How Much Will you Pay? Understanding the Value of Information Cues in the Sharing Economy

The advent of peer-to-peer accommodation sharing platforms, like Airbnb, has ushered in a new era in travel worldwide. However, to ensure sustainability in the long term, information asymmetry inherent to such platforms has to be tackled. Currently, accommodation sharing platforms offer a multitude of in-built trust-enhancing cues that may reduce information asymmetry, signal trust and aid potential guests in their decision making. Nevertheless, little is known about the effectiveness of these cues in shaping online consumption behavior. Building on the Signalling Theory, this study explores the effectiveness and monetary value of three groups of trust-enhancing cues commonly deployed by service providers to promote trust in the sharing economy via a discrete choice experiment methodology. Findings from our study not only contribute to extant literature on the effectiveness of trust-enhancing cues, but they also empower platform providers and hosts through novel insights on how the performance of their offerings is evaluated by consumers.