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

[Cathie19]

Hi @Robin4. We can and do have lots of concerns that we can all gripe about, but for now, I’m sending positive vibes to the company to reconsider the “classic host” as it’s bread and butter for 2019.

That seeing sense, they will give us our dues and cut us some slack. Not that we are slack, just wanting them to make the “classic host” more viable and on an equal playing field with the evergrowing influx of commercial operators.

Why? Because other booking agencies for commercial properties, actually appear to do it better than Airbnb; AND Airbnb should capitalise and promote what it is known for: community, caring, cultural exchange and interaction. All those homestay snot being utilised says something is not syncing very well with the current business model. They would be better to advertise themselves as a boutique, but global operation! They may have less homestay that way, but the occupancy would definitely increase, because guests would know what they are getting.

Head in the sand, call it what you will, but I have hope.. that’s my 2019 projected expectations.

😁😁😁

PS: but I am not going to lose sleep over it! 

[Ben551]

@Robin4 Well said Rob, as usual. I think I’m with @Cathie19 in terms of trying to be positive about 2019.  I’d like to see a return of focus on classic hosting, with less emphasis on commercial hosting.

I’m actually convinced that this is going to happen on its own in a lot of places, because various cities and governments are seeing commercial STR’s as disruptive to the housing market (couldn’t be more true here). So Airbnb can change nothing, but certainly where I live we will start to see a decline in large scale commercial Airbnb rings, because it won’t be an attractive investment once new legislation (permits and taxes) starts spinning into gear. I’m keen to see this rebalancing begin in 2019.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Robin4

Not "Fewer and fewer privileges! "... then "Fewer and fewer chance I would say...

Last year in February I had 1010 € bookings... this year just 175 €.

I spoke with my neighbors and they are empty as well.  I am 100% sure this is caused by a new calendar view where only 20 listings closest to the main square are shown at once. We are in the center, 10 min walk from the main square but we are empty, so imagine all those listings further away... they have no chance to survive on Airbnb, they have to find other booking sites.

I found another booking site (without any host fee) where you can see all listings (price-bubbles) on the map as soon as you choose the city. Then you add filters and bubbles disappear one by one... until only a few remains. This system is much fairer and user-friendly and it gives equal chance to everyone. I loved it as soon as I saw it.

[Ute42]

.

Hi @Branka-and-Silvia0,

which booking site are You talking about?

[Robin4]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 @Cathie19 @Ben551 

Branka, I am not complaining because I am missing out on bookings....every month I end up fully booked and at this stage only have about 10 nights unbooked until the end of April.

I am complaining because the tools I have been used to using here are disappearing....I am being forced to achieve more and more with less and less help.

I have a lot more trouble navigating my way around the other hosting platform I am now using than I am having with Airbnb, but I think that is just that I have more experience here....every move is second nature.

I think I am lashing out, I am annoyed with Airbnb because they are compromising what I do, they are making our job as hosts harder.

I can understand where they are going, with an occupancy rate of 11% in the US they figure they have hosts to burn, what they need is more guests, not more hosts, so by making things increasingly more difficult they are weeding out the non performers and they will end up with a core of more productive hosts!

But what they have not taken into account is....Performers or not, nobody likes to go backwards. The more restrictions you put on people the more they will look for alternatives! I have, and a lot of others I know are in the process of doing the same. Thanks to Airbnb I know how to be a successful host, I would like to continue using Airbnb, but I will only do so as long as it is equitable! I won't stop hosting, I will stop Airbnb hosting once they cross that line and it is no longer equitable.

The company needs to know and accept, you wave an olive branch at hosts, not hit us with a big stick!

Yeah @Ute42 I would love to know that booking site of Branka's too!

Cheers......Rob

[Garth23]

Dear Rob,

I had problems in communicating with airbnb when I had a previous property, have just listed a new one and seem to have jumped from the frying pan into the proverbial fire!  Trying to find a place to ask a specific question rather than fit into a question that the website would prefer to answer is something that I had forgotten!

There is so apparent way to specify whether one is setting the tariff on a PER PERSON basis or PER COUPLE, for one thing.

There seems to be nowhere that I can CHANGE an EMAIL ADDRESS - they assume that I want to use the one from 4 years ago.

Nowhere have they asked for MY BANKING DETAILS so how does payment really work?

There is nowhere where I was asked whether I would provide BREAKFAST or whether the facility is SELF CATERING.

And hunting thru FAQ's seems to focus more on the traveller than the host in the slant in the questions.

Any hints or suggestions on the above?

Many thanks in anticipation,

GARTH, Swellendam, South Africa

[Robin4]

@Garth23

Sorry Garth I have only just come across this post of yours. If you wish to alkert a particular contributor here who is active on a particular thread hit the @ key and a box will apear with the tags of 5 other contributors on that thread hit the person you want to respond to and you will notice that contributors tag will come up in a light blue field, just like yours has above. You will now be alerted that someone is responding to you!....ok.

Right, now to your issues.....

!/.... With regard to your pricing, the price that will be displayed is shown as your base price which you set on your listing editing page under pricing . Once you have set your base price scroll down to Extra Charges . Click edit and you will be faced with this screen.

In this instance the base price will be displayed for two people with a $15 extra charge for each additional person after 2. You can set that for 1 person with the extra charge taking effect when the guest books for any nore than 1 guest.

You can overide this by sending your guest a special offer from the message page. When you do this the number of guests is irrellevant, the amount you specify is what the guest will pay as per this screen......

2/...... To change your email address, either do it via this link....

Change email

or Log on > Settings and  follow this screen......

3/....... You cant set a payout method to including your banking details  by Log on and clicking on account settings and select from the menu on the left of screen Payout Preferences....as per this screen......

4/......As far as Breakfast is concerned you have the option of stating if you supply breakfast under your Ammenities. It will apear in the Dining section and you can set as either avalable or un-available!

I hope this helps with some of your inquiries in that post Garth.

Cheers.......Rob

[Peta7]

Hi Garth, the payment option for an additional guest is hidden under Pricing - Standard fees and charges.

Your profile should reflect all personal detail and the drop down menu underneath your profile photo in the hosting window could be what you are looking for to change payment methods etc

After using our bank account for some time we found Payoneer to be our prefered choice by far. 

A new one to us is  "Guest identification requirements in SA" as found on the Net and as elaborated on this forum. Hope this pennies worth will help. Regards, Peta 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Ute42@Robin4

Unfortunately I forgot which site it was, but just to illustrate what I mean I made a few screenshots of map view across different platforms. I searched Paris, France for the same dates

1) Trivago - a lot of available listings shown, but only in the city center. 10 basic filters + key search option

 

2) Go.ogle - a lot of available listings shown on the map, not just in the city center. Very few filters available

 

3) Airbnb - only 20 listings are shown, in the city center only. Other filters are available.

 

I mention this because it was also changed last year and ever since all hosts outside the strict center /main square/main street  whose listing is not in the top 20 on the first page, experienced a significant drop of bookings ( we all know most guests do the map search) It seems all "improvements" Airbnb introduced last year were user unfriendly and against hosts.

[Ben551]

Hey that’s interesting @Branka-and-Silvia0 - I wonder how Booking.com and VRBO compare on map area searches...

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Ben551

VRBO is also very poor , same as Airbnb, just 20 listings shown at once

Booking.com is better and shows much more listings, not only in the city center and it has A LOT of filters

[Ben551]

Oh wow @Branka-and-Silvia0 thanks very much for posting all this. It’s very helpful to see everything compared side by side etc.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

Yes, interesting right? Of course, those are only listings from the first page, there are more on next pages... but we all know if you are not on the first page you are invisible

Even if you move the map on Airbnb it will still show only those listings closest to the city center,  not those in the middle of your map frame which is ridiculous

[Pete28]

The real game is to figure out where guests will put the price sliders. If you are outside of that range you are never going to be found 😞