Abstract:

The fact that sharing economy is growing rapidly in various areas such as transport, finance and personal services (e.g. delivery, accommodation) has a huge impact on socio-economic system. Guttentag (2015) and Sigala (2017) observed that sharing economy would change the dynamics of the hospitality and tourism industry. Apart from a new supplier of tourist services (as consumers provide services to other consumers) and an exchange of intermediary (specialised online platforms) there also emerges a new type of tourist driven by new motives. The purpose of this article is to identify the new tourist who has appeared in sharing economy and to describe their profile with particular emphasis on their socio-demographic features, motives and barriers to using SE platforms, based on Polish tourists’ research.