What are the new features of Airbnb for hosts in 2019?

[Robin4]

I am active on a few different information sites and today was spent on another of those.

The above question came to me as a 'public' question......What are the new features of Airbnb for hosts in 2019?

Here was my answer.....

"Fewer and fewer privileges!

Airbnb have been on a dramatic rise in popularity since 2009 but, the last 18 months have seen Airbnb’s business not reach expected projections.

Airbnb’s hosting rate of the available airbnb host pool in the United States over the past year was 11%…that is right, only 11% of the available Airbnb properties in the US were booked on any given night in 2018.

Airbnb are in the process of a public float and of course want to put on an ever onward and upward business profile. In an endeavour to claw back some of the hosting declines Airbnb have removed all guest photo identification to the host prior to a reservation being placed and accepted. The mistaken rationale behind this is that many hosts are declining guests on racial or gender grounds and by simply providing a name and a year of joining Airbnb only with each request, guest declines will be limited!

Unfortunately there has been a lack of solid contemplative leadership from the top over the past year and some of Airbnb’s decisions are not in the best interests of the company.

1/……The eligibility for Superhost status has been tightened meaning many good hosts with a proven record of representing the company well are loosing their status! Why a company in the hosting business would choose to carve up it’s successful host base is something of a puzzle!

2/…..The introduction of the 'Plus' category of hosts has turned out to be less than successful. The company has only achieved a 25% uptake in the program that they expected and budgeted for. Entry into the program is now free with the entry fee deferred for a year whereas earlier hosts had to pay a fee of $149 US up front to be considered, and many who did join the program are now leaving to go back where they were.

3/. Airbnb are now moving towards a more corporate stance offering some hosts with many listings the ability to set a hosting amount that does not have any service fees displayed to guests. A back door arrangement has been worked out so the corporate host gets charged a higher service fee component and the listing page reflects, No Service Fees, to the guest!

Airbnb have forgotten that I (and 2 million other core hosts just like me) got them going, and got them where they are today!

Every time I turn on my computer now I find my hosting privileges have been undermined by the company to the point where I have now ghosted my listing across to another platform and have in the past month picked up 6 reservations on that platform.

This is not my loss, it is Airbnb’s loss because my booking calendar now reflects the fact that a considerable number of available hosting nights have been lost to Airbnb.

New features for Airbnb hosts in 2019………no, I can’t see any new ones, only a further curtailing of existing ones!"

Terrible to have to criticise the company but, when you are in the business of talking to people, you have to call it by experience, and as you see it!

Cheers......Rob

[Donna240]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 Booking.com looks better, but I have to tell you, that I read on some thread in community center that they take a month to pay the host. I looked into them months ago because they had been sending me an application. What I discovered was that they wanted the host to combine any taxes into the nightly rate, then they would apply their 17.6% commission not only on the rent, but also on the tax. That alone pushes the price way up, so I refused to join based on that kind of greed. As a guest, I really want to know what I'm paying in commission, taxes, etc. I really don't like the way commission prices are forcing prices up while hosts are being told to lower prices on a regular basis. And I think 17.6% is very high, so I will not be booking vacation rentals from Booking.com even though I love them for hotels. I hope the new platform works out well for you. 🙂

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Donna240

Unfortunatelly no booking platform is ideal. They all have serious flaws.

By showing how some of them are displaying map view i just want to explain why so many hosts experience drop of bookings since Airbnb map view has changed last year

[Donna240]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 It's a perfect explanation and I thank you for your research. Showing so few places and only in the heart of the center is a total disservice to all other hosts as well as guests who seek all options. I think the idea of adopting a bad idea from competition is going to be the ruin of Airbnb. Starting with the broadest view including all hosts is a better idea in my opinion. A guest can see the whole field and zero in on what interests them while no hosts are being marginalized.

[Ben551]

Hey @Robin4@Branka-and-Silvia0@Ute42@Cathie19 since this thread is about new features in 2019... have you guys seen the new stuff that came online last night?

We are discussing it in this thread : https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Hooray-Listing-quot-progress-quot-is-no-more-improved-wi...

It’s not fully live everywhere and seemed to come and go for some hosts, but I posted what my cache had captured this morning so, if it’s not live for you, you can see what is coming.

[Ria16]

@Robin4 et al. I’m not one for ‘the machine’ but I did take advantage of a perk yesterday and canceled a booking due to arrive this Saturday.

They had clearly not read anything and I was very uncomfortable with their questions so much so that I would have happily let go of the superhost thing to get them and their allergies gone. 

Thanks to my reading here ( big thanks community) the process was very easy to cancel and I don’t believe I’ve been penalised at all.  I feel empowered;) 

[Pete28]

Couple of added thoughts

- if you try Airbnb as a guest recently you will note a new category 'hotel' next to 'entire place' etc. I guess we can expect to see all kinds of stuff showing up soon.

- I know I keep mentioning it 🙂 but pricing is still broken in the US - unless you keep your base price low and make up for'it with cleaning fee you are doomed to be in the 300+ pile

- the Airbnb host calendar keeps telling me that 50% or more fewer guests are searching than last year blah blah. It's hard to imagine that Airbnb wants this to be public - but if true suggests business is sinking.

- the superhost->plus requirement will eventually kill plus as the 4.8avg becomes harder to maintain as you get more reviews. How hard is it to figure this out ? Just 1* review needs 18 5* to regain the avg. 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Pete28

I noticed today that guest can choose Hotel as a home type and I think it's good. Much better then if hotels would be listed together with private rooms and homes.

It would be even better if they would add more options like a boat, cabin, tent, castle etc... 🙂

I have no idea what will happen with PLUS... now it is free, they don't charge it anymore so it tells us it isn't so popular as Airbnb thought it will. It seems it's something like super hot category for hotels and agencies.

[Pete28]

 One problem with the hotel category is that it is full of condo units with ikea cheaply stuff managed by mrblah with 100s of listings. That is not a hotel.

Airbnb is also going to run into transient accommodation code which restricts what and how a hotel can be run - fire regs etc are very stringent if you call yourself a hotel.

But none of it really matters until Airbnb fixes how price search works. Almost 3 months and still no way to see total price in US on map or sliders. I wouldn't book a trip using Airbnb - and I have hosted about 500 😞 

[Susan17]

@Robin4 @Branka-and-Silvia0

I've been watching this rollout in different markets worldwide over the past few weeks and yes, there is a separate filter  for "Hotel Room". However, even when the browsing guest ticks the Private Room" option, "Private Room in Bed and Breakfast", "Private Room in Hostel', "Private Room in Serviced Apartment", "Private Room in Guest Suite", "Private Room in Lodge", "Private Room in Guesthouse", "Private Room in Aparthotel" and yes... "Room in Hotel" are all coming up in the Top 50 listings, in every "Private Room" search, in every city.

To make matters worse, when you look very closely, you'll discover that many "professionals" appear to have turned bigger houses and apartment blocks into pseudo-hotels, and are listing in both  the "Hotel Rooms" category and the "Private Rooms" category (often under individual host profiles, as "Private Room in House" or "Private Room in Flat")

@Branka-and-Silvia0

I noticed that you mentioned on another thread yesterday that your bookings had plummeted this month, in comparison to the same time last year.  I had another look at your city last night, and the swift and sudden takeover of the Zagreb market by professional/commercial operators (and the subsequent displacement of traditional, independent hosts) is actually one of the worst I've seen so far, in any market worldwide (apart from several cities in Australia). I'll post my findings below.  

[Susan17]

@Robin4 @Branka-and-Silvia0

So this is a search of Zagreb, Private Room, 1 - 3 March, no other filters. 

TOP 50 LISTINGS - ZAGREB

• 31 of the Top 50 listings (62%) were from professional/commercial operators. (As were 7 of the Top 10, or 70%)

• 37 of the Top 50 (74%) were New Listings with 12 or fewer reviews. the majority with no reviews at all

•  14 Superhost listings (12 Superhosts) in the Top 50, but..

- Of those 14 listings, 2 SHs appeared twice, one a professional operator with two separate accounts, and one a regular host with only 10 reviews, and 2 listings in the Top 50. 

- 4 of the superhosts in top 50 had 12 reviews or less. One "SH" had just 8 reviews and rents his double room out for €12 a night. 

- So of the 12 Superhosts in the Top 50, only 8 (16%) had more than 20 reviews, and just 5 (10%) had 100+ reviews. 

• Prices ranged from €12 to €77 per night. 

- Interestingly, the lowest prices (apart from the €12 guy) were *all* from the 8 Superhosts with long experience and the best reviews (€22 - €34)

- The professionals, in the main, appear to be pricing substantially higher ( €40 - €77)

The very first listing at the top was a commercial offering at €77. 

• One professional operator had 5 of her listings in the Top 50 (all priced at €55 to €75, but not a single review for any of them), another had 3 listings in the Top 50, and a further three hosts had 2 listings each. 

Sorry @Branka-and-Silvia0, I know that's not good news for you, but it does explain why you're not being seen 😞

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Susan17thank you for your time to do this research, I really appreciate 🙂

Yes, Zagreb and Croatia, in general, is saturated with STRs as tourism become one of only a few profitable businesses here. Everything else is killed by lousy politics and too much bureaucracy. 

I took some time off so I can finish some other projects in my life and I am not updating my calender regularly etc... I don't have time for hosting right now anyway. Besides, it is winter so it is not worth to lower my prices at rock bottom just to get few guests and then spend half of that money for the heating.

I just hope I will be able to get bookings from the spring on 🙂

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

.... and yes, you researched for private room, we have entire apartments... but it is probably the same situation

[Susan17]

@Branka-and-Silvia0

Oh yes, I completely forgot that your listings are Entire Homes - my apologies! But considering that up until very recently, the Private Room market was largely unaffected  (or at least, much less affected) by the proliferation of professional and commercial operators on the platform, it sure doesn't bode well for us entire home hosts either...  😞

You're spot on with the maps too, by the way. Almost every single listing that appeared in my search was bang slap in the city centre. 

[Susan17]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 

Do you have the link to your original post about the maps issue please? I thought I'd saved it at the time you first posted it, but was trying to find it last night and can't seem to find it. And of course, the search function here in the CC is not functioning at all for me. So frustrating... 😞

[Susan17]

PS I did a new Dublin search last night - 46 of the Top 50 listings were right in the heart of the city centre (hotel heaven), and the other 4 were bordering on the edge of the city centre. So much for "living like a local", and Airbnb's risible claims that local, diverse neighbourhoods and communities benefit massively from their presence. 

And how ironic that the cities they choose to highlight for their "Economic Impacts" studies are some of the most grossly Airbnb-saturated cities in the world, whose local residents are suffering the greatest from spiralling rents, dearth of long-term housing  stock, displacement, disruption and anti-social guest behaviour, courtesy of the armies of "professional" operators and commercial entities that Airbnb has increasingly facilitated to take over the platform. 

These self-serving  "surveys" and "studies" have gone way beyond BS now, into straight up lies, cheating, and con-artistry territory. No wonder governments and lawmakers worldwide are shutting us all down. Nobody likes to be played for fools. 

https://www.airbnb.ie/economic-impact