Guest profile photos: Airbnb response to community feedback

[Airbnb]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all of your feedback on the recent changes we announced to the guest profile photo process. Our team has read each and every one of your comments. We understand many of you are feeling frustrated right now, so we want to respond with some more details and clarification.

First, we want to acknowledge that this is a complicated and emotional topic: It touches on elements such as discrimination, choice, safety, and equality between Airbnb hosts and guests. As always, we’ve been really impressed by the quality of the conversations, and the supportiveness of the community in this thread. We’ve had significant discussion and debate about it internally at Airbnb, too. It’s clear that we need to keep listening and engaging with you (our hosts and partners) on this topic, and we commit to continuing to do so.

At the same time, it’s important that we also continue to take guest concerns into account. Most guests do provide a profile photo, but others told us that they didn’t want to share a picture of themselves when booking on Airbnb because they’re concerned their photos could be misused in a way that violates Airbnb’s nondiscrimination policy. As you know, Airbnb’s mission is to create a world where people can belong anywhere, and we want to make sure guests can feel comfortable when they travel on Airbnb.

We also know from many conversations with hosts (and from reading through your comments here) that you really value profile photos, for several important reasons (knowing what guests look like before they arrive, feeling safer, etc.). We always want to balance the needs of both hosts and guests and, at the same time, make sure we’re working towards Airbnb’s mission. It can be exceptionally hard to get that balance right, but we tried to do this with these recent changes.

As we highlighted in our previous post, the new policy means that Airbnb will not require guests to provide a profile photo and that, for those guests who choose to provide a profile photo, those photos will not be shown to hosts until after the booking is accepted. At the same time, we introduced a new host control that allows you to opt in to require that your guests provide a profile photo prior to submitting a booking request. This photo will be shown to hosts as soon as you accept the booking request, so you’ll be able to ensure you know what your guests look like before they arrive. In addition, you can always require your guests to provide a government ID to Airbnb, as well (more on that here).

Here are a few more tips to help you build trust with guests before a trip:

• You can message with them to get more information about the purpose of their trip;
• You can use your House Rules to set expectations with potential guests, too. (Guests have to review and agree to your House Rules before they can request to book your space.)
• You can review past guest reviews, from other hosts, to make a more informed decision about accepting booking requests.

Now, there are a few key themes we read in your comments about these changes, and we want to take a few minutes to address each of them:

Safety: Many of you mentioned that you’re not comfortable hosting someone who doesn't want to show their face, and some of you pointed out that you’re in challenging situations (remote locations and solo female hosts, for instance). This is an incredibly important topic. We’ve read through your responses, and we are committed to looking for ways to build trust between guests and hosts in all situations.

We’d like to extend an invitation to the engaged host community following this thread. Our home safety team is brainstorming ideas for how we could improve your experience and ensure you feel more safe hosting. While we have lots of ideas, we know the best solutions will come from listening to you, so we’d like to connect directly. Please let us know in the comments, below.

Timing: Many of you asked when you would see the changes to the guest profile photo process occur. We’re rolling them out gradually, as we often do with new products or processes. Currently, these changes have been introduced to 75% of hosts globally, and in the coming weeks will be available to 100% of hosts.  

Profile photos: A number of you raised concerns about profile photos that show a picture of a sunset or the guest’s dog instead of the guest themselves.  We have updated our policies to address these concerns. If you choose to turn on the new control and require that your guests have a profile photo, you can call Airbnb’s Community Support if you accept a reservation from a guest that does not have a profile photo of themselves.  Our Community Support team will work with you to address the situation. If you feel uncomfortable hosting someone without a photo of themselves, you can request to cancel the reservation penalty-free. (We recommend messaging the guest directly before cancelling.)

Discrimination: We do not condone discrimination by any member of the Airbnb community. These changes are part of our commitment to combating discrimination. Many of you responded that you believe these changes were unnecessary because you share our commitment to diversity and inclusion. We appreciate that feedback and can’t overstate the importance of having a host community that is engaged on this topic. Nonetheless, guests have consistently told us that they have concerns about hosts making decisions based on profile photos in violation of our Non-discrimination policy. We believe the changes to how we display photos addresses these concerns while balancing hosts’ interest in seeing potential guests before they arrive. Making these changes was an incredibly complex decision, for all the reasons you raised, but after significant debate (and working with many experts on this topic), we decided they were crucial changes to make.

Thank you for continuing to give us feedback and support as we strive to continue improving Airbnb for both hosts and guests. We hope you understand that we needed to make these changes to ensure a world of belonging and inclusivity. Please continue to tell us how we can improve, and we’ll continue to listen and adjust as we work to ensure you can feel comfortable and confident hosting.

Thank you,

The Airbnb Team

[Ere2]

all said Celina, I feel the same way

[Bill395]

Totally agree. They (Airbnb) states we have $1 million coverage but for what?

[Patricia1008]

To protect Airbnb from law suites perhaps ?

[Olivier291]

Yesterday night I received an inquiry from US guests (9 recent good reviews with a 5☆ average rating) for a 4 night stay in June. The house is available for theses dates and I have IB turned on without any restrictions so they could have booked directly.

Their 1st question was if I would accept to host them even if I couldn't see any pics from them and if the price showed was the real price.

I answered I don't care about if they have or not a profile picture on the time of booking but, as displaid in my house rules, I ask to have one at least 72h before check-in. About price I told them yes, the price showed by Airbnb was the final price since they choosed the right dates and number of guests).

And I asked them why did they asked me about?

They explained me they no more use IB because they had been cancelled 2 times in the last month because the listing was in fact not available (calendar not updated) or the price displaid was wrong (not updated)...

They haven’t had more success sending requests: they had been declined 3 times in the past 48h because their photo was not displaid in the request!

They told me they need to use the last additional credit given by Airbnb after the last host cancellation and will no more consider Airbnb as a trustfull platform...

[Amanda815]

We all know how this platform started.

we also know this is not about racism.

do any of you hosts realize Airbnb doesn’t care about your safety?  Your wasting your breath.  I took my listing off when this whole thing began.  I took action, shouldn’t everyone else?

[Hardy-and-Julia0]

As with most artifical regulating, this one doesn't work at all for us. Working from Cologne Germany I must say, that we feel truely damaged and hindered in our work by this new policy. While I understand, that on line racism might be a real problem in the US or somewhere else, this does not apply to our local community, in fact, we are proud to be one example of a really working multi cultural city. Most people here would never discriminate someone for skincolour or nacional origin but Yes, we have our experiences with how people tent to behave, especially in larger groups which we host.

Now, this does not mean, that we ban for example male groups under 35 that are obviously out on a beer cruise from staying at our objects, but these stereotypes that we encounter must be discussed with the guests prior to these stays to avoid conflicts with local residents and to protect the AirBnB community from certain anti social behaviours. And here the profile picture comes in as telling in so may ways, the situation in which a picture is taken, the things people are holding while being fotographed (it is very likely to have certain problems with people that show themselves with cocktails, beers or in party situations) and also the expression on the face, honesty in their eyes... they say that faces tell stories and most or the times it is true (although not bulletproof). Our ability to judge is a way that we maneuver through this live and to stay clear of troublesome situations, intuition as a natural tool must not be compromised !

So to sum it up: Because there are certain social problems in certain parts of the world, we all now have to suffer from this new lack of tranparency and hidden information turning a working lively community like AirBnB into some anonymous booking portal like booking.com and making us as - already heavily targeted hosts - even more vurnarable to abuse by people with questionable intentions, no matter what skin colour, sex or national origin. Please AirBnB, we are having enough problems  from local authorities, **bleep**storm from citizens and are taxed heavily, please restore our natural defense mechanism and change that weird policy at least in that parts of the world where we are doing a good job with the racism thing...

[Karen986]

We live in a world of discrimination. Period. Freedom of choice allows for discrimination. This new policy discriminates against hosts. Guests use discrimination all the time when choosing lodging on airbnb. They are able to see pictures and bios of hosts. They are able to view photos and descriptions of hosts' homes. Guests are afforded far more information about hosts than the other way around, and can certainly choose to want to stay in a place (or not) just based on the way a host looks. Hosts are taking all the risks, continuing to be subjected to Airbnb's ridiculous overreaches to try to make things fair for all in a world where they just aren't and never will be. 

Under the new policy I accepted a reservation based on reviews alone (which have been pointed out in this thread to be incomplete in the ratings that can be viewed - another discrimination against hosts). I am of course requiring a photo of all my guests, so after the booking I was finally able to see it. The photo is of a young boy, clearly not the man who made the reservation! 

This new policy must change to be a balance for ALL or I will no longer be interested in hosting with Airbnb.

[Thomas983]

This is not working for me anymore.I've been cancelling every single booking stating "I'm unconfortable", as long as I can't see the guests photo - and they havn't provided a profile text. I really think photos are important to give an impression of who I am as a host, and the same goes for potential guests. I have now removed all 5 profile pictures I had. I have also removed my last name, just leaving the first letter. I have also turned off Instant Booking. Even if I can cancel a booking when I eventually see the guests photo, they will already have my name, phone number and street adress. I do not want strangers, not staying with me, to have these details.

[JuanCamilo12]

Please do read all the posts again, your most valuable asset, your super hosts are spending valuable time summarizing how frustrated we all are with the new photo policy along with the lack of proper screening and tools to know if the next person in the front of your door is a safe person for our families and neighbors or not. Please realize you are dealing with peoples jobs, dreams, money, effort and dedication they have put into Airbnb. Please Lizzie, don't just bring this to your managing team, but express that Airbnb is doing wrong. I am sorry if I am the first to say that Airbnb's mission "to create a world where people can belong anywhere" may be wrong, maybe that's the issue, the mission. It sounds very nice, but I can tell you many people, including drug dealers, gangs, Child abussers, Sexual Molestors are people that don't belong in my house rental. Please open your eyes and realzie that what once made Airbnb grat, you are removing for reasons that we can't understand.

[Crystal3]

As Superhosts for 5 years we do not like the current change to no guest photo and not being able to see ratings.

Why not have guests make a selection on their profile that their photo could be viewed at all times by hosts, just like hosts have a Booking Selection requiring a guest photo at the time of acceptance.

Also, not sure Airbnb currently does this, but why not have Superhost Representatives from different areas of the U.S. and other countries that would discuss pros/cons to changes to Airbnb policies with Airbnb management before they are implemented.

As an example; A few years ago Airbnb implemented a policy that a listing would not show up in searches unless they excepted two-day or more bookings. Anyone excepting single day bookings was getting left out of searches. I spoke to an Airbnb representative in California and discussed with him that they did not know our clientele/guests in our area. Almost all of our guests stay for one night just passing through to areas North or make day trips from Boston. Thankfully they stopped the 2-day or more requirement and we started to get our usual bookings. This is one example of how someone sitting in a board room 1000’s of miles away is not aware of how different areas of city/town or country travel yet set policies that effect all hosts.

We would also like to address one more concern with safety. For all the nay-sayers in towns/cities around the world who don’t want Airbnb rentals “in their neighborhood”.  Having a guest no photo/no view rating policy is just going to give the nay-sayers more ammo to why hosts should not be renting to guests that they now have less information about before they accept a booking. We have had residents in our neighborhood express concerns about guests and we have always been able to rebut those concerns with “we know what our guests look like, their reviews and profiles” before we accept their booking. Guess we cannot say that anymore.

Really ?  How many discrimination cases has Airbnb actually attributed to a guest photo? As Airbnb travelers we wouldn’t want to show up to someone’s house who may discriminate against us after we arrived. You could also say some Hosts may not get bookings because a guest didn’t like their profile photo which is required of Hosts.

We also delisted one of our rooms tonight because we share a bathroom with those guests. We especially want to know their ratings before we accept a booking and share a bathroom with them. 

Sincerely, Jim & Crys 

[Rebecca0]

But you CAN see the ratings/reviews of guests who are enquiring and also any profile information.  It's only the photo you can't see until they actually book.

I don't understand why this myth of not seeing reviews is being peddled so widely.

[Crystal3]

Sorry, we were under the impression that reviews of potential guests could not be viewed prior to booking.

 Still do not like new no photo policy. Airbnb has forgotten who works for them, the Hosts. We are the ones doing the work, but feel like we have less input in to daily operation that would make our homes safe.

Jim

[Robert523]

I agree with everyone who feels that it is very important to have full ID and pictures of the guests before they book for the simple reason that we are inviting them onto our property and into our homes. I have never declined a guest due to their looks and never would, ever, I just like to see who I may be dealing with because it gives me a better idea of how to communicate with them and an idea of what they might expect when staying at my place. When I book a place I fully understand that the host would want to see me and it does not seem like a hassle in any way to show myself to them since, again, I realize that they are inviting me to come and be part of their life for a few days. This is very important to me and it seems like everyone agrees. Please go back to requiring pictures! Thank you!

[Monika262]

Gff

My rate of acceptance will be much lower now if i cannot see a guest's profile photo. Even if they have ID card  verified they change their photo and we don't know who is coming. The question is who is now more unsafe - hosts or guest...  Even if we have the option to cancel reservation after seeing guests photo our cancelation rate is growing up which means we loose doubly:  getting worse rate and loosing chance for hosting for the date.  Womes have intuition. Talking with potential guest and seeing his/her photo increases safety of the host.

I would like to have an option to receive  requests only from guests with real photo(and see the photo before i accept a request). If a guest doesn't agree they can choose another hosts which don't mind guests without photos. If hosts dont stay in the same house with their guests so im not surprised that they don't mind. But when you share your apartment it's really not safe...

[Robert523]

I was not able to "start a conversation," so hopefully this will be acceptable to place here. A couple of new things that seem to be unnecessary to me are, as I mentioned above, the inabilty to see a photo before booking, the new way of rating a guest over 3 or 4 pages rather than all on just one page (why??), and the loss of the calendar on each message page, the two last ones making it so you have to jump around a lot more than before. I send lots of notes to my guests for sightseeing and suggestions and try to juggle things around and having to go to the calendar and back to the messages over and over is quite inconvenient, and having all those different pages to do a simple review seems to make no sense and have no real purpose. Anyone else wondering why they changed these things?