Serving with a Smile on Airbnb: Analyzing the Economic Returns and Behavioral Underpinnings of the Host's Smile.

This article investigates the impact of a host's smile in their profile photo on Airbnb property demand, using a large-scale dataset combined with machine learning facial analysis and controlled experiments. The findings show that smiling increases property demand by approximately 3.5% on average, with stronger effects when there is greater uncertainty about the quality of the accommodations or the interaction with the host. Key moderators include host gender—where smiling benefits male hosts more than female hosts—host experience, neighborhood crime rate, and whether the stay is shared or private. Experimental evidence supports that smiling enhances perceptions of the host's warmth and competence, which reduces uncertainty and increases booking likelihood. The effect of smiling also generalizes beyond Airbnb to other hospitality contexts, such as family-owned boutique hotels and branded hotel chains, highlighting the importance of non-verbal cues in digital consumer decision-making under uncertainty.