Trust is crucial for cooperation and orderly social relations, especially in tourist accommodations where tourists often rely on their hosts. Pumputis' study highlights how algorithmic management influences relationships and asset use, showing that platforms do more than just mediate—they shape outcomes between users.
The study provides practical insights for managing consumer-provider relationships in digital tourism and contributes to broader discussions on trust and control in the sharing economy.
– My conclusion is that increased use of digital technologies makes it harder to trust each other because they reduce social contact, even though they make exchanges on the platform more efficient. This efficiency benefits the platform more than trust and attracts more hosts to Airbnb, increasing its importance in tourist destinations, says Pumputis.
He suggests that tourist destinations need to consider how this affects them and how much platformization they want. The results are primarily directed towards practitioners dealing with platforms, but they could also be interesting for other fields where platforms manage relationships between service providers and consumers.
