Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Tourism Management Perspectives journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tmp Exploring entrepreneurship in the sharing accommodation sector: Empirical evidence from a developing country Zaid Alrawadieh a, ⁎ , Ziad Alrawadieh b a Vocational School of Social Sciences, Istanbul University, Istanbul 34452, Turkey b School of Archaeology and Tourism, University of Jordan, Amman 11942, Jordan ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Peer-to-peer accommodation Sharing economy Informal economy Entrepreneurship Tourism entrepreneurship Airbnb ABSTRACT A plethora of research has been conducted over the past few years to explore several aspects of the key exchange actors within the sharing accommodation sector (i.e. hosts and guests). However, despite the exponential growth in the sharing accommodation entrepreneurship, literature exploring the characteristics, motivations, and challenges of entrepreneurs venturing in this sector is still scant. This study draws on a qualitative study ap- proach using semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs involved in the sharing accommodation sector in Petra, Jordan. Findings revealed that sharing accommodation entrepreneurs were mainly driven by the desire for economic and cultural benefits. The positive host-guest relationship (e.g., honesty toward guests and enhancing positive reputation) emerged as a key factor influencing the growth of the sharing accommodation businesses whereas market-related issues (e.g., severe competition and lobbying efforts from traditional lodging businesses) were found to be the key challenges derailing the businesses. 1. Introduction Market-based unregistered entrepreneurial activities, referred to as the “informal economy” or the “shadow economy” (Schneider, Buehnb, & Montenegroc, 2010) have long existed driven by several reasons in- cluding the desire for evading tax burden and business regulations (Schneider et al., 2010; Yamada, 1996). While entrepreneurship in the informal economy has been widely recognized to be much more common in the developing countries (Schneider, 2002; Thai & Turkina, 2014), the emergence of online community marketplaces and the ex- plosive growth of the sharing economy platforms (e.g., Airbnb) con- tributed to the expansion of the informal economy (Williams & Horodnic, 2017) in both developed and developing economies. The peer-to-peer exchange of services mediated by the sharing economy platforms is expected to constitute a larger fraction of the world's economy in the coming years (Cohen & Sundararaja, 2015). The introduction of the sharing economy platforms over the past few years has revolutionized the tourism and hospitality industry by creating both potential threats and opportunities (Pizam, 2014; Sigala, 2017). For instance, while traditional brick-and-mortar businesses are susceptible to disruption from the new sharing economy business models, both sides of the exchange process (i.e., service providers and customers) are gaining enormous advantages including access to en- trepreneurial opportunities that eventually create supplemental incomes and access to a variety of offerings with lower prices (Hsieh & Wu, 2018; Koh & King, 2017; Richardson, 2015; Zervas, Proserpio, & Byers, 2017). From the supply side, the sharing economy platforms have fueled a new type of micro-entrepreneurship in which individuals can capitalize on their own assets (e.g., houses, cars) to generate rev- enues and ensure a source of income from idle resources (Martin, 2016; Stabrowski, 2017). While the sharing economy is influencing almost all industries (Belk, 2014), its impact seems to be more evident in the tourism and travel industry. Specifically, the hotel sector is highly vulnerable to disruption by the sharing economy platforms (Akbar & Tracogna, 2018). The sharing economy has received considerable attention over the past few years. It may be indicative to note that, since 2016, at least four special issues in high tier tourism, hospitality, and management journals addressing this topic either have appeared, are being currently peer-reviewed, or are still receiving submissions. Specifically, con- siderable research endeavors have been undertaken to explore different aspects related to the key exchange actors within the sharing accom- modation sector (e.g., Belarmino, Whalen, Koh, & Bowen, 2017; Mao & Lyu, 2017; Tussyadiah & Pesonen, 2018) as well as the impact of the sharing accommodation sector on both traditional accommodation businesses and tourist destinations (e.g., Ginindza & Tichaawa, 2017; Koh & King, 2017; Oskam & Boswijk, 2016). Yet, as noted by Sigala (2018: 160), “sharing economy entrepreneurs do something so un- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2018.09.001 Received 12 February 2018; Received in revised form 8 September 2018; Accepted 14 September 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: zaid.alrawadieh@istanbul.edu.tr (Z. Alrawadieh), z.rawadieh@ju.edu.jo (Z. Alrawadieh). Tourism Management Perspectives 28 (2018) 179–188 2211-9736/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T