Inferences and Decision Heuristics in Peer-to-Peer Accommodation Booking

This paper presents a preliminary result of a study on the roles of inference making in decision heuristics involving P2P accommodation booking. The goals of the study are to identify the influence of cues from similar listings on a decision to book a target listing when reviews are not available (i.e., missing information) as well as the effects of decision-making styles on actual choice and decision confidence. Preliminary results showed that the inclusion of a similar listing (comparison) did not make a significant difference in decision confidence, which may indicate insignificant roles of external cues in booking decisions. Due to a limited number of participants in the pilot study, the main study with a larger number of participants may explicate the phenomenon more significantly. Should the results hold, they suggest P2P accommodation hosts pay more attention to the listing characteristics instead of relying on information from similar listings.