Home alone...? : A qualitative study investigating how different factors guide Swedish ‘småhus’ owners' intention to rent out their primary residence.

Sammanfattning: Background: Engaging in sharing economy practices has in recent years increased in popularity. Hence, renting a private home instead of traditional accommodation options are becoming more common among travellers. Previous research has focused on the demand side of renting accommodations. The suppliers' perspective has also been developed and researched regarding their intentions to continue renting out their properties. However, non-experienced hosts have previously been neglected in academic research. Therefore, this thesis focuses on non-experienced hosts and their thoughts regarding opening their home and their intention to engage in sharing economy practices.  Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how the different factors guide Swedish ‘småhus’ owners' intention to rent out their primary residence.  Method: To explore the purpose of this thesis, a qualitative research design was chosen. The empirical data was gathered through fifteen semi-structured interviews sampled through non-probability judgemental sampling. An abductive research approach was chosen to analyse and interpret the data using thematic analysis.  Conclusion: This study found that participants' intentions to act as hosts were guided by attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control presented through the theory of planned behaviour. Participants further showed that trust, concerns, control, privacy, economics, environment, security, and people were themes that affected some- or all ‘småhus’ owners' intentions in this research. Furthermore, this study found that economic benefit acts as the largest motivator to act as hosts, especially where an economic need exists. However, trust was deemed necessary to enable most participants to consider the idea of opening up their private homes.