Abstract

Since its founding in 2007, Airbnb has articulated its corporate identity around the mission “Belong Anywhere”, anchoring its brand promise in peer-to-peer hospitality, host empowerment, and authentic local experience. While this declared mission has remained stable, the platform’s economic, operational, and symbolic architecture has changed substantially: by 2026 it incorporates boutique hotels, car rentals, grocery delivery, and global sporting experiences while launching rural campaigns framed as territorial revitalization. This paper introduces the Authenticity Commodification Cycle (ACC), a conceptual framework that traces Airbnb’s discursive evolution across six phases (2007–2026) through the lens of corporate authenticity discourse and platform financialization. Drawing on a qualitative content analysis of a purpose-built corpus of 23 coded documentary units (derived from 33 retrieved source captures, with 3 contextual sources), and supported by an interpretive Ratio A/F index, the findings suggest that authenticity is not abandoned as the platform financializes but preserved and strategically redeployed as narrative capital. This dynamic is interpreted as a proposed form of “authenticity washing”—a symbolic legitimacy mechanism analogous to greenwashing in hospitality. The ACC contributes to research on platform tourism, brand authenticity, the collaborative economy, and destination governance, with implications for the regulation of platform-based tourism.

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