The Collaborative Economy, Tourism and Sustainable Development

This chapter explores the collaborative economy, tourism and sustainability. The emergence of the digital collaborative economy has had profound transformative effects on the structure, organisation and business logics underpinning contemporary tourism (Dredge & Gyimóthy, 2017). It is opening up new business opportunities and livelihoods traditionally inaccessible to many individuals, and is driving deep transformation within existing industry practices. It is, however, not as new as many advocates claim, and can be best understood as an old economic model that has been transformed by the digitalisation processes associated with Industry 4.0 (Gilchrist, 2016; Smit et al., 2016). The collaborative economy has been claimed to be more sustainable than traditional business practices by lowering consumption and using existing resources more effectively (Botsman & Rogers, 2010). However, there is little evidence to support these claims, and for a variety of reasons, it has been difficult to undertake research to verify such assertions (Dredge & Gyimóthy, 2015). What is clear however, is that the collaborative economy is responsible for wide-ranging social and economic impacts and has proven to be very difficult to regulate. Despite these potential concerns, all indications are that it will continue to expand unabated. The impact and effects of the growth of the collaborative economy on sustainability is, therefore, a major issue that warrants further investigation.