Airbnb general behavior in the three most populous cities of Ecuador: availability, guests’ place of origin, and occupancy rate

Abstract

The objective of this study is to understand the impact of the Airbnb service with respect to hotel occupancy rate, place of origin of the guests, social media, and the growth of Airbnb properties in the three most populous cities of Ecuador: Guayaquil, Quito, and Cuenca during six months (December 2018 to May 2019). A database that was purchased by this study’s authors on the web portal airdna.co was analyzed to identify the number of available places, the number of reservations, and the occupancy rate. The results show that there is a significant increase of 818 Airbnb properties during the six months evaluated. International guests are the most frequent users of the service, especially guests coming from the US city of New York. With respect to local use, the most recurrent guests are residents from the three cities analyzed. The means by which they receive information about the Airbnb properties is through Facebook and the Google web browser. There are significant differences between the Airbnb occupancy rate and the hotel occupancy rate in Quito, Guayaquil, and Cuenca, which shows a higher occupancy rate in hotels than in Airbnb services during the six months analyzed.