This Study Resource Was: MBA 651 Assignment 1

MBA 651
Assignment 1
Le Hoai Bao Vu
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Assessment 1: Service Blueprint Proposal
Within the tourism and hospitality industry, there are a myriad of different companies and
organizations that strive to offer customers the best travelling experience in the hope of
retaining customer loyalty and encouraging future visits. Among them, one of the most
innovative companies in recent years is Airbnb, the online giant who offers accommodations
and tourism experiences at your fingertips.
In their paper, Vargas-Hernández and López de Haro (2020, p. 14) described Airbnb as a typical
example of a business based on the concept of collaborative economy, where people exchange
resources with each other, rather than the traditional model of companies providing their own
resources to consumers. In the same vein, POPȘA (2019, p. 119) pointed out that this type of
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business model emerged as the result of technological development and a solution to economic
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and financial crisis, creating values beyond income generation. In details, Airbnb’s services are
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offered virtually via an online marketplace, which includes different hospitality options (mainly
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lodging and homestays) and travelling experiences (Menapace 2019, p. 44). Since the pre-
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purchase stage happens totally online, the company develops their own website and mobile
application to make all offerings available to customers. In addition, unlike other traditional
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hospitality sites like Agoda or Booking.com, Airbnb operates based on a peer-to-peer

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accommodation sharing system, where home owners (hosts) can rent their residences to other
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people who require accommodations (tourists) for a certain time period. Since these properties
are not owned by Airbnb or major hotel chains, there are more available options to choose from
and the rates are relatively cheaper. Moreover, consumers (tourists) can experience a local
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experience through Airbnb by participating in several activities with the natives (Hastari et al.,
2020, p. 92). Therefore, the service design of Airbnb is heavily centered around the co-creation
between the hosts and the tourists so as to create unique customer experiences unlike any
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other.
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According to Chathoth (2016, p. 224), co-creation enables organizations and their consumers to
define and jointly solve problems while developing experiences that incorporate opinions from
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consumers for personalization purpose. This leads to the concept of service-dominant logic (S-
D logic), where value in the service industry is considered the result of cooperation between
companies and consumers and ultimately determined by consumers after consumption. In the
case of Airbnb’s service design, the company connects the hosts and their guests on their
platform, building a community where hosts can provide their homes or local expertise to
tourists who are looking for places to stay or guides in unfamiliar places. In order to find the
homes or experiences that match their preferences, people go through different filters on the
website such as type of place, price, cancellation policy, etc. to single out the best alternatives.
For further details about the hosts, there are past reviews, comments and ratings that interested
parties can check to make an informed choice. Indeed, these reviews are an important part of
Airbnb’s service design since it builds trust between the providers and potential consumers (von
Hoffen et al. 2017, p. 248), increasing more confidence and facilitating deal making, i.e.
reservations. Afterwards, through just a few clicks, Airbnb will help consumers reserve the
accommodations or experiences they desire. The booking and payment process is secure and
hassle-free on Airbnb’s platform. The tourists can get in touch with the hosts anytime and
anywhere via Airbnb website or application to inquire further about the bookings. After that, the
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consumers check-in at the date and time specified and get access from the hosts and begin
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their stays.
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Overall, we can infer that the customer experience relies a lot on the mutual trust and interaction
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between the hosts and the consumers because most transactions are made virtually to book
services not with a reputable hospitality establishments, tour agencies or Airbnb itself but
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unfamiliar hosts in foreign destinations. This may lead to problems for consumers since they
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can only rely on information subjectively provided by the hosts while having to pay in advance to
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reserve the accommodations. Even though the company does screen both hosts and guests,
there is no actual guarantee that the service encounter will run perfectly without a hitch since
the hosts do not have to follow strict operational standards like major hotels or tourism
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businesses. To reinforce trust, people who browse the site can see that some hosts are granted
Superhost status or Plus badge by Airbnb, which means that the accommodations are verified
by the company as having higher standards compared to others. However, in my opinion, these
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statuses and badges are not doing their jobs well enough to help consumers make their
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decisions more easily. If you are a first-time user of Airbnb, you may not even realize that these
badges are available to help you make up your mind since they are not shown prominently. In
contrast, Agoda, another popular site for accommodation bookings, shows exactly why
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consumers should choose a property by inserting noteworthy and straightforward badges to

different hotels appearing in the search result list, e.g. Top Value, Agoda EasyCancel, etc.
Therefore, potential customers who look for accommodations on Agoda can identify the option
that is most suited to their needs quickly, whether it is low budget, luxurious or shared, etc. In
addition, Ranjbari et al. (2019, p. 2587) found that consumers care about public transportation
from the neighborhood of the accommodation; however, Airbnb and their hosts do not provide
this info on the site. Easily, this information can be added to the accommodation description to
improve the company’s service design. Paying attentions to these small details can help Airbnb
receive more favorable feedback since customer satisfaction of a service encounter is found to
be affected by both the online booking platform and the actual tourism experience, as indicated
by Moro et al. (2019, p. 390).
Furthermore, after reservations are made, the interplay between the hosts and the tourists are
of the utmost important. According to Priporas et al. (2016, p. 2282), guests’ experiences and
level of satisfaction is the outcome of social exchange and reciprocity, not personal internal
processing as proposed by SET (social exchange theory). Since Airbnb’s accommodations can
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be categorized into 2 main styles, remote and on-site hospitality (Ikkala & Lampinen 2015, p.
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1036), there is a fundamental difference between them. While remote hospitality does not offer
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the opportunity to share the properties with the hosts, which limits the level of interaction
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between the hosts and the tourists, on-site hospitality allows more chances of co-creation,
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where the two parties can engage with each other and have the chance to engage with each
other for better experiences. Hence, Airbnb can help boost the level of co-creation between the
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hosts and the tourists by asking hosts to arrange some activities that both the guests and the
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hosts can enjoy together during the stays. This improvement may potentially lead to more
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interest and positive evaluation from the consumers.
In conclusion, as a frontier business of the sharing economy, Airbnb has made a great impact
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on the tourism and hospitality industry since its inception in 2008. In order to continue staying
competitive, especially in the era of Covid-19, Airbnb must constantly update itself and refine the
company’s service design to reach and fulfill the needs of the ever-demanding consumers.
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Service Blueprint
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References
Chathoth, PK, Ungson, GR, Harrington, RJ & Chan, ESW 2016, ‘Co-creation and higher order
customer engagement in hospitality and tourism services’, International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 222–245.
Hastari, R, Adela, Z, Alkhair, H & Wibowo, AJI 2020, ‘Direct and Indirect Effects of Operant
Resources on Co-Creation Experience: Empirical Evidence from Airbnb Consumers’, Business:
Theory & Practice, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 92–103.
Ikkala, T and Lampinen, A 2015, ‘Monetizing network hospitality: hospitality and sociability in the
context of Airbnb’, Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported
Cooperative Work & Social Computing, pp. 1033-1044.
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Menapace, DC 2019, ‘Airbnb: Powerful Global Branding in Action’, Journal of Economic
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Development, Management, IT, Finance & Marketing, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 44–53.
Moro, S, Rita, P, Esmerado, J & Oliveira, C 2019, ‘Unfolding the drivers for sentiments
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generated by Airbnb Experiences’, International Journal of Culture, Tourism & Hospitality
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Research, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 430–442.
POPȘA, E-R (2019), ‘Sharing Economy - a Challenge for the Hotel Industry. Case Study:
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Airbnb’, Revista Economica, vol. 71, no. 2, pp. 118–129.

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Priporas, C-V, Stylos, N, Rahimi, R & Vedanthachari, LN 2017, ‘Unraveling the diverse nature of
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service quality in a sharing economy: A social exchange theory perspective of Airbnb

accommodation’, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 29, no. 9,
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pp. 2279–2301.
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Ranjbari, M, Shams Esfandabadi, Z & Scagnelli, SD 2020, ‘A big data approach to map the
service quality of short-stay accommodation sharing’, International Journal of Contemporary
Hospitality Management, vol. 32, no. 8, pp. 2575–2592.
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Vargas-Hernández, JG & López de Haro, MCPA 2020, ‘COLLAB ORATIVE ECONOMY,

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DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION AND STRATEGIES IMPLEMENTED TO SATISFY THE

MILLENNIAL GENERATION. CASE STUDY: Airbnb’, PRERANA: Journal of Management
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Thought & Practice, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 11–28.

Von Hoffen, M, Hagge, M, Betzing, JH & Chasin, F 2018, ‘Leveraging social media to gain
insights into service delivery: a study on Airbnb’, Information Systems & e-Business
Management, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 247–269.
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MBA 651

hospitality sites like Agoda or Booking.com, Airbnb operates based on a peer-to-peer

consumers should choose a property by inserting noteworthy and straightforward badges to

interest and positive evaluation from the consumers.

Airbnb’, Revista Economica, vol. 71, no. 2, pp. 118–129.

service quality in a sharing economy: A social exchange theory perspective of Airbnb

Vargas-Hernández, JG & López de Haro, MCPA 2020, ‘COLLAB ORATIVE ECONOMY,

DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION AND STRATEGIES IMPLEMENTED TO SATISFY THE

Thought & Practice, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 11–28.

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