Paper_1_1_3 e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 2/3, 2019 http://ertr.tamu.edu 24 Marianna Sigala University of South Australia Martina Toni University of Roma Tre Maria Francesca Renzi University of Roma Tre Laura Di Pietro University of Roma Tre Roberta Guglielmetti Mugion University of Roma Tre Gamification in Airbnb: Benefits and Risks Gamification has been studied in various contexts, but not in P2P platforms. Research has also overemphasised the benefits of gamification ignoring its boundaries and counterproductive impacts. This study addresses these gaps by using Airbnb as a case study for investigating the application and (negative and positive) impacts of gamification on hosts’ motivation and behaviour. Secondary data were used for examining the funware design of Airbnb, while gamification theory is reviewed for designing a qualitative study with Airbnb hosts for investigating their perceptions and reactions to the Airbnb funware design. Key words: Gamification; Funware; P2P platforms; tourism; mechanics; impacts SIDS, Marianna Sigala Business School University of South Australia North Terrace, Adelaide, 5001, South Australia Adelaide, Australia Australia Email: Marianna.Sigala@unisa.edu.au Martina Toni Department of Business Studies University of Roma Tre Via Silvio D’Amico 77, 00145 Rome, Italy Email: martina.toni@uniroma3.it Maria Francesca Renzi Department of Business Studies University of Roma Tre Via Silvio D’Amico 77, 00145 Rome, Italy Email: mariafrancesca.renzi@uniroma3.it e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 2/3, 2019 http://ertr.tamu.edu 25 Laura Di Pietro Department of Business Studies University of Roma Tre Via Silvio D’Amico 77, 00145 Rome, Italy Email: laura.dipietro@uniroma3.it Roberta Guglielmetti Mugion Department of Business Studies University of Roma Tre Via Silvio D’Amico 77, 00145 Rome, Italy Email: roberta.guglielmettimugion@uniroma3.it Marianna Sigala is Professor at the University of South Australia and Director of the Centre for Tourism & Leisure Management. She is an international authority in the field of technological advances and applications in tourism with numerous awarded publications, research projects, keynote presentations in international conferences. In 2016, she has been awarded the prestigious EuroCHRIE Presidents’ Award for her lifetime contributions and achievements to tourism and hospitality education. Martina Toni is a Research Fellow at the Department of Business Studies (University of Roma Tre). A key element of her research focuses on analysing the consequences of innovative consumption patterns from the users’ perspective, highlighting also motivations and antecedents of collaborative consumption phenomenon and its consequences in terms of behaviours and well-being. Her expertise is related to the adoption and integration of qualitative and quantitative methods for collecting and analysing data. Maria Francesca Renzi is a full professor in Quality management at the Department of Business Studies of Roma Tre University. The research interests can be traced to the following scientific areas: Quality Management and optimization of internal performance; Customer satisfaction management; Corporate social responsibility; Sustainability and innovation. The scientific research activities carried out in these areas are characterized by theoretical and empirical contributions in different contexts of both the public and private sectors. Laura Di Pietro is an Assistant Professor. She is a PhD in Commodity Science and Quality Management. She teaches “Corporate social responsibility and Business Ethics”. She is e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 2/3, 2019 http://ertr.tamu.edu 26 interested in Quality Management and Operations Excellence, Service Innovation and Corporate Social Responsibility topics, applied in several contexts (e.g., cultural heritage & tourism, healthcare, public administration, transport, etc.). Roberta Guglielmetti Mugion is an Assistant Professor. She is a PhD in Commodity Science. She is interested in quality management and sustainability applied in the private and public sector, quality of the food sector, quality and innovation, corporate social responsibility and cultural heritage management. In particular, she focuses on citizens’ satisfaction. e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 2/3, 2019 http://ertr.tamu.edu 27 Introduction The impact of the sharing economy in supporting economic development and fuelling entrepreneurial activity is widely recognised, but also heavily criticised (Sigala & Dolnicar, 2017). Although the sharing economy democratises participation in capitalism, it also creates platform monopolies that make profits based on a new type of slavery who are contractors and not employees (Schor, 2016). The working conditions and rules of these micro- entrepreneurs are determined by the peer-to-peer (P2P) platform algorithms. However, the success of P2P platforms heavily depends on attracting a great number of highly motivated micro-entrepreneurs to provide ‘quality’ services on an on-demand, ad-hoc basis. Hence, attracting more micro-entrepreneurs but also keeping them motivated, engaged and willing to perform well is a significant success factor of P2P platforms. To achieve that, P2P platforms frequently gamify the design of their algorithms to boost micro-entrepreneurs’ motivation and instil ‘good’ behaviour/performance. However, despite the anecdotal claims about the impact of algorithm management on micro- entrepreneurs’ management, work stress and motivation, there is a lack of research examining its controversial impacts. Moreover, although the application and benefits of gamification have been argued in various contexts (Hamari et al., 2014), no research has examined its contextualisation and impacts within P2P contexts. This is an important gap because the context critically moderates the gamification impacts on its users (Sigala, 2015a). Studies (Sigala, 2015b; Leclercq et al., 2017) also call for more research to investigate the risks and boundaries of gamification and how to best apply and fit the game mechanics to the users’ needs, motivations and context (Robson et al., 2015; Sigala, 2015b). This study fills in the above gaps and contributes to the gamification and P2P literature by examining the application and impacts of gamification into a P2P marketplace context. By using the funware design of Airbnb as a case study, the study identifies the game mechanics e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 2/3, 2019 http://ertr.tamu.edu 28 of Airbnb and investigates their potential benefits and risks on hosts’ behaviour and their relations with guests. To achieve that, the paper first reviews the concept, principles, benefits and risks of gamification and then, it applies the game mechanics and dynamics theory into the Airbnb context. The factors that can limit the intended benefits of the Airbnb gamification are discussed. Finally, guidelines for continuing the research are provided. Gamification: concept, principles, benefits and risks Gamification is the use of game-play mechanics (e.g. points, leaderboards, achievements/badges, levels, story/theme, clear goals, feedback, rewards) for non-game context (Deterding et al., 2011). Sigala (2015a) clustered game mechanics into: behavioural (e.g. discovery/exploration, ownership, community collaboration, lottery, virality, status); feedback (e.g. bonuses, countdown, reward schedules); and progress (e.g. achievements, levels, points, progress bar). To engage users, game mechanics need to afford extrinsic and/or intrinsic motivations (Hamari et al., 2014): utilitarian (usefulness, ease of use), hedonic (enjoyment, playfulness) and social (recognition, social influence). This gamification principle is summarized into the mechanics-dynamics (behaviors, interactions)-emotions (affective reactions) framework (Robson et al., 2015). Funware is the use of game mechanics to influence the users’ psychology and encourage desired users’ psychological and behavioural outcomes such as (Sigala, 2015a; Leclercq et al., 2018): flow, customer engagement, participation in co-creation, brand loyalty. The major principles for designing effective funwares include (Sigala, 2015b): • integration of game activities with the business related tasks; • use of a variety of game mechanics for affording extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Gamification must avoid extrinsic pointsfication; e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 2/3, 2019 http://ertr.tamu.edu 29 • matching of game mechanics with the users’ motivations, profiles and aims; a funware should include a variety of mechanics to cater for the various types of users’ needs • users’ empowerment to select, control and customize the game mechanics to create personally meaningful play goals and so, internalize the game activities Gamification in peer-to-peer platforms Resnick & Zeckhauser (2002) first advocated that the review systems of P2P platforms aiming to direct positive behaviour and build trust between hosts and guests follow the gamification principles, i.e. the provision of badges and points to hosts when providing quality services. Others (Xiong & Liu, 2004; Liang et al., 2017) recently advocated the positive impacts of these review systems on platforms’ reputation and revenues by building host-guest trust; attracting reliable hosts and high-quality accommodations; attracting guests by ensuring that hosts will perform appropriately and up to high standards. Airbnb also requires hosts to construct and present a virtual self for building their image, profile and trust and so, attracting guests. Although studies have examined the Airbnb host brand-identity construction, research has failed to study the impacts of this game mechanic (i.e. role play and self-representation) on hosts’ behaviour and motivation. Figure 1 summarises the use of gamification for managing host-guest-platform relations. However, there is no research studying gamification on actors’ behaviour in P2P (Hamari, 2017; Liang et al., 2017). P2P platform Gamification Host Guest Figure 1. Gamification in P2P platforms Control- manage micro- entrepreneurs’ behavior and performance Establish and nurture trust between guests and platform Manage hosts-guests relations and trust e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 2/3, 2019 http://ertr.tamu.edu 30 Methodology To examine, the application and (positive and negative) impacts of gamification in P2P platforms, the following steps are undertaken. Secondary data were collected from Airbnb and other literature sources for applying the gamification literature on Airbnb. Face- to-face in-depth interviews with Airbnb hosts will be conducted for investigating their perceptions of the Airbnb game mechanics and the impacts of the latter on their perceptions of ‘work’ conditions, motivations and behaviours. Preliminary Findings The findings of the first step are summarised in Table 1 showing how Airbnb applies gamification for designing the funware of its algorithmic management of hosts. Airbnb game mechanics mainly provide utilitarian benefits (e.g. provision of priority support, tax services, marketing tools, webinar and discount on household effects) at the expense of social and hedonic benefits. This can be a major limitation based on the gamification literature. Utilitarian benefits provide various forms of functional value always related to work conditions, i.e. mechanics for: managing business (priority support, tax services, marketing tools, products previews); improving the provided experience (discount for buying household effects); and education/learning purposes (webinar). Airbnb hedonic benefits reflect the provision of travel coupon and invitations to exclusive events, social recognition, and visibility on the platforms. Very few mechanics offer a mixture of social, utilitarian and hedonic benefits, e.g.: the products previews could support the accommodation management (by including new services/products), the enjoyment (by using innovative solutions), or the social recognition (by showing on the outside the results of the own performance). The educational/learning benefits are not mentioned in past literature as utilitarian benefits and so, their user impact is worth investigating. e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 2/3, 2019 http://ertr.tamu.edu 31 Table 1. Airbnb Funware design: mechanics-dynamics-emotions AIRBNB SUPERHOSTS CRITERIA Positive feedback: 4.8 stars out of 5. Responsiveness: 90% reply rate. Booking: more than 10 reservations per year. Reliability: 0 cancellations Airbnb Funware: game mechanics Game dynamics: motivations/ benefits Badge & Visibility (visual recognition) Social Search filter & customized URL (visual recognition) Social Travel coupon Hedonic Discount on household effects Utilitarian Priority support Utilitarian Product exclusives, preview upcoming releases Hedonic, Social, Utilitarian Invitation to exclusive events Hedonic, social Webinar from market experts Utilitarian Tax services and marketing tools Utilitarian Conclusions and implications for future research Gamification in Airbnb is argued to not only influence hosts’ behaviour, but also the way they experience work conditions and context, which in turn can influence their work motivation and behaviour. For example, the algorithm and mechanics of Airbnb gamification determines the visibility, access, availability and quality imagine of ‘work”. However, the overemphasis on utilitarian benefits, their opaque and imposed nature (i.e. lack of control and selection) can have a potential detrimental impact on hosts’ behaviour and the in-depth interviews aim to shed more light into these. References Deterding S, Dixon D, Khaled R., Nacke L (2011) From game design elements to gamefulness: defining gamification. In Proceedings of the 15th international academic MindTrek conference: Envisioning future media environments (pp. 9-15). ACM. e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), Vol. 16, No. 2/3, 2019 http://ertr.tamu.edu 32 Hamari, J. (2017). Do badges increase user activity? A field experiment on the effects of gamification. Computers in human behavior, 71, 469-478. Hamari J, Koivisto J, Sarsa H (2014) Does gamification work? e A literature review of empirical studies on gamification. 47th HICCSS conference, Hawaii, USA Leclercq, T., Poncin, I., & Hammedi, W. (2017). 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