Users and non-users of P2P accommodation

Purpose: To better understand what inhibits people from participating in collaborative consumption, this paper aims to develop research models of users and non-users to examine the relationship between perceived risks and intentions to use peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation. Moreover, differences of risk perceptions and behavioral intentions between P2P accommodation users and non-users were identified. Design/methodology/approach: The method of convenience sampling was used to collect data. Excluding the invalid questionnaires, 520 were kept for further analysis. In this paper, SPSS and partial least squares (PLS) were used to analyze the data. Findings: The findings highlighted the important role of perceived risks in determining tourists’ intentions to use P2P accommodation. The results showed that non-users have higher perceived risks in regards to all four risk dimensions (psychological risk, physical risk, performance risk and social risk), and they also have significantly lower behavioral intentions to use P2P accommodation than the users. For users, only the psychological risk has significant negative effects on behavioral intentions, while for non-users, both psychological and physical risks are important inhibitors. Originality/value: This paper contributes to a better understanding of the antecedents that influence consumers’ participation in collaborative consumption in the P2P accommodation domain. Second, it extends the literature on perceived risk by discussing users and non-users in this market. Finally, this research provides insights into the P2P accommodation market in China, which enables online travel platforms to develop targeted marketing strategies.