Platform-Mediated Price Stratification in Urban Tourism Markets: Evidence from Five European Capital Cities

İngilizce (OpenAlex)

Digital platforms have transformed urban tourism markets by restructuring the interaction between accommodation providers and consumers. While existing research has tended to examine individual platforms or cities in isolation, this study investigates how platform-associated price differences vary across urban contexts. The analysis is based on 6,058 accommodation listings obtained from Airbnb, Booking, and Hotels.com across five European capitals: Berlin, London, Madrid, Paris, and Rome. Ordinary least squares regression with robust standard errors and quantile regression techniques have been employed to test whether platforms function as neutral intermediaries or as active mechanisms of market segmentation. The findings reveal significant platform-based price premiums, with hotel platforms charging approximately 50% to 55% higher prices than peer-to-peer platforms. These premiums persist even after controlling for accommodation ratings, indicating that platforms are associated with market segmentation beyond observable quality differences. Moreover, platform-related pricing patterns vary considerably across cities. Rome exhibits a pronounced divergence between Airbnb and hotel platforms, whereas London demonstrates increasing premiums across both hotel channels. Platform segmentation is found to operate across the entire price distribution rather than being concentrated solely within premium segments. The results suggest that digital intermediation channels are associated with distinct market structures in urban tourism, shaped by local contexts, and challenge simplified models of platform competition and convergence.