How Airbnb titles influence guests’ decision making : linguistic and spatial analysis approach

Abstract

Drawing on selective attention theory and language expectancy theory, and using a mixed method of text analysis and spatial analysis, this study examined the impacts of listing titles and locations on the financial performance of Airbnb properties. Guests’ preferred words and expected informative cues about property, location, and environment in Airbnb titles were first captured by a qualitative study. The results of the second study, which controlled for the spatial dependency based on the Hotspot analysis and geographically weighted regression for 14,938 property-level data in Phuket and Bangkok in Thailand, revealed that the linguistic styles and characteristics affecting the properties’ financial performance were significantly different between the two cities. For hosts in hot spots, affective and perceptive linguistic styles on the titles are recommended, while function-oriented information and photos should be highlighted for the cold spot areas.