Postgraduate Research

Hi everyone,

I am a postgraduate student at Sheffield Hallam University (UK) studying International Marketing and am currently doing research for my dissertation. My interest and topic is to explore the motivations of Airbnb hosts, in particular those who rent out a room in their property, sharing their space. I am looking for hosts based in the UK who would be willing to be interviewed (via skype or phone) to find out about their experience. If you wouldn’t mind being interviewed I would be extremely grateful if you comment on here or message me directly!

Many thanks in advance,

Sara

How much are you paying? Maybe a better topic would be the motivations of grad students who keep coming to this forum wanting us to write their theses and dissertations for them.

I’m not in the UK but I’m available for interviews at my usual rate of US$125.00 per hour.

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You will probably get more interest if you say exactly how grateful… :moneybag:

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You don’t need to do a dissertation. There is so much research out there already. Nor do you need to do qual interviews.

Home hosts host because

A) it gives them an income
B) they like meeting people
C) in some cases it enables them to keep their home/make home improvements
D) some use it as a stepping stone to launch a wider Airbnb business or Airbnb support business.

….I presume my cheque is in the post :slight_smile:

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My hourly rate is $100/hour USD. I think I need to update my rate card… :wink:

Yuppers.

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@Sara_Ali Do you realize that hosts see hundreds of posts like yours, asking hosts to answer a survey “It will only take about 10 minutes of your time” or give an interview? Do you know how many other students are writing their thesis or dissertation on exactly the same thing? It’s certainly not some innovative idea.

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I would be happy to help at no cost but I’m not in the UK. When I was a student I got hours of assistance from folks who helped me at no cost. One woman let me interview her for 4 hours (god typing that transcript was hell) for an oral history paper.

Good luck to you.

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Sara - host in Lancaster UK renting out our spare room. happy to help. Cheers, Mac

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Hi Mac,
Thanks so much for your positive response! If you are still interested, is it possible to get your email/contact to send you some more information etc. Thanks again! Sara

I think most hosts have other things on their mind at the moment @Sara_Ali

What with the coronavirus on all :sleepy:

I’d think with the lockdown and no bookings it would be a great time to help with research. Thing is, I think the paper may be irrelevant by the time it’s presented or published.

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Everything still open here, but my point was that with many hosts worrying about their livelihoods it seems a tad insensitive

Well, this will be one of our rare disagreements. That would be like someone posting here asking what to do about a complaining neighbor or what kind of soap to use and being attacked as insensitive because what about all the hosts with no bookings. (jeez, I hope we don’t come to that).

No one has to participate or even read the post and she is replying to someone who volunteered.

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I get that, just think it’s not great to come back five days after a host offered to help when many hosts are in the middle of a crisis and ask them if they still want to be interviewed.

Always happy to agree to disagree :grinning:

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Thank you for your offer to help. I’m currently focusing on the UK based hosts but not having loads of luck/ offers to help perhaps due to the current situation which I appreciate is difficult for a lot of people. I may have to consider other countries as well if things don’t improve but thanks for the encouragement.

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When I read comments such as this & others, I ask myself why do you not keep your demoralizing comments to yourself, what do you gain? It just isn’t necessary.

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Totally agree, it just puts people down, like myself, and is not needed. I’d like to think this was a place to embrace a sense of community.

I’m going to chime in here – we’ve had people posing as “researchers” in our forum but in reality they are trying to identify hosts and get their personal information. I’m going to close this thread.

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