Global Platforms, Local Adoption: Factors Driving Engagement in Airbnb Hosting in Switzerland

Context

Digital platforms have transformed how individuals participate in economic activities. Airbnb is one of the most prominent examples, enabling people to rent out spare rooms, apartments, and other forms of accommodation.

Switzerland provides a particularly relevant context due to its high living costs, strong tourism sector, and increasing use of Airbnb. While research has extensively examined Airbnb’s impact on tourism, housing, and regulation, less attention has been paid to the hosts who make participation on the platform possible.

Goal

The study was guided by the following research question: What factors influence individuals in Switzerland to engage in Airbnb hosting, and how do they perceive and approach this activity? More specifically, the research investigates the motivations, limiting factors, and enabling conditions associated with hosting, as well as the different ways hosts position their activity between casual participation and more entrepreneurial forms of engagement.

Methodology

The study adopted a qualitative research design based on nine semi-structured interviews with Airbnb hosts in Switzerland. Participants varied in age, hosting experience, accommodation type, and professional background, providing diverse perspectives on hosting practices. The interviews were conducted between March and April 2026 in either German or English, depending on participants’ preferences, and explored their motivations, experiences, challenges, and perceptions of hosting.

All interviews were transcribed and analysed in Taguette using thematic coding. The analysis followed an inductive approach, allowing themes and patterns to emerge from the data. Individual codes were grouped into broader themes and subsequently consolidated into four main dimensions: motivations, limiting factors, enabling conditions, and perceptions and approaches to hosting. The analysis was informed by literature on the platform economy, the sharing economy, Self-Determination Theory, and platform-dependent micro-entrepreneurship.

Results

The findings suggest that Airbnb hosting is shaped by the interaction of motivations, limiting factors, and enabling conditions rather than a single driver. Together, these factors influence participation and help explain the diverse ways in which individuals engage with hosting activities.

Motivations included economic, social, flexibility-related, and personal factors. While some participants viewed hosting as a way to generate supplementary income or contribute to housing-related expenses, financial considerations alone did not explain continued participation. Many hosts also valued the opportunity to meet people from different backgrounds, engage in cultural exchange, and integrate hosting into their everyday lives in a flexible way.

At the same time, participants highlighted several limiting factors associated with hosting, including operational workload, guest coordination, privacy concerns, and the effort required to manage bookings. Regulatory and structural requirements also created barriers in some cases, particularly when properties required adaptations before they could be used for hosting. While these factors rarely prevented participation altogether, they often influenced how actively individuals engaged with the platform and how hosting activities were organised and managed.

The study further identified enabling conditions that support hosting participation. Access to underutilised space, such as spare rooms or secondary properties, created the foundation for hosting activities. In addition, Airbnb’s platform infrastructure simplified processes such as communication, booking management, payment processing, and trust-building through reviews and ratings, thereby lowering barriers to participation.

The analysis also revealed different perceptions and approaches to hosting, ranging from a casual activity integrated into everyday life to more structured and professional forms of engagement. While some participants viewed hosting primarily as a side activity, others adopted a stronger service-oriented approach. The most common pattern, however, was a hybrid position combining elements of both hobby and business.

Based on these findings, a conceptual model was developed illustrating how motivations, limiting factors, and enabling conditions interact to shape hosting engagement and influence different approaches to hosting.

Overall, the findings highlight the diverse realities of Airbnb hosting in Switzerland and show that while Airbnb provides a global platform, its adoption is shaped by local circumstances and individual experiences. The study therefore illustrates how global platforms can enable different forms of local engagement.