@Stephanie @Catherine-Powell
I've read the article and I am glad that you are bringing back hosts' chosen titles, albeit with restrictions.
However, I take issue with this statement:
"Though many guests are browsing Airbnb Categories for inspiration and booking, the majority continue to book stays by entering a specific destination and travel dates in search. Once guests enter a location, they are using the “All homes” tab—just as they did previously—to view all stays available in a particular location and book a listing that’s right for them."
No, this is not the case. Yes, guests can still search in the traditional way described above, but they are NOT viewing ALL stays. Many of us have had our listings disappear off the map or pushed down the search results with listings in other locations (sometimes very, very far away) shown instead.
Every single one of the many hundreds of guests I have hosted knew they wanted to come to London. The vast majority knew the dates they wanted to come and that has been even more so since I switched to hosting long term guests who come here for work, study or are looking for a temporary home while they search for apartment/wait for a house purchase to go through.
So, I wasn't too worried initially by the categories etc. because I expected my target market to still use then traditional search rather than the categories or to search without dates. However, since the Summer Release, my views have nose dived and my bookings have stopped and, believe me, both were very healthy indeed before this release.
Please could you explain this?
And I am not the only one as I am sure you know very well from the hundreds of responses here on the CC from hosts who are experiencing the same.
I see nothing in this update as to how you are going to address this problem. I'd also be really interested to know what the guests who would normally have booked my listings are booking instead. I doubt very much they are booking a chateau in France or an igloo or a tepee somewhere on the other side of the world.