Page 294 - Special Topic Session (STS) - Volume 4

STS587 Guangwu C.
Peer-to-peer accommodation differs from the traditional accommodation
sector by splitting the booking and accommodation services. The
accommodation services are outsourced to hosts while the booking services
are still maintained in the peer-to-peer accommodation platforms. In contrast,
the traditional accommodation sector usually integrates the booking and
accommodation services together. Some traditional accommodation
providers may also outsource their booking services to internet-based
platforms, such as Booking.com and Agoda.com, but these have not been
included in this research.
In our case, CF of booking service represents 3.08 kg CO2e per room per
night, while CF associated with the traditional accommodation services ranges
from 4.19 to 6.31 kg CO2e per room per night. These figures are based on the
calculation of three different scenarios as shown in the Table 6. The scenario
modeling was based on an Excel-based cost accounting tool “Unlocked-
Airbnb_Financial_Calculator_v2.4.6” along with a video tutorial provided by
Airbnb. The fees for the Airbnb platform is about 12.3 Yuan per room per night
on average. Due to the relative low carbon intensity for running the Airbnb
platform (average 0.05 kgCO2e/RMB), the total CF for booking services is about
3.08 kg, which seems very high compared to the CF related to the actual
spending for serving guests.
In scenario 1, only the consumables were taken into account. The CF of
accommodation services of Airbnb would be 4.19 kg CO2e per room per night.
Most of the emissions come from the electricity and other energy
consumption. In scenario 2, the insurance and services e.g. gardening services
and rubbish removals were further considered (scenario 2). The CF of
accommodation services of Airbnb would be 4.59 kg CO2e per room per night.
In scenario 3, durables were also included, thus increasing the CF to 6.31 kg
CO2e per room per night. However, running an Airbnb is much lower than an
average household’s CF (27.11 kg CO2e per room per night, scenario 4), which
is because the other sectors including Food, Clothing and footwear, Transport,
Education, Holiday etc. make up a large amount of CF.
Running an Airbnb yields lower CF than traditional accommodation and
the carbon intensity of Airbnb is also lower than the traditional
accommodation sector. The booking services provided by Airbnb platform
and accommodation services provided by Airbnb host together generate a CF
ranging 7.27-9.39 kg CO2e per room per night, which is only 12%-15% of
Accommodation sector (60.90 kg CO2e). The carbon intensities of scenario 1-3
of Airbnb are much lower, ranging 0.02-0.09 kg/RMB, compared to 0.38
kg/RMB of accommodation sector. That is because compared to the average
amount of total fee (104 Yuan per room per night) for Airbnb housing, only
2.55-9.52 dollars per room per night are spent for running Airbnb housing in
Scenarios 1-3 causing a small amount of emissions, while hotels and other

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