**1. Introduction**

The rapid development of information and communication technologies has profoundly transformed the tourism and hospitality industries (Cheng et al. 2018, 2019; Dickinger et al. 2017; Fernández-Gámez et al. 2020; Suzilo 2020). Consumers have changed the way they search for information, book services and communicate their experiences, thereby disrupting traditional distribution routes (Fernández-Gámez et al. 2020; Mohamad et al. 2021; Núñez-Tabales et al. 2020; Pinto and Castro 2019; Suzilo 2020) and making online booking the main channel of business (Cheng et al. 2019; Fernández-Gámez et al. 2020; Suzilo 2020). New business models have emerged such as online reservation systems and sharing economy platforms, also called peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms (Fernández-Gámez et al. 2020; Guttentag 2015; Suzilo 2020; Veiga et al. 2018). Customers' decision-making processes increasingly rely on comments posted by tourists who have experienced the relevant products and/or services (Cheng et al. 2019; Fernández-Gámez et al. 2020; Suzilo 2020; Veiga et al. 2018) rather than on official websites, advertising or travel agent information (Fernández-Gámez et al. 2020; Gemar et al. 2019; Suzilo 2020; Veiga et al. 2017). In addition, the connection between demand and supply has become more accessible to

**Citation:** Solano-Sánchez, Miguel Ángel, José António C. Santos, Margarida Custódio Santos, and Manuel Ángel Fernández-Gámez. 2021. Holiday Rentals in Cultural Tourism Destinations: A Comparison of Booking.com-Based Daily Rate Estimation for Seville and Porto. *Economies* 9: 157. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/economies9040157

Academic Editor: Aleksander Panasiuk

Received: 16 September 2021 Accepted: 11 October 2021 Published: 20 October 2021

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consumers through new online distribution channels, allowing people to book accommodations provided by their peers rather than by travel or rental companies (Veiga et al. 2017, 2018; Zekan et al. 2019).

Millennials are among the most intensive users of P2P accommodations, as they look for authentic experiences, including living in residential areas among local populations (Lu and Tabari 2019; Suzilo 2020; Veiga et al. 2017). This generation also tends to reject traditional tourism structures and looks for places that they do not perceive as tourism destinations (Veiga et al. 2017). For private owners, P2P rentals is a way to monetise otherwise unused residential spaces or redefine their use for tourism purposes (Zekan et al. 2019).

Various factors attract tourists to residential areas, including historic quarters' traditional architecture, local people's everyday life and authentic experiences of cities (Maitland 2008). However, tourists and residents do not always coexist easily, and, in some cases, encounters can create friction between them (Davidson and Infranca 2016; Veiga et al. 2017, 2018; Zekan et al. 2019). Another phenomenon frequently linked to the sharing economy in some cities is overtourism, as it tends to concentrate an excessive number of tourists in city centres, historic quarters and residential areas (Veiga et al. 2017, 2018).

According to a comparative study of four European cities, 'only a minority of Airbnb listings can be classified as sharing economy services, while commercial offers constitute a significant share of listings on the platform' (Gyódi 2019, p. 536). Reinhold and Dolnicar (2021) also question the use of the terms sharing economy, collaborative consumption and P2P accommodations to describe Airbnb and similar platforms' products. The original idea of empowering ordinary people to purchase access to private owners' spare rooms has been replaced in most cases by companies trading short-term rentals for commercial purposes. Interactions between hosts and guests have been significantly reduced, as guests can book instantly, and the relevant individuals' photos are no longer displayed until the booking is confirmed (Reinhold and Dolnicar 2021).

Hosts frequently turn out to be agencies that act as intermediaries, receiving a commission for their services. The latter comprise inserting listings into booking platforms, managing bookings and check-in, assisting guests, if needed, during their stay and checkout and cleaning and maintaining rental properties (Reinhold and Dolnicar 2021). The lodgings' owners do not need to care about how well any of these procedures go, so no authentic hosts are involved, and owners have no contact with guests.

Regardless, the true sharing economy is an urban phenomenon that has extended tourism to new city areas (Davidson and Infranca 2016; Veiga et al. 2017, 2018) and contributed to urban transformation and gentrification (Davidson and Infranca 2016; Gant 2016; Veiga et al. 2018). This economy has also funded the regeneration of buildings in historic quarters and city centres that otherwise would have remained vacant. These structures have thus suddenly become valuable assets (Davidson and Infranca 2016).

One of the two largest platforms for accommodation bookings and holiday rentals, Booking.com, was the platform that first disrupted the entire accommodations sector. Airbnb did the same for vacation rentals. Both platforms replaced traditional intermediaries, such as tour operators and travel agencies, by allowing customers to book directly through their platforms. However, these websites' scope of business has changed, as Booking.com is expanding into the vacation rental sector, and Airbnb is entering the hotel sector (Cardoso 2018). An increasing number of vacation rentals are listed on both platforms in order to attract more clients (Cardoso 2018).

Research applying the hedonic pricing method (HPM) to the sharing economy's accommodation prices is relatively new (Tong and Gunter 2020) and restricted mainly to Airbnb. Because Booking.com has expanded into the holiday rental sector relatively recently, studies connecting this platform to the sharing economy are still scarce. The same can be said about comparative investigations of vacation rentals in cultural city destinations. More specifically, no researchers, to date, have compared vacation rentals' price composition in two or more urban cultural tourism destinations listed on Booking.com. Therefore,

the present study addresses both research gaps. It thus sought, first, to identify the most influential variables for holiday rentals' price composition in cultural tourism destinations and, second, to demonstrate this HPM model's applicability to different cultural tourism destinations listed on Booking.com. The last objective was to provide examples of the adaptations needed to apply the proposed model to all cultural city destinations.
