There is no doubt that I have to thank Airbnb and Brian for the opportunity it has given me when I discovered this business in Airbnb years ago. Thanks, thanks and thanks! Thanks also for the continuos updates, like this one that, despite what I write later, I like.
I don't think an "Airbnb Host Advisory Board" can be necessarily a good idea for us. I certainly notice that the majority of people are excellent here. I have read extraordinary comments, honestly some awful. Then, it seems to me that the criticisms that drive a large part of the community are "bombastic" but really impossible to carry out concretely, eg because they clearly represent only a small part of hosts or because they are just unacceptable.
What will "Airbnb Host Advisory Board" follow? Sometimes the community is unaware of real problems of all of us, almost giving Airbnb permission to forget about them. I am also convinced that it is very far from representing everyone's interests, at least for how many people actually participate. More than an "Airbnb Host Advisory Board", we should expect Airbnb to choose better for our interests. And in some cases, it can just do it.
For example, in Italy to regularly rent our homes on Airbnb is very simple. Just self-certify some basilar security characteristics, be subject to any subsequent checks at home, provide almost no documents and usually in a short time, even a few hours, you are in order. It seems like a dream to me compared to other countries. Despite this, there was a period in which we were full of illegal houses, so much so that in the newspapers it was often mentioned. Legal hosts were very unhappy because they seemed guilty by staying here. It also seems that these mass of illegals have favored some proposals for restrictive laws for all of us, some in part approved and others under discussion. At that time the Italian community spoke almost exclusively of reviews, as indeed now. That was the driving argument, the most "voted". This gave more strength to Airbnb to take care of other things, almost giving it permission to forget something else more important to us.