The rapid growth of sharing economy presents opportunities to grow the tourism economy by allowing to rent one’s residence to short-stay visitors and to provide private transportation services in a personal vehicle, but also poses challenges for established industries. Using more than 2 million Airbnb reviews covering 25 metropolitan areas in the United States, this study delves into whether and how home-sharing, Airbnb, and ride-sharing, Uber, influence employment in tourism industries for the period of 2005-2016. For identification, we exploit instrument variables for Airbnb usage, as well as a natural experiment setting using the Uber’s staggered entry into US cities as exogenous shocks. Our findings demonstrate that the number of Airbnb reviews is associated with the increase in local employment of tourism industries, though this impact is driven mainly by the increase in employment of food/beverage industries (restaurants and bars). Importantly, in low accessibility neighborhoods which are underserved by public transits, we find that Airbnb seems to have a spillover effect on local employment in food/beverage industries only when ride-sharing services are available. This study sheds new light on the potential of sharing economy to promote thriving and sustainable tourism sectors that generate significant economic and social benefits.
