A First Look at Online Reputation on Airbnb, Where Every Stay is Above Average
Open accessAbstract
Judging by the millions of reviews left by guests on the Airbnb platform, this trusted community marketplace for accommodations is fulfilling its mission of matching travelers with hosts having room to spare remarkably well. Based on our analysis of ratings, we collected for millions of properties listed on Airbnb worldwide, we find that nearly 95% of Airbnb properties boast an average star-rating of either 4.5 or 5 stars (the maximum); virtually none have less than a 3.5 star-rating. We contrast this with the ratings of roughly 700,000 hotels, B&Bs, and vacation rentals worldwide that we collected from TripAdvisor. We find that hotel and B&B average ratings are much lower—3.8 and 4.1 stars, respectively—with much more variance across reviews. TripAdvisor vacation rental ratings are more similar to Airbnb ratings, but only about 85% of properties have an average rating of 4.5 or 5 stars. We then consider properties cross-listed on both platforms. For these properties, we find that even though the average ratings on Airbnb and TripAdvisor are more similar than hotels and B&Bs, proportionally more properties receive the highest ratings (4.5 stars and above) on Airbnb than on TripAdvisor. Moreover, there is only a weak correlation in the ratings of individual cross-listed properties across the two platforms. Finally, we show that these differences are consistent when considering data from two different time periods: 2015 and 2018.
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Zervas et al. (2015) demonstrate that grade inflation is also severe on Airbnb, with ratings averaged at 4.7 out of 5 stars and 94% of property ratings with 4.5 or 5 stars.
“Zervas et al. (2015) demonstrate that grade inflation is also severe on Airbnb (where ratings are overwhelmingly positive), averaged at 4.7 out of 5 stars with 94% of property ratings with 4.5 or 5 stars.”
From Reputation and Feedback Systems in Online Platform Markets (2016) · cites this paper as Zervas et al. (2015)
eBay added features: a system allowing users to review each other as positive, neutral, or negative; aggregation into numerical scores; specific categories for reviews; and distinctions like coloured stars, power seller status, and punishments like NARU.
“This started with a system allowing users to review each other as “positive”, “neutral” or “negative” and to leave a line of feedback or description (such as that at the bottom of Figure 2).Next, these reviews were aggregated into numerical scores for each user (positive reviews added a point, negative reviews subtracted one, and neutral reviews had no effect), and presented in terms of different”
From Evaluative infrastructures: Accounting for platform organization (2017) · cites this paper as Zervas et al, 2015
All profile elements were created to reflect the general ratings and content observed on Sharing Economy platform profiles to ensure quality and ecological validity.
“To ensure quality and ecological validity, all elements were created to reflect the general ratings and content observed on SE platform profiles [4,47].”
From Digital Identity: The effect of trust and reputation information on user judgement in the Sharing Economy (2018) · cites this paper as [4]
Ratings on SE platforms show a stronger bias towards high ratings than on other P2P platforms, which severely reduces their usefulness to users.
“Indeed, ratings on SE platforms show a stronger bias towards high ratings than on other P2P platforms [4,47], which severely reduces their usefulness to users.”
From Digital Identity: The effect of trust and reputation information on user judgement in the Sharing Economy (2018) · cites this paper as [4]
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What Do Platforms Do? Understanding the Gig Economy
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If nearly all <i>Airbnb</i> reviews are positive, does that make them meaningless?
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- Authors
- Zervas, G., Proserpio, D., & Byers, J.
- Affiliations
- Boston University (US)
- University of Southern California (US)
- Corresponding author
- Proserpio, Davide
- Venue
- Marketing Letters
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2015
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-16
- ISSN
- 0923-0645 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3125596464
- Cited by
- 601
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 44 · 2025: 50 · 2024: 48 · 2023: 57 · 2022: 70 · 2021: 55 · 2020: 57 · 2019: 75 · 2018: 60 · 2017: 51 · 2016: 26 · 2015: 8
- FWCI
- 61.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- Marketing Letters (publishedVersion)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- OpenBU (Boston University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Sharing Economy and Platforms
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Marketing and Social Media
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research
- Keywords
- Airbnb, online reputation, star ratings, peer review, vacation rental, hotels, B&B, TripAdvisor
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