When Western Hosts Meet Eastern Guests: Airbnb Hosts’ Experience with Chinese Outbound Tourists

Abstract

As the number of Chinese tourists using Airbnb for their holiday accommodation is steadily increasing, this study investigates western Airbnb hosts' experiences with Chinese outbound tourists. In an analysis of hosts' self-reported posts on the Airbnb community forum, the main issues that emerged relate to Chinese guests' daily habits and lifestyles, cultural differences, and language barriers. This research highlights the role that cultural differences and tradition play in guest–host encounters, and offers a theoretical framework on inter-cultural host–guest relationship that provides an initial understanding of this phenomenon. This study extends the knowledge on the host–guest paradigm in the peer-to-peer accommodation literature from an inter-cultural perspective. This article also launches the Annals of Tourism Research Curated Collection on Peer-to-peer accommodation networks, a special selection of research in this field.