature satisfied the conditions such as service quality, consumer satisfaction, and Airbnb. And in my opinion, this caused the inaccuracy of the following conclusions, which were reflected in part 2.3, “Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction in the P2P Accommodation Market”. Therefore, I suggest the authors spend some time on the literature review practice. Another significant issue is the research method was a little vulnerable. By concluding the literature on service quality and customer satisfaction, the authors should’ve known that structure modeling analysis is the predominant method in empirical studies. And the determinants that could affect consumers’ satisfaction have been well discussed with diversified variables. I recommend the authors do a multi-group analysis to explore further the difference in consumer satisfaction between tourists who use Airbnb and those who use other P2P accommodation platforms.

Then, the manuscript didn’t highlight the influence of Covid-19 nor the description of sustainability. So why is the title “...... in time of Covid-19”, and why did the authors submit the manuscript on Sustainability?

Lastly, the tables and figures of the manuscript have format problems: 1) they lacked the necessary notes on the tables and figures. For example, in table 6, the authors need to clarify the independent and dependent variables, respectively. And the numbers in figure 2 need to be accompanied by explanatory notes. 2) the messy table formats destructed the readability of the manuscript, such as table 2, table 3, and table 7. It is necessary to unify the format as a whole.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The article addresses an issue of great relevance to tourism and hospitality, particularly in the growing airbnb market, concerning customer satisfaction and behavior.

The article presents a coherent articulation in the approaches followed, in the relationship between the concepts, and in the timeliness and relevance of the bibliographical references. 

The operating logic, the problems and the players that make up the P2P market are perceived.

We suggest the development of a specific field on research methodology, systematizing the means and tools used to collect information, identifying the problems and constraints associated with the forms of data collection and processing.

The tables produced require revision, seeking to make them more uniform, clear and identifying the supporting references that constitute their structuring elements.

Tables 2, 3 and 4 need to be formatted and standardized to allow for easier reading.

We suggest a deeper and more explanatory interpretation of the statistical indicators produced and, if possible, with infographic support.  Simultaneously, a synthesis of the main results should be considered, promoting greater objectivity in the analysis and understanding of the results achieved in the research. Separate the limitations from the conclusions.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

In discussion section add information about similarities and differences of results with reference to previous studies

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your fruitful comments. We addressed the issue you mentioned and add to the discussion section. We have also rewritten the practical implications comments.

Best regards

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors:

We can see the authors took every piece of advice seriously and made some improvements to the manuscript, such as adjusting the tables and explaining the role of Covid-19. I appreciate the author's efforts and performance. However, in my opinion, it is a pity that the core issues of the manuscript didn't address well.

Still, the ability to search for literature needs to be improved. A literature review is based on collecting a large number of literature materials for a particular research field or topic. A review comprehensively reflects the historical background, previous work, controversy, research status, and development prospects of the relevant field by thoroughly analyzing the main research results, latest progress, research trends, and frontier issues at home and abroad. For now, it is far from the criterion of literature review, which should be specialized, comprehensive, in-depth, and systematic.

Besides, from the authors' reply, the authors seem to have known that the model in the manuscript is simple; therefore chose regression analysis as the data analyze method. Indeed, there is no priority for research method, but the existing innovations of the manuscript were vulnerable, leading to a low contribution to scholarship.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your fruitful comments.

We have modified the introduction by inserting new references. Alas, we cannot add much to the literature review as we applied a PRISMA-based systematic literature review (SLR) selection based on identified keywords. Still, we have rewritten the implications section after considering your suggestions.

Thank you very much for your comments about the model. Indeed, our model is simple, but it was not our intention to contribute to the scholarship by introducing a new model. Based on SLR, we found two major research gaps: 1. All previous research was based on online data 2. Previous works were based solely on Airbnb experience. Our intention was to first address these gaps and therefore contribute to existing knowledge. Although we found that despite different research processes we obtained similar results, this is also an important contribution both to scholars and also to managers, as they do not need to conduct a targeted marketing for customers using different distribution channels. Hence, in our humble opinion, we succeeded in creating a meaningful contribution. Again thank you very much for your comments, they helped us realize that our contribution was not pronounced clearly enough. In the latest version of our paper, we addressed this issue as well.

Best regards

Authors