Examining short-term rentals ’ influence on tourists ’ well-being using Airbnb reviews

Smart tourism innovations are changing tourism. Tourists are increasingly demanding more authentic experiences and non-traditional accommodations (e


Introduction
Accommodation services are a fundamental component of tourism products (Sharpley, 2000) that accounts for a significant share of total tourism expenditure (Masiero et al., 2015).Lodgings' characteristics directly affect the entire hospitality industry's success and, more specifically, tourism destinations' development (Sharpley, 2000).In recent years, tourism has intensified in city centres, which has generated an increase in the number of accommodations offered by peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms (Gutiérrez et al., 2017).This trend is seen as a disruptive innovation (Guttentag, 2015).
In this context, smart tourism is an important innovation that encompasses new tourism business ecosystems, including the sharing economy (Yi et al., 2020).chances of success (Edelman, 2017).Experiences described in Airbnb reviews comprise written comments accompanied by an overall star rating, which gives a detailed overview of specific factors including cleanliness, accuracy, value, communication, check-in, and location.The current research's main objective was to identify the key dimensions of Airbnb guests' experiences in Bucharest shared online in the post-trip phase.
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows.The above introduction discussed P2P accommodations' importance to tourism as a whole.The next section provides a review of the literature related to tourism accommodations and tourists' well-being, as well as Airbnb lodgings' impact on the tourism industry.The literature review also explores the relationship between smart tourism, Airbnb, and electronic word of mouth.The methodology section then describes the methods used to collect and process the data.The fourth section presents the results, and the conclusions cover the findings' theoretical and practical implications.

Tourism accommodations and tourists' well-being
Well-being can be defined as individuals' sense of connectedness to themselves and others that gives meaning to their life (Hammermeister et al., 2005).Because of tourism's highly experiential nature, this industry is exceptionally wellpositioned to facilitate tourists' well-being.The latter term also refers to people's mental and/or physical state and their perceived health (Doll et al., 2000).Keyes (1998) thus defines well-being as the "absence of negative conditions and feelings, the result of adjustment and adaptation to a hazardous world" (p.121), while Diener (2020, p.10) portrays well-being as "human flourishing," "wellness of mind and body," and "a good life."During holidays, individuals tend to enjoy greater physical well-being and happiness, but, after returning home, these positive gains diminish quite quickly (Kirillova & Lehto, 2015).Recent theoretical research has confirmed that the concept of quality of life is synonymous with subjective well-being (Camfield & Skevington, 2008;Skevington & Böhnke, 2018).
A holistic approach to quality of life suggests that tourism can influence many areas related to residents' subjective well-being.Various scholars even argue that tourism development's primary goal should be to increase locals' quality of life (Chancellor et al., 2011).Studies have found that service enthusiasm and hospitality help establish relationships with customers, thereby enhancing residents' emotional connections with tourists (Lin et al., 2019).Kirillova and Lehto (2015) and Kirillova, Lehto and Cai (2017) report that existential and intrapersonal authenticity are inextricably linked to individuals' wellbeing.Thus, tourism has the potential to promote lasting meaningful personal changes in people's lives through host-client interactions.Tourism can serve as a catalyst for enhanced well-being (Mody et al., 2017) because tourism services provide opportunities to form new relationships, observe novel ways of life, and learn new things.Uysal et al. (2016) extensive literature review confirmed that experiences affect travellers' quality of life and well-being, based on 35 studies that examined this relationship.More specifically, research on community well-being has often focused on residents' perceptions of Airbnb tourism's impact, especially regarding peace, quiet, and safety.Prior investigations have also explored accommodation environment's role in travellers' well-being.Mody et al. (2017) also showed that guests find their lodging experiences to be meaningful and to have a positive effect on their well-being, particularly those associated with P2P accommodation hosts.Ma et al. (2013, p. 373) verified that a "feeling of delight" occurs more often "when tourists appraise their experience either as unexpected, or as important to their personal well-being or special needs, or as in their [own best] interest, or as highly goal congruent." However, Farmaki and Stergiou (2019) found that residents of Athens, Greece, think Airbnb tourism brings strangers into their community and disrupts their neighborhoods' peace and quiet.Yeager et al. (2020) ascertained that locals in Savannah, Georgia in the US, feel that Airbnb tourism increases traffic and crowding in their communities.In contrast, Brown and Vergragt (2014) observe that the cultural transitions associated with P2P accommodations provide residents with a more meaningful life and greater personal well-being.Mody et al. (2017) further found that locals believe Airbnb tourism provides incentives for preserving and restoring local historical buildings.
Prior studies, in general, have measured well-being in tourism and explored diverse locations, including Australia (Moscardo & Murphy, 2016), China (Chen et al., (2021), the US (Kim et al., 2012), Spain (Vargas-Sánchez et al., 2008), and Australia (Sie et al., 2021).Accommodations' environment can have one of the most substantial impacts on travellers' psychological and physical state by either improving their experiences or inducing unnecessary stress with a negative effect on well-being (Milman, 1998).Some findings on this topic have been reported in the literature, but empirical research on the link between experiences in accommodations and well-being remains scarce (Kim et al., 2012).More recently, Toni et al. (2021) concluded that attitudes toward P2P accommodations are a crucial determinant of guests' psychological well-being, which is associated with their feeling of belonging, authentic relationships with local communities, and sense of domesticity.To enhance visitors' well-being, tourism experiences need to be managed more holistically, including ensuring quality accommodations (Toni et al., 2021).

Airbnb accommodations' impact on tourism
Airbnb was originally launched in 2008 as AirBed & Breakfast.This website has since become one of the largest home sharing platforms (Business Insider, 2016).Each Airbnb property is unique, privately owned, and embedded within the local landscape-elements that contribute to guests having an authentic experience of the surrounding destination (Ting, 2016;Wright, 2016).Tussyadiah and Zach (2017) thus report that P2P rental reviews put a greater emphasis on hosts' hospitality (i.e., the experience of being welcome in someone's home) and the locale.In related research, Belarmino et al. (2017) compared the key attributes of P2P accommodations and hotels from the guests' perspective.The latter authors found that P2P accommodation reviews contain different themes than hotel reviews do, with conversations with hosts emerging as a major theme.
Overall, P2P accommodations have come to represent an attractive alternative option due to the many economic and social advantages they offer.The number of P2P hosts has rapidly increased in recent years, and consumers continue to prefer and demand stays in homes rather than traditional hotels (Guttentag et al., 2017;Hajibaba & Dolnicar, 2017).In this context, Dolnicar (2017) explored why Airbnb became the world's leading accommodation business and how it has affected the tourism industry, local cultures, and communities.Hajibaba and Dolnicar's (2018) findings reveal that Airbnb encourages travellers to be part of the community in which they stay, provides connections between hosts and guests, and gives tourists access to authentic cultural and traditional experiences.For example, in Airbnb reviews, users tend to use the host's name, while guests who leave comments about other establishments, such as hotels, rarely mention employees' names (Belarmino et al., 2019), which indicate the personal nature of the Airbnb reviewers' experience.The Airbnb platform also gives users the opportunity to respond to public reviews that they consider to be false or inflated, as well as to give private feedback.
Multiple studies have explored hosts' motivations and found that many of these individuals are motivated by more than just profit (e.g., Karlsson & Dolnicar, 2016).Hosts enjoy meeting new people, socializing, and sharing with guests the beauty of the place where they live.Hosts of shared accommodations are less restricted by service procedures (Mody et al., 2019), so they are more flexible and they can add a personal touch to their services.

Smart tourism, Airbnb, and electronic word of mouth
Smart tourism has facilitated this new business ecosystem's development within the sharing economy (i.e., the Airbnb platform).This form of tourism is an important innovation in the hospitality and tourism industry (Yi et al., 2020) that has facilitated the expansion of complex business ecosystems by connecting residents, visitors, and businesses through information infrastructure and by tapping into human and social capital (Gretzel et al., 2015).A primary example of these new ecosystems is the sharing economy, which was created by information and communication technology innovations, social media platforms, and Web 2.0.Smart tourism has changed tourists' pre-trip and post-trip decision making as technology gives travellers free access to a large amount of data.Tourists read Web reviews as they plan their trip and then share their experiences on social media platforms in the post-purchase phase.Electronic word of mouth has thus emerged as a powerful source of travel information.
The sharing economy and collaborative consumption are at the core of the smart tourism city concept (Frenken & Schor, 2017).Smart tourism platforms, in turn, can be described using information processing theory since tourists who use these platforms are problem solvers gathering information to create optimal trip solutions.Smart tourism platforms are designed to facilitate travellers' decision making, increase their sharing propensity, and decrease uncertainty for everyone involved.
Reviews shared online by tourists facilitate information processing, so this user-generated feedback is a key component in smart tourism business ecosystems (Bae et al., 2017).Travelers' experience-sharing activities can be interpreted as value creation through co-creation.In part due to its users' reviews, Airbnb comprises a sharing economy website for short-term rentals that has become an important player in the hospitality and tourism industry (Zhang et al., 2022).Guttentag's (2019) systematic literature review revealed that almost half of all previous empirical research had analysed listing attributes or guest reviews collected from the Airbnb website.Guests also place great importance on reviews (Varma et al., 2016) in their decision-making processes.

Conceptual framework
A multidisciplinary approach is important to understanding well-being in tourism.According to Butler and Kern (2016, p. 1), a "key element in the promotion of well-being is the need to measure and document levels and changes in well-being at the individual, community, and national levels."Research thus needs to incorporate a "distinct, psychologically driven form of tourist well-being by capturing tourists' emotional and cognitive perceptions of their experiences" (Kahneman & Krueger, 2006, p. 4).
Subjective well-being is made up of two dimensions: an affective or hedonic aspect and a cognitive one (Campbell, 1976).The first refers to the pleasant experiences individuals have when they feel happiness, while the second dimension denotes the degree to which they perceive their aspirations to have been met (i.e., satisfaction).Subjective well-being encompasses both positive and negative affect and a cognitive component conceptualized as overall satisfaction (Diener et al., 1985).

Data collection
The data were manually gathered from the Airbnb website from 750 reviews of Bucharest accommodations that were publicly accessible.The variables collected were the reviews' month and year (i.e., from November 2018 to September 2021), each Airbnb apartment's name (i.e., Fabulous Mountain View, Deluxe Studio with Nice view, Fresh Green Central Studio, The Vintage and Modern, Central Double Studio, The Bohemian, Cozy Central Apartment, Academiei Two, Rooftop Studio, Amazing City View, Spacious Old Town, Leafs Old Town, Best View Central Old Town, Amazing Sunset View, Zen Apartment, Blush Apartment, and Lovey Cozy Central Studio), and the reviews' content.The data collection took three weeks, after which the data were input into an Excel file and cleaned by removing easily detectable spelling and grammar mistakes.The data collection process ensured the guests and their demographic profiles would remain anonymous.
A literature review was conducted to ascertain the appropriate number of online reviews to be collected to ensure the analysis could identify multiple elements rather than reach generalizations.For instance, Pavlou and Dimoka (2006) suggest that consumers read only the first two pages of online comments, whereas Anderson (2012) argue that the number of comments read increases over time.García et al. (2021), in turn, collected 750 reviews from the Airbnb platform.The current research thus gathered a sample similar to those found in the relevant literature, that is, 750 online posts written by Airbnb users.

Data analysis
This study adopted a mixed-method approach with a qualitative (i.e., content analysis of online reviews) and quantitative phase (i.e., word frequency analysis) (Creswell et al., 2003;Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2003).The content analysis relied on Leximancer software, which uses data-mining and machine-learning techniques to identify key concepts in texts and these concepts' semantic interrelationships (Lupu et al., 2017;Rooney, 2005).Leximancer's final output is a concept map that represents themes and related concepts in the form of clusters.
Each concept is weighted according to the frequency with which it occurs in sentences that contain that specific concept and its co-occurrence with other concepts included in the concept map.Each theme takes its name from the most connected concept within that theme.
The concepts are thus grouped into themes represented as clusters on the concept map.The result is a heat map that ranks the most important themes by their concepts' count and relevance.The concepts are shown in grey on the map, and each concept's size represents its degree of connectivity within the concept map (Leximancer, 2021).Leximancer thus provides objective results that reduce the potential for bias associated with manual analysis (Nunez-Mir et al., 2016).This software has been previously used to examine Airbnb guest experiences (Brochado et al., 2017).

Results and discussion
The word count analysis revealed that the most frequently used words in the Web reviews are: apartment, place, great, stay, clean, host, nice, recommend, everything, perfect, old, Bucharest, good, and communicate (see Figure 2).The content analysis facilitated by Leximancer identified eight themes (see Figure 3) that can be linked to both cognitive and affective well-being: apartment, stay, old (house), host, nice (view), recommend(ation), thank you(s), and value (for money).
The stay theme is the second most significant, and it includes the concepts of stay (194, 69%), place (168, 59%), Bucharest (122,43%),and Camelia (54,19%).This theme relates stays with both locations in Bucharest and the hosts' role.A Another comment also highlighted the same host's importance: Camelia is such an attentive and considerate host.She was super responsive and even sent me recommendations for my trip!I really enjoyed my stay at her gorgeous and very clean apartment.It was perfectly placed.I will definitely stay [t]here again.Thank you Camelia!
The old (town) theme is associated with the following concepts: old (town) (113, 40%), city (92, 33%), locat(ion) (64, 23%), center (64, 23%), beautiful (accommodations) (48, 17%), restaurants (42, 15%), and heart (of the old town) (40, 14%).This theme describes the city center as the most important part of Bucharest.A typical review reads, "[this place offers] cozy and beautiful accommodation[s . . .at the heart of Bucharest."Another guest wrote, "[i]ts location is at the heart of the old town[.T]he Otopeni airport is very close to it and just below it, there are restaurants, cafes and pubs."An additional guest shared: Olivia's space is great![It has a v]ery central location right in the middle of the old town.You are surrounded by a ton of restaurants and bars and can walk to most of the major sights. . . .I would certainly . . .recommend it to anyone looking for a nice place in the old town.
The host theme comprises the concepts of host (176, 62%), communication (79, 28%), easy (communication) (68, 24%), and helpful (host) (47, 17%).A visitor commented, "communication with the host was very easy and convenient, [as] she was always available for support and really kind.Thank you and keep up . . .[the] good job [sic]."Another guest wrote, "[t]he host is super friendly and communication was really easy."A further visitor said, "Camelia is a wonderful host, [and we had] great communication prior to and during our stay.[She was v]ery helpful and friendly." The nice theme contains the concepts of everything (149, 53%), amazing (place) (61, 22%), need (61, 22%), flat (57, 20%), and stylish (Airbnb) (54,19%) Another guest said,"[t]hank you very much for this amazing stay and we would definitely recommend [you] to anyone who wants to visit the city!"A final comment reads, "[Your place is g]reat value for the money.Thank you!" The results overall underline the key components of tourists' experience in different Airbnb properties in Bucharest.The main themes and concepts comprise the most important words that guests use to describe their experience, well-being, and satisfaction.
The analysis revealed that the reviewers' concepts are overall quite positive.Notably, when Santos et al. (2020) compared Airbnb and Couchsurfing with Booking.com in the US and Brazil, they concluded that "reviews in the sharing economy tend to be considerably more positive than those in the traditional economy." Tourists' subjective well-being in connection with Airbnb accommodations is expressed in terms of affective (i.e., positive affect) and cognitive aspects (i.e., overall satisfaction).The former refers to tourists' good impressions and enthusiasm during and after their stay in the lodgings.Hosts' positive attitudes greatly contribute to making their stay memorable and pleasant.Cognitive aspects are mainly associated with guests' assessment of accommodations' tangible components, as well as their cleanliness, comfort, and convenient location.
Eight themes were identified via content analysis.The most important theme is the apartment with the concepts of apartment, location, clean (place), perfect (spot), comfortable (apartment), super (host), and central (location).This theme highlights guests' opinions about the apartments' location, the advantage of their proximity to the main point of interests, bars, and restaurants, and their perfect location for walks.Visitors also emphasize the accommodations' cleanliness and comfort.
The stay theme (i.e., stay, place, Bucharest, and Camelia) paints a picture of guests' encounter with the city and hosts.The old (house) theme (i.e., city, locat[ion], center, beautiful [accommodations], restaurants, and heart [of the old town]) mainly describes the city and its Old Town area.The latter is the historical center of Bucharest where tourists can find a mix of restaurant, bars, cafes, and street markets.
The fourth theme is linked to the hosts (i.e., communication, easy [communication], and helpful [host]), which shows the importance of the hosts' positive attitude when receiving and interacting with guests.Good communication between hosts and clients is quite frequently mentioned in reviews, so the hosts' friendliness is a key factor.The information owners offer to guests is described as easy to understand and extremely helpful, including multiple tips and recommendations about the city's best areas.These host-guest interactions are thus quite important to ensuring tourists' overall satisfaction.The remaining four themes of nice (view), recommend(ation), thank you(s), and value (for money) are also related to how the hosts' good manners ensure guests enjoy a nice vacation and achieve their holiday goals during their visit to Bucharest.
The above findings are similar to those reported by Cheng and Jin (2019), namely, three key attributes (i.e., location, amenities, and hosts) in guests' reviews.Ding et al.'s (2021) results also reveal that, in different types of Airbnb properties, travelers attach varying degrees of value to the same service attributes depending on the factors that determine their overall satisfaction.Johnson and Neuhofer (2017), in turn, underline three emerging themes-value co-creation resources, guest-host value co-creation practices, and value co-creation outcomes-that emphasize how value is co-created in Jamaica's Airbnb accommodations.Finally, Cruz and Freitas's (2020) findings regarding hosts include that the factors promoting trust are receptivity and solicitude and that space, location, comfort, and cleanliness stand out as additional key features.
The themes and concepts identified by Leximancer are closely related to guests' affective and cognitive well-being during their stay.The words highlighted are associated with interactions with hosts and the good impression they make on guests before and after departure.Tourists recommend the apartments in which they stayed and explicitly mention hosts who have a positive impact on their experience.These comments subsequently influence the choices of potential guests interested in renting Airbnb accommodations in Bucharest.

Conclusions
Reviewers' comments reveal "the way consumers describe, relive, reconstruct, and share their experience" (Xiang et al., 2015, p. 44), that is, what clients of P2P accommodations consider most important.The present study thus sought to answer the following research question: What are the most frequent themes and concepts mentioned by tourists in reviews that emphasize their subjective wellbeing (i.e., both cognitive and affective) during their stay in Airbnb accommodations?Content analysis using Leximancer software identified five main dimensions-apartment, stay, old (house), host, and nice (view)-and their positive outcomes-recommend(ation), thank you(s), and value (for money).These findings comprise the most important themes and related concepts connected to tourists' experiences in Bucharest Airbnb apartments and these travelers' subjective wellbeing on an affective and cognitive level.The first five themes highlight the good impressions (i.e., positive emotions) that guests share in their online reviews linked to the city (i.e., the stay theme) and hosts' friendliness.The remainder reflect the reviewers' overall satisfaction with their stay and constitute the positive evaluations tourists share regarding the experiences they have in the destination.Overall, hostguest interactions (Brochado et al., 2017;Lv et al., 2021;Moon et al., 2019) are the most essential attribute of guests' satisfactory experiences in Airbnb accommodations and the main reason for these travelers' affective and cognitive well-being.
These results have theoretical and practical implications.On a theoretical level, the findings broaden the literature on smart tourism and the sharing economy and their outcomes in a Romanian city (i.e., Bucharest) by adding a fresh perspective on tourists' subjective well-being in Airbnb apartments based on online reviews.The methodologies applied are novel for this specific research context.Previous studies (Raboj, 2009;Toader et al., 2021;Treapat et al., 2018) have focused on the Airbnb platform's impact on the Romanian real estate market, compared Airbnb offers to those of other countries (i.e., Russia), and identified price determinants of Airbnb listings.The existing literature on this topic in Romania is relatively sparse, so the current research contributes to widening the available knowledge.
The results also have practical implications for Airbnb owners in Bucharest as they need to be more aware of ways they can improve the services offered and their quality.The analysis of guests' online reviews provided insights into the main attributes that increase tourists' affective and cognitive well-being.The Romanian tourism industry can benefit from this information, which provides a deeper understanding of how tourism accommodations can become more competitive with regard to Airbnb lodgings.
Regardless of the above contributions, this study had important limitations that should be mentioned.The findings were based solely on guests' perceptions shared in online reviews.A larger number of reviews would have expanded the analysis's results and potentially provided a different perspective on customers' subjective well-being.In addition, the sample could have included other kinds of Airbnb accommodations (e.g., private boats and treehouses) to offer contrasting guest evaluations and views on tourists' subjective well-being.Further research on this topic in Romanian contexts is needed to expand the above findings by adding reviewers' star ratings, thereby providing a clearer understanding of overall wellbeing's role in tourist satisfaction.

Figure
Figure 2. Word cloud wellequipped . . .[with] everything you could need, [including] reliable wifi [sic], great location, [and a] very friendly and responsive host."Another guest commented, "[t]he place is great, [and it] looks just like [it does] in the photos.[It has a v]ery central location with everything you need."An additional guest shared: [This is a g]reat place, [that is] clean, central[ly] locat[ed], nicely furnished,

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Conceptual map generated by Leximancer Some themes have only one concept: recommend(ation) (121, 41%), thank you(s) (37, 13%), and value (for money) (28, 10%).Together, these themes represent guests' favorable post-purchase behavior.One reviewer shared:Ihighly recommend this apartment which was outstanding in every way for me.[It is l]ocated right in the Old Town and [within] walking distance . . .[of] many attractions.[The a]partment is spacious, [and] beautifully decorated, [and it] has everything one needs and [is] very clean.[It has a l]ovely balcony too.[What v]alue for money!Olivia is a great host [who is a]lways available to help with enquiries.I hope to be back.Thank you.
Another visitor asserted, "[This is l]iterally one of the best [A]irbnbs I've ever stayed in. . . .[It's s]tylish yet super functional, [so] I loved every bit of this flat!"