National culture and the sharing economy

The tourism sector is essential to a country due to its direct and indirect impact on employment, the development of services, and foreign exchange (Berndt et al., 2013). Two important sectors for tourism are accommodations and travel, specifically the hotel and taxi industries, which are viewed in this chapter as traditional services. Building on these services, the sharing economy has impacted the transport and accommodation sectors, and thus the tourism industry (Ammar et al., 2020). Vehicles have been perceived as underutilised resources, which encourages sharing of this resource with others (Weatherhead, 2014). These resources are then used by the owners to generate income through service provision. Examples of brands in the sharing economy include Uber, Lyft, Airbnb and Vrbo.