Sharing economy, sustainability, and tourism - systematic literature review

Resumo

Globalization and rapid technological developments have contributed to the emergence of a new economic system - the sharing economy. A prominent example of this new type of economy lies in the tourism industry. This sector has been influenced and transformed by this economy with important consequences for tourism, tourist destinations, and sustainability. This article, through a systematic review of the literature, endeavours to systematize current knowledge of this relationship and investigate its evolution, the relationship between this new form of economy and the sustainability in tourism as well as the areas that have not yet been explored for possible future research. For this, a study of 45 articles was subsequently analysed in the light of content analysis. The results show although it is an area of growing interest, given the number of recent articles, there are few studies concerned in the relation between sharing economy and sustainability in the tourism sector. There are four major areas of current studies with quantitative methods dominating investigations. The impacts that this type of economy has on tourism and also on the sustainability of the destinations remain dubious and there are areas whose results are not consensual among authors. There is thus a need to consolidate the knowledge and to explore several ways of research since it is a subject that is still in the embryonic stage.