Online Collaborative Platforms to the Hospitality and Tourism Industry: The Paradox of Regulating the Sector

The between online collaborative platforms, governments and industry partitioners has been reported in many countries. Online marketplaces that connect people who want to rent out their homes with people who are looking for accommodations in specific locations. Online Collaborative Platforms have been criticized for conferring unfair competition to established hotels, reducing job security, avoiding tax and posing a threat to safety, health and disability compliance standards. The main objective of this study is to determine the impact of online collaborative hospitality options to the conventional hotels; secondly, the study examines the challenges to governments with regard to the collection of levies. The study adopted the cross-sectional survey design. The target population comprised of government agencies concerned with tourism levy, homes listed as Airbnb accommodation listings and hotel managers. The units of observation were customers and employees at management level. The study used a stratified random technique to select the respondents. Questionnaires, interview and Focus Group Discussion guides were used to collect the data. The analysis of the data was done descriptively. The study identifies factors behind the success of online collaborative platforms and the strategies that can be adopted by hotels to compete with these platforms effectively. The study further identifies levy collection avenues.