Re-aligning market and hospitality assemblages: the case of peer-to-peer hospitality in Japan

ABSTRACT This study investigates how non-professional hosts affect market formation in the hospitality industry. The data collected was derived from peer-to-peer (P2P) hospitality practices in Japan via platforms like Airbnb. The data showed a tension between market and hospitality principles of profit-making and welcoming strangers, respectively. Initially, it appeared that non-professional hosts would conduct business based on economic calculations or focussed on hospitality which may include uncosted incidental services. However, the empirical analysis reveals that whilst the market framings facilitate accommodation creation, in practice non-professional hosts forge an avenue between hospitality and commerce, at a distance from initial hospitality and market framings. In this way, the practices of non-professional actors challenge the purpose of both market exchange and private hospitality and actualise alternative forms of commercial hospitality. This study revisits Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of assemblage to contribute to explicate market formation at the intersection with non-market spheres.