French Riviera short term accommodation: analysis and comparison of price determinants using Airbnb and Booking.com data

Abstract: This essay looks at the price determinants of short-term accommodations in the French Riviera. The paper approach is to compare the private accommodations market using Airbnb and hotel market using booking.com, to see if those two accommodations types have similar price determinants. Also, using different cities of sun and beaches tourism in the French Riviera, we can compare the results to see if there is a real difference in price determinants between them. Finally, the results can give an idea of the competition between the two-platforms comparing the willingness to pay for the different attributes in the two markets. Using the hedonic prices model, Nice, Cannes and a sample of French Riviera accommodations are studied for a double one-night stay in the 22 August 2020. The results are mixed between the cities and between the two types of accommodations. While amenities seem to have a real impact on prices for the different accommodations, location variable and reputation impact are very limited. Also, Nice and the French Riviera sample seems to have similar results while Cannes results are different. This paper also discusses some limitations due to the data collection. Some variables were not included because of the difficulties in the data collection due to the web scraping technique. Also, the number of accommodations is lower than expected for the hotels. Finally, the variables included in the two models are different, making complicated the comparison of the results. With those limitations, it is harder to make an analysis of the competition between the two platforms.