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Working Within the Collaborative Tourist Economy: The Complex Crafting of Work and Meaning

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Collaborative Economy and Tourism

Part of the book series: Tourism on the Verge ((TV))

Abstract

This chapter explores from a critical perspective how workers in the collaborative tourism economy craft meaning and identity in work and discusses transformations on the established labour market induced by the collaborative economy. It does so through the perspectives of guides working with Copenhagen Free Walking Tours, a platform offering guided tours and hosts offering short-term rentals on the platform Airbnb. Both guides and hosts practice job crafting. However, guides and hosts navigate the collaborative economy in different ways. Both markets require hosting qualities drawing on personal competencies when delivering hosting–on-demand. Guides can be characterised as social lifestyle entrepreneurs as they experience guiding as a lifestyle with high social and cultural returns. To the contrary, the Airbnb hosts interviewed can be perceived as micro-entrepreneurs practising pseudo-sharing, and manoeuvring in micro-competitive platform capitalism.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In Denmark, a certain amount of income from rent is exempt from tax. The precise amount is determined in accordance with the real estate value.

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Correspondence to Jane Widtfeldt Meged .

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Meged, J.W., Christensen, M.D. (2017). Working Within the Collaborative Tourist Economy: The Complex Crafting of Work and Meaning. In: Dredge, D., Gyimóthy, S. (eds) Collaborative Economy and Tourism . Tourism on the Verge. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51799-5_12

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