Business continuity management in the sharing economy: Insights from Airbnb online reviews

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how text mining of online reviews can support business continuity management in the sharing economy during market turbulence. We use topic modelling and sentiment analysis of Airbnb online reviews to identify specific areas where short-term rental hosts can harness the power of the sharing-economy business model to bounce back from market disruption. The dataset comprises 894,686 online Airbnb reviews from the pre- and post-Covid periods. We approach the pandemic as a paradigm example of a high-impact, external market shock and infer insights and recommendations from the dataset that are relevant to the general understanding of business continuity management in the short-term rental, peer-to-peer sharing economy.