A simpler Airbnb inspired by you

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

A simpler Airbnb inspired by you

Simplify Hosting

 

Hello Everyone,

 

As constantly reflected here in the Community Center, Airbnb hosts put an incredible amount of time and effort into providing great hosting experiences to guests. This make your time very precious, so it is important that the tools you use on Airbnb are accessible and easy to use.

 

Recently, many of you have shared ways in which the Airbnb website could be improved to support your hosting activities. It inspired a redesign of the website.

 

Over the coming weeks, you’ll see changes based on feedback from hundreds of hosts and that have been designed and tested in collaboration with the host community. Here are some of the changes you’ve inspired:

 

  • Navigation is now consistent whether you’re on your phone or your computer
  • Key hosting features and tools like messaging and the calendar are more accessible 
  • Hosts who travel on Airbnb can now easily switch between hosting and traveling modes

 

For more information on what the team has learned from your feedback and how you have influenced changes to the site, please take a look at this Airbnb blog article.

 

We know how important it is to you that you are informed of changes on Airbnb and so we hope you welcome this information. We would love to hear from you, so please do share any thoughts you have on the process and what you think of these changes.

 

Thank you,

 

Lizzie


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Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

87 Replies 87
Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Hello @Oomesh-Kumarsingh0,

 

Great to see you response. In regards to your point here, you might find this post an interesting read! 🙂


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Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

Hello @Lizzie

 

 

I cant wait for tonights live Q&A!!! See you Lizzie

Sony2
Level 1
Midland, Canada

Change isn't always as good as we expected; however, Airbnb new  website improvement is really helpful to hosts and so clients

Thanks 

Sony

Thank you for synchronized calendars in airbnb system. I asked for this for two years.

Finaly you did it and it works perfectly between my one and two bedrooms listings.

When we used to link with google calendar it took at least 24 hours.

We had problem in the past that two different guests took 1 and 2 bedrooms at the same time and we had to cancell one.

This cancellation is still on our record and we cannot shake it off and become super hosts.

I wish you can do something about removing our cancellation from our record.

Thank you,

Maria

 

When I have a cancellation it is usually only when I receive 2 bookings last minute from different sources.

If you go onto guest reviews and reply why there was a cancellation, new guest inquires can see why

you cancelled a booking.

Mak4
Level 1
Singapore

Hi Good day everybody,

I have posted 5 different types of bedrooms with different set-up of numbers of beds available which will accommodate and suit our guests' expectations. Recent complains are that they could not find my other types and other different postings for my bedrooms. They have to search which place and numbers of guests in order for them to get the right type of bedrooms' set up and no other options of my other advertised bedrooms are given to my guests to choose.  Therefore, they ends up choosing the wrong type of beds, smaller room and created alot of confusion when they have arrived. My question is, can my 5 different posted type of bedrooms can make easier and appear for our guests to choose the right type of my bedrooms they wanted. I believe they can search their needs but not all guests are professionals and well-educated. It has to be friendly, easy for them to find the right type of bedrooms they wanted and it will help to fulfill my bookings' targets as well. Thank u for being a good listeners and I know u can help me to be a good partners of u and our community. Best Regards.

Christine1
Level 10
Glenbrook, Australia

@Mak4,

 It seems like you are doing fine, and offering a fair and good value service.

However, if guests are in one particular room, and you want to recommend they consider one of your other listings, there are a few things you can do to help.

First of all when you write back, point out some of the key features of the room they have chosen and make sure they realise these important points.

If you think guests may not have made the best choice from your options, then tell them exactly what your alternatives are and either send them an Airbnb link to your other rooms or the full title of the room you recommend. If they type this room title in their search engine it should pop up, and they can go straight to your listing from the search result.

For example, when I type in the name of my listing it comes straight up on an internet search!

Mak, You have a distinctive name, why not consider including it in your listing titles. It will assist your listing to be located when a visitor is searching from outside Airbnb. It's easier than searching within the Airbnb site as you cannot search from within the site by listing title/name. 

you can also suggest that guests go straight to your profile and the webpage will demonstrate your other listing under your picture and key details. Or they can access your other rooms online via the guest reviews, which each carry a link to your individual listings.

If you think a guest would be better suited to another room, you can send them a special offer for an alternate room, this sends the option straight to them in an email from you. They don't have to accept the special offer, it just opens up the conversation and you can help them to see the choices you have.

I hope this is helpful.

write back and let us know how you get on.

By the way. You wrote a very respectful informative response to a recent review from a guest who had misunderstood his accommodation. I thought you handled this situation well.

Happy Hosting.

 

Hi Good day Christine,

I have posted 5 different listings for my 5 bedrooms and I noticed that same posting for that bedroom which is already booked on 24th June is still appearing(when doing searching for bedroom) for our guests to book other dates rather 24th June. It is ok if I do not have other 4 posted different bedrooms available for other guests to book on the same 24th June dates. 

My question is , if I have other guests who wanted to book on the same 24th date, then the search in airbnb for the other 4 listed and posted different bedrooms did not appear in Airbnb's website search( I have already searched and tried out) eventhough the other  4 listings are  still in "active" listing bedrooms and because of this happening, my the other 4 listing with available bedrooms will not be booked because it did not appear in the Airbnb "search" website.

Please help me how to solve my problem by defaulting and replacing it with my other sequence 4 listings once it is being booked(in the airbnb's website)  and replace my other listings one after another which are available for 24th June date so that other prospective guests can book all 5 of my bedrooms instead of one on the same booked date 24th June.

It will not be productive because of this happening , that is to say only one of my bedrooms can be booked for one night instead of 5 bedrooms on the same night.

Please help me to solve my problem because many of my prospective guests have shared this problem(Unable to select for another listing for booking) to me and I have tried out and confirmed it is true.

I believe this problem can be solved with the help from the community members and any suggestion is welcome and appreciated. Thank you all for spending your precious time to share and solve my problem. 

Best Regards.

Yours Sincerely, Mak Mark.

 

Christine1
Level 10
Glenbrook, Australia

@Mak4

I am not sure why your listing would not show up, except to say that they have found your listing and the search tool is designed to distribute opportunity to all hosts on a fair basis. Imagine if your place was the only one popping up on a search, the other hosts would start to feel bothered.

 If someone is in contact with you and wants to have accommodation that requires more than one room; a simple fix would be to confirm their overall guest needs and dates, then send them a special offer for the overall booking which will be linked to one room on the website. If the guest numbers require 3 rooms, just block out the extra rooms on your calendar, and put a note on the dates to remind you why the room nights are blocked.

You can calculate the tariff you want and put this figure in your special offer, or temporarily change the guest numbers allowed on a room for the time it takes the booking request to be processed. The tariff will then be calculated when the guest enters the correct numbers.

Just make sure all room settings are immediately restored to normal as soon as the transaction is set in place, otherwise you will cause confusion to future enquirers.

Keep in mind, manually blocked dates will not automatically open up if a booking is cancelled. You must attend to that on a case by case basis.

You can have a note on your site which says "I have other rooms/beds available if you have family and wish to book more than one room for your group. Please let me know and I can send you a special offer."

Alternatively you might like to create a listing which accepts larger numbers of guests and demonstrate the multiple rooms associated with it. Once these rooms get booked out, the calendar will block availability. If the rooms are also listed individually as well, I can't advise you further. ... sorry.. ...

Don't forget to ensure that if you are willing to accept multiple separate travellars, you must also ensure they understand this sharing situation at the time of making their booking. 

Best regards. Christine.

Helen234
Level 1
Grindelwald, Australia

Sorry I am afraid I do not feel part of a community anymore, any owner who needs a channel manager because they have more than 10 rooms is using using Airbnb as just another booking site.

Which infact gives very little support to owners with any guest problems, because there is no "help desk" just Ask the community.

So all this talk of being part of a community, with all sorts of personal connections has long since changed.

There should be "The original Airbnb for owners with less than 10 rooms and a small business offering a unique service" and

Commercial hotel booking site AirHotel for owners listing more than 10 properties who need a channel manager.

Then all this retoric might mean something, not just glossing over the big picture.

 

Rikio0
Level 1
Sapporo, JP

     Ysterday Hokkaido Association of Loging HOUSES (HALH) in Sapporo, Japan

under my leasdership.

     In Hokkaido, especially in Sapporo considerable hosts don't obey nor act

in accordance with city's demand to them to get grant (permission) from the city.

City side says that:

1) AS FOR PAY HOME STAY, hosts shall have more than 3 toilets and 5 vacant

rooms. Oh, my God! What family has so many toilets and vacant rooms?

2) AS FOR BNB OF INVESTMENT TYPE, hosts shall set up a fixed front in their

accommodation even if it is a small room with 3.3 ㎡.

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You see, Sapporo city defends interests of existing accommodations and does

not like competition between existing and newly rising accommodations. Nobody

concerning BNB in Sapporo went to the city to register their accommodations.

It's natural that we Associates of Promoting Earth Oasis established the HALH

for the purpose of bettering of our position.

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Maybe, my HALH is the fierst organization in this field, and I'll promote creation

of such organizations. Of course, I would like to ask you to help me in this effort.

I am happy if I can receive a prompt reply.

                                                                                Best wishes,

Rikio Kaneko

 

 

Logding House

    

  

Dave-And-Ruth0
Level 2
Byron Bay, Australia

Hi there, I generally think most of the changes are usually positive and helpful to both guests and hosts. However, the recent change in reviews is very unhelpful to both guests and hosts. The change, I am told from discussing it recently with a response from airbnb, is that they no longer do it in order of the last guest you had and have changed it completely to a very stange format. As a host and having been a guest its only logical to post the last guest review up in order of the dates. Its even to explain whats happened but basically I was told its in order of language now. This actually didn't make any sense as mine are 99% in English, so why the change. Half my reviews from 2017 are now sitting at the bottom in 2014 it's really weird and when I asked about it at first I was told that it was all fine, then he came back and said oh yes i see what you mean and then proceeded in the following email to say well that's the way we  are doing it now and its not going to change. Lovely.

When I explained that most potential guests like to see recent reviews and also hosts like to have recent reviews to show that they are having guests regularly, none of that was addressed in anyway in a reply. I am extremely disappointed as i have always tried to give good feedback and have tried to help friends book who have not used the site before and in doing that have suggested to them that the best way to know if a place is good is to check the last 5 reviews (current) no old reviews! I am at a total loss to understand why this has changed and if it is language then why not use the translator button at the top of the reviews which I might add is now missing and apparently I'm told  now is at the bottom? 

Hope you all complain too as it's kooky not have it in order of guests that have stayed, I just don't understand it at all.

Confused.

 

@Dave-And-Ruth0 , I hear you...... sounds soooo frustrating, but don't despair yet: here in the US, my listing is still in chronological order, but at one time it also was messed up, just as you are describing it. I came to believe that the tech people at Airbnb are constantly making changes, just about every 5 minutes, then they change it back, then it's a glitch, then on to another thing......kinda chaotic actually, and it's downright funny to call that simplifying.....

So I am not surprised that often enough the people at the Airbnb help desks don't know either what is going on, and instead of saying "i don't know", they give wrong advice or wrong directives, so whatever they are saying, I'd take it with a grain of salt and  I realized that often enough us hosts here in the forum have figured things out before they do.

So I do believe that the chronological order will be restored soon in your market, as yes, the "new" order you are seeing makes no sense at all.

Hi Annette,

 

Thank you so much for your reply.  You discribed the whole process perfectly and I do appreciate your response, infact they could certainly do with you on their team to explain things. It is frustrating when people write back to you and just basically use the manual they have been given and don't actually address your concerns. Hopefully, it will resolve itself soon as on my listing it now looks as if I have not had many guests staying this year and no one since May.  Anyway, all good, I have been a member for a long time and you are completely correct in saying that they are constantly changing the site and most of the time it is for the better but I do feel people that are new to airbnb are becoming more and more confused. I helped a friend book his first night in Barcelona on the site and then when he returned he was really disappointed and said that he ended up using booking.com out of frustration for the rest of his trip. I have been helping people for years to join up (completely, free of charge) because I am such an airbnb enthusiast having travelled using it myself but have noticed how difficult it has become. There's a saying I have always liked....'Simple is best and the best is always simple'

All the best

Cheers Ruth

Mike298
Level 3
Cape Town, South Africa

Hi , regretably we are unable to be part of your international meeting so maybe there is someone who can take up our concerns.

1) Guest Reviews in Chronological Order . Currently WE are Super Hosts and have 2 guest units on our property ( 2 persons self contained cottage  & 1 person Pad ) we have been operating for 15 months and have inproved our standards as time goes on and our guest reviews prove it,BUT our Guest Reviews do not run in chronological order 2016 is currenty mixed with 2017 and our international guests who write in their own language - French, Japanese etc. are at the end of our Review List Page 6 !! We operate in Cape Town and the Internation markets are very important to us and the reviews  from these guests are critical in painting the " Real Picture " about us as hosts and Cape Town as a tourist destination.Can this please be sorted out!

2) When calling our Regional Help Centre in Dublin from Cape Town we have to go thro 5 minutes of wasted time &  cost in trying to connect ,BECAUSE the system does not recognise our local telephone number  when we punch it in !!. The voice prompt repeats the message 5-6 times !!! very fustrating before it goes to automatic and links us to an operator who helps very efficiently with our query. Is there a short circuit to this system?

kind regards,

Mike & Caroline

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