What drives apartment rental rates on Booking.com? A hedonic pricing approach
What drives apartment rental rates on Booking.com? A hedonic pricing approach

Summary/Abstract: This study investigates the determinants of apartment rent-al rates listed on Booking.com across 25 Polish cities divided into7 NUTS (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics) regions.Using web-scraped data, we analyze the impact of apartment char-acteristics, host attributes, location, and platform-specific features onrental rate levels. Particular attention is given to the role of affiliateprogram participation (Preferred, Preferred Plus), review ratings, lan-guage skills and location.Quantile regression and random forest models are applied to accountfor rental rate heterogeneity. The results indicate that apartmentsaffiliated with Booking.com programs command significantly higherrental rates. While multilingual descriptions particularly in Englishand German are positively associated with higher rental rates, Rus-sian language availability shows a negative relationship. Additionally,although overall review scores are positively linked to rental rates, thevalue for money rating tends to be lower for more expensive apartments.The study contributes to the literature by extending pricing analysisbeyond Airbnb and incorporating Booking.com-specific mechanisms,rarely addressed in prior research. Practical implications concern pric-ing strategies and platform design. Limitations include the cross-sec-tional nature of the data and potential selection bias in scraped listings.By addressing platform-specific pricing determinants, this researchprovides new insights into how online presentation and platformaffiliation influence perceived apartment value in the digital short-term rental market.

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