Building and Improving the Superhost Program

Airbnb
Official Account

Building and Improving the Superhost Program

Superhost Criteria.jpg

 

As our global host community grows and becomes increasingly diverse, Airbnb’s programmes and policies need to grow and adapt as well – both to ensure the success of people from all over the world, and to show our appreciation for hosts’ hard work and amazing hospitality. That’s why we’re updating the Superhost programme to make it more fair, inclusive, and valuable to hosts everywhere.

 

 

Review rates

Great reviews are essential to earning Superhost status. They also help create a community where trust and transparency is shared between guests and hosts. But, hosts can’t control whether or not their guests choose to leave a review. After examining global data and speaking with Superhosts in a number of countries, we discovered that review rates aren’t consistent worldwide – some travellers always leave reviews, while others rarely do. This discrepancy can put some hosts at a disadvantage when it comes to consideration for Superhost status. In order to make the evaluation process more fair for everyone in our global community, we’ll no longer require that hosts have at least a 50% review rate in order to become Superhosts (or retain their existing status).

 

 

Cancellation policy

As part of our effort to make sure Airbnb programmes are built to meet the needs of all hosts, we’re also updating our cancellation requirement. Previously, we required that Superhosts have zero cancellations, but for hosts with an extremely high volume of bookings across multiple listings, that standard is impractical. To make the programme more fair for high-volume hosts, we’re now allowing one cancellation per 100 trips booked over the past year, which means a cancellation rate of less than 1% across all of your listings. It’s important to note that we still take cancellation as seriously as ever. Over the past five years, the Superhost community has worked hard to earn the trust of their guests and we will continue to reward that trust by recognising the most reliable hosts with Superhost status.

 

Both the changes to our cancellation and review requirements will take effect on the 1 July quarterly Superhost assessment. We’ll also be updating hosting dashboards at this time to reflect this new criteria.

 

 

Stay tuned 

We’re committed to continually improving the Superhost programme so that it works for the entire host community. That includes using clear, fair qualification criteria and making it valuable for every Superhost. From the overall design of the programme to how it rewards the community, we’re looking at different ways to not only make your hosting experience more positive, but also help you be more successful. So, please stay tuned, there’s a lot of exciting news to come.

674 Replies 674

that is a nice idea...but please do not forget the guests who make relatory reviews, make blackmailing who tried to demand refund and when you not agree: they anounce that they only will give 1 *...these guests should get the "super negative guest"...I think only not to recommend these guests is not enough.

Thomas1033-- awesome idea!

 

I like that idea. I just had 3 very lovely adults arrive for 5 nights when booked for 2. I thought my policy is very clear that it is $20 more per person per night. When I re-looked at the site, probably they only way they would have know this was to hit "3" adults which changes the price. I don't think they tried to pull a fast one, but did  talk to them about it and graciously did give me the difference. 

I do believe that you can have air BnB directly request more$$ as well. 

Elizabeth944
Level 4
Eganville, Canada

It makes one wonder if this change re change of requirement for 50% reviews came about after the “technical glitch” that occurred a couple of weeks ago where a lot of Superhosts were notified that they may lose their status because they were only achieving 18 % ( or whatever number) review rate vs 50% that was expected. At the time I wrote to ABnB and complained but what really started to tick me off after was why we were responsible for ensuring guests review us. Shouldn’t ABnB have the responsibility for that. After all, they have the ability to ensure guest responses by imposing sanctions for non compliance. We can request and cajole but have absolutely no power and, in fact, we could jeopardize a good review if a guest feels like they are being nagged!

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Hey @Elizabeth944,

 

Great to meet you and thanks for your comments.

 

The point you raised here about having a lack of control over the number of reviews your guests write for you, was a reoccurring theme here in the CC and I believe through other feedback channels as well. This is why the Superhost Team decided to review this.

 

Hopefully, now that this is no longer part of the Superhost criteria this is helpful to you and other hosts.  🙂 


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Hey Lizzie

I must admit until the “glitch” I didn’t think about ( or realize) that I had a target to reach for reviews. We have had around 8 people who didn’t leave one despite our reminders to them. It hadn’t occurred to me until the glitch about how crazy it was that we were being held responsible to have the guests review us when it was more logical that you folks do that. I am glad this has now been changed because I really hate nagging guests after their stay.

Thank you for your clarification.

Absolutely!!  I did have air BnB send a message to one guest, because the guest stated they did not know how to do it. I was contacted by air BnB and know it was sent to the guest, still never received one and they wanted to do it.

I always feel so indebted to the guest in this regard, as we all know it is the reviews that sell us

Nutth0
Host Advisory Board Member
Chiang Mai, Thailand

I like change but I think the host should help the community by review their previous guest. For a Review rates, it should request that Superhost have to be the one who writes a review 50% ( or more) of the guest they host. 

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Aw interesting idea @Nutth0, so you would like to see a new Superhost criteria for hosts to write reviews for their guests. 

 

Do you find that a lot of hosts don't leave reviews for their guests? 

 

Thanks for this. 


--------------------


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.

Nutth0
Host Advisory Board Member
Chiang Mai, Thailand

@Lizzie  When I travel, and stay as a guest. I can meet 2 kind of Superhost. Some are never responded to your message as they just use Airbnb as another OTA so they will never write you a review ... So only me as a guest do. In another hands, I think host who leave a review already do show their response.

 

 

I always leave a review except for a couple of guests that were not bad but also not very good.  I live where there are a lot of Airbnb hosts and some others have told me that they never leave a review because they are too busy - of course, these are ones that are really running a commercial operation.

 

@Nutth0 in Chiang Mai, I agree entirely that hosts should review their guests. I am a superhost who recently stayed at an Arbnb. A lot of the listing was not as described, but the bed was comfy and there a lovely ensuite. I was tempted to tell this superhost that all the things that were not as described was not really a smart thing to do but I left her a good 5 star review. The host on the other hand left no review, If I was not allready a superhost how does her negativity help me as a guest. 

I like the idea of the "super guest" status that one of the other hosts has written about.

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Airbnb 

Firstly I would like to thank Admin for taking the hosting communities issues regarding Superhost criteria on board. It is gratifying to us that you consider us important  enough to give a bit of ground at times to make what is a hard job for us just a bit easier!

We are however always looking at ways we can, not only help ourselves, but help the company as well, and there is a specific anomaly that causing major concern throughout the hosting community.

 

We appreciate that you try to make the review process as transparent as possible but, during the process, guests are getting mixed messages from Airbnb, and as hosts we are finding we have to take it on ourselves to point out to guests where issues come up that do nothing but create friction between the host and the guest .

The first step in the review process  is to give the host an overall star rating from one to five. How was your stay at Robin's place. Many guests are happy with their stay, had nothing to complain about and are conscious of the way the Airbnb review system works, give a five in every category and would on first thoughts mark the host a five overall. The third step is virtually a duplication of the first.....How did your stay at Robin's place compare to your expectations ! At this point Airbnb gives the guest five prompt options, and the inference of these options is that Airbnb considers that a 'middle of the road' option is ok..... About the same as I expected! 

I include this screenshot to illustrate my point.

Review Step 1-6.png

 

The guest at that point considers a 3 star 'middle of the road' rating is ok because Airbnb have told the guest it's ok! Some of those that originally gave a 5 star will rethink their decision, say to themselves..."Well if Airbnb say a 3 is ok, lets give the host a 3 or a 4"  They backtrack and amend downwards their initial star rating and they do not realise they are penalising the host.

 

I can state this is a fact because I host in a structure on my home property, I host around 10-12 guest stays per month and I get to have a lot of interaction with my guests. All are genuinely surprised to find out that, to do as Airbnb suggest and leave something for improvement actually penalises the host. When they learn that 5 stars is Airbnb's default host rating they become annoyed to learn, that by trying to be constructive and help the host, they were actually hurting them.

A significant proportion of guests are now choosing to bypass the review system, their reaction being....it is better to say nothing than to stir up trouble.

 

We fully understand you have to have some way of rating stays, but I would ask you to give some  thought to include in the review process an explanation of how the star rating they are about to give will impact on the host.

Because of this anomaly we hosts are using a work around in our house rules information to educate guests.  Here is mine.....How did your stay at Robin's place compare to your expectations?

airbnb ratings 3.png

We should not have to resort to these sort of tactics. 

Airbnb should accurately inform guests of the way the Airbnb rating system works.

 

Thanks for the effort the development team are putting into making this platform work but I would ask you to please give this item some thought, it is causing major issues!

 

Cheers.......Rob

Yves20
Level 1
Vélizy-Villacoublay, France

Robin,

 

I totally agree with you

Best

Yves