How we’re giving hosts a seat at the table

[Airbnb]

 

You may have seen a letter from our CEO Brian Chesky this week with some important announcements for our community. In case you missed it, we’re launching a formal program to give hosts a seat at the table, and an opportunity to take part in our company’s success.

It’s made up of two equally important parts:

• Airbnb Host Advisory Board: A diverse group of hosts on Airbnb who meet regularly with Airbnb executives to represent the host community's voice and make sure that hosts’ ideas are heard
• Airbnb Host Endowment: A fund that is intended to provide support to our host community now and in the future, which we expect will be initially funded with 9.2 million shares of Airbnb stock 

You can read much more about the programs here.

We’re looking forward to introducing the Advisory Board before the end of the year.

[Sharon1014]

@Emilia42  You'd think so, wouldn't you?  Just the basics.  I see some hosts in Sweden haven't been paid since August and are getting the royal runaround from CS.  

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/Issues-with-payments-no-help-from-Airbnb-support/m-p/137474...

Monika in Chile all over again it seems, disappointing.

Getting paid.  Within the contractually agreed envelope (24 hours after check-in).  It's not hard (or shouldn't be).  Now why exactly is that so very hard for a corporation with soooo many people and resources at its disposal???

@Trude0 

[Jeff-and-Pam0]

@Katie 

How will the Host Advisory Board be selected? That information should have been included in Brian Chesky’s email. Set criteria: five years as a Superhost and the ability to devote X number of hours to the board. Then open up the application process to all Hosts. Once the board members are selected, state who they are; provide bio’s of all advisory board members and how to reach them directly.

Provide Advisory Board meeting agendas to all hosts; put the meetings on Zoom or stream; and provide a channel for public comment. Airbnb’s M.O. has been to accept “feedback” but Airbnb doesn’t follow up with Hosts.

Hosts should have regional reps whom they can contact directly: an account manager. That way, each account manager becomes intimately familiar with hosts and their concerns. (Right now, we only get help from Case Managers across the world who contact us at 12 am - 4am. Hosts have to talk to Airbnb in the middle of the night because it's the only time that we can converse in real time.) Account managers would be required to tune into the Host Advisory Board meetings to both report back to his/her Host clients and to bring up topics of broad concern.

PLEASE PASS THIS ALONG TO THE ADVISORY BOARD SELECTION COMMITTEE, since Hosts have no other way to reach this group. Thank you. Please post Airbnb's response on this thread. We look forward to it! 

[Jim95]

Is anyone else having difficulties actually finding the "directed share program pre-registration form"?  I received the email announcing the program, and the is a link in it that supposes to take you to the form.  But it only leads you to another page with info about the form, saying "filling out the form below", but there is no form there, nor an active link to direct you to it.

directed-share-program-pre-registration form???

[Quincy]

@Jim95 Thanks for raising this. We believe the issue is only affecting a small number of Hosts, so we're looking into this.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

[Jim95]

Thanks for your note Quiincy!  I think I posted in a different chat maybe, but after reaching out to support, I received a link that worked.  So my form was filled out and sent in.  I look forward to the rest of the info!

Cheers,

Jim

[Susan1730]

I also have a security complaint about proper photo identification. Hotels require an ID at the desk. I have no idea who's coming to my house about half the time. The shroud of discrimination is bogus. Obviously there is NO verification of profile photos. None. This has been my experience. Policy is policy. Step up and own it. Support your hosts security. I am tired of the push back here. Stand by your hosts. @Katie what's with the push back?

[Katie]

Hey @Susan1730, no push back on my part here - we're happy to hear your feedback 😊   Just to build upon what you're saying here, do you have any suggestions for other ways to combat discrimination without compromising on photo identification, like you mention? 

[Melodie-And-John0]

Hi @Katie ,  Either Airbnb guests and hosts have posers and  bigots hiding in their midst or they don't.  I personally believe they do hide well amongst us just like everywhere else on this planet and their motivations boil down to making money and hatred is just part of their persona that can't be fixed with a surprise viewing of a dark skinned guest after their lucrative booking is accepted.    I think the big problem with the methods Airbnb is employing to fight discrimination puts hosts and especially guests at risk of encountering a very bad situation when they are in the least best situation to defend themselves.  

If I were a minority traveler that was accepted by a host in the blind that is actually a racist, I would try to avoid like the plague spending a dime of my hard earned cash or a minute of my precious time in their hate filled home much less a night with a bigot in the room next to me or above me.  I am sure I would rather they just not accept a booking from me after seeing I look "Ethnic" and save me the worry that they are only keeping the booking to make money off someone they likely would never help if I need it or to try to preserve their superhost status by not cancelling me after they see my picture is darker skin than they prefer.

I have to say, Identification of host and guest is everything about safety and trust and you can't stay at a hotel, buy a pack of smokes or a beer in this state with a blurry picture that doesn't look like you or a picture of a brick of cheddar cheese but guests and hosts on this system can and that's disturbing to me and others.  We both (Host and Guest) pay extra fees to eliminate unwanted surprises not create new ones that might be dangerous for either.  The very few guests of thousands Ive hosted that had the most problems with nearly all had some common traits and one started with an id that was BS in one way or another, the next was unverified info, tiny meaningless bio's and even no home state, "USA is not a location" , My governor wouldn't allow us to accept that during covid travel ban periods and Airbnb should never allow it either, no blanks, pictures of kittens or fields of flowers either, that not real ID unless your a cat (Sorry, we don't accept pets, flowers or crops as guests, allergens....)

By the time the host and guest meet, there should be no obvious question that both should feel wanted and appreciated regardless of things a simple financial background check and a checkmark contract won't actually identify.   The moment you are face to face is not the perfect time to take a stand or have to go into the defense cause someone wasn't honest or civil from the start (especially for the poor guest that isn't in their comfort zone, state or even nation at that very moment).  Sometimes meaningful policy needs to consider the bad consequences of its actions regardless of its purely great intent.   I'm sure you have considered the things Im saying before but those of us hosting and i suspect those traveling are not seeing the benefit of this policy that was intended.   Just my 10 Pfennig for what that's worth in Deutschland, stay well, JR 

[Sharon1014]

Just noticed this in the prospectus appendix notes - was it buried there so hosts wouldn't see it?  Can't help but wonder just how much of that money actually went to hosts, "primarily" could mean only 51% of the $200m went to hosts, where did the rest go (to guest refunds?) and why wasn't the remaining $50m distributed to those hosts who so desperately needed it?  Perhaps it was just withheld because the company needed that $50m to assist with recording a miraculous $219m profit in Q3 pre IPO launch?

Airbnb, Inc.

Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements  F-57

Extenuating Circumstances Policy (Unaudited)

In March 2020, the Company applied its extenuating circumstances policy to cancellations resulting from COVID-19. That policy provides hosts and guests with greater flexibility to cancel reservations that are disrupted by epidemics, natural disasters, and other emergencies. Specifically, accommodation bookings made by guests on or before March 14, 2020, have so far been covered by the policy and may be canceled before check-in. To support hosts impacted by elevated guest cancellations under that policy, the Company committed up to $250 million for hosts. The eligible reservations for this $250 million host program were defined as reservations made on or before March 14, 2020 with a check-in date between March 14, 2020 and May 31, 2020. For these reservations, eligible hosts are entitled to receive 25% of the amount they would have received from guests under the host’s cancellation policies. These payments are accounted for as consideration paid to a customer and as such, are expected to result in a reduction to revenue. Under this policy, the Company recorded $204.4 million of payments, primarily for hosts, in its consolidated statement of operations for the nine months ended September 30, 2020.

[Phoenix14]

@Sharon1014

Spot on. Typically egregious behaviour from Airbnb - launching a global PR campaign to announce to the world that the company was providing a $250 million fund to help ease the hardships being suffered by hosts - then quietly trousering almost $50 million of that (at the very least) to boost their own financials. True colours. 

[Bob40]

This host has a simple, cost-free request: no more patronising insincere mailouts. Thank you.

[Luca4]

My read on this:
Airbnb is a web company.
The web is transitioning from Web2 to Web3, and they know it very well.
Most host have no idea but they are very well aware.

The same investors in Silicon Valley who bet on Airbnb are now very well aware too.

Web3 envisages platforms differently: everyone has, by design, a seat at the table via Governance and Ownership of tokens (crypto currency).
In other words if Airbnb goes Web3, we'll all get "Airbnb tokens" we can trade on exchanges for Bitcoin, U$, Euro and so on.
This may sound outlandish to most here,  but Airbnb knows it very well.
Here's what makes me think that:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-airbnb-meeting-ceo-idUSKBN16E2QH
https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/airbnb-plans-to-consider-cryptocurrencies-and-bl...
https://www.coindesk.com/airbnb-co-founder-backs-22-million-funding-for-crypto-dealer-sfox

Now, Airbnb is a big company and there are for sure internal tensions between early investors who want to cash out on the OPA and others, @Brian first, who have a longer term view (the 21st century company https://blog.atairbnb.com/open-letter-to-the-airbnb-community/).

Now, assuming Brian is on the longer term, crypto friendly, community first view:

- if he wins, we will get a real seat at the table. Not shares, but tokens. In crypto this is called "reverse token airdrop". Check out what happened with UNI from Uniswap last summer. We early adopters got thousands o even tens of thousands of U$ in tokens (real money). A big roadblock will be regulation but, hey, this is happening already everywhere.
- if the early investors win, we'll see more of what we have been seeing recently: a rent seeking operation kept afloat as long as possible with manipulative marketing.

My guess, being a tension, is that we'll see both, in waves, and it's going to be pretty confusing for most of us.

It's an internal struggle, and we're in the middle.

[Melodie-And-John0]

I hadnt seen the 21st century vision thing, thanks for sharing @Luca4 .  Airy proselytizing scares me, Airbnb is a connective business we depend on for our lodging businesses not a developing nation that isnt ready to focus 100% on our business's needs.  

[Ronli0]

I think this is an insult to us super hosts who were not able to purchase stock in the ipo. Owning stock and a host endowment that runs as a non profit are not even in the same arena let alone do they both benefit the individual hosts who are the only reason airbnb has a business being that no properties are actually owned by airbnb. Those shares could have gone to those of us that got the email, responded immediately and were ready to purchase shares. I see no benefit to my business and no financial profit from an advisory board that I have no part of and isn't there to help hosts like myself grow in order to purchase more properties and open more locations.

[Valerio112]

Congratulations on a great ipo launch who would have thought not our ceo, @Brian  so many believe this platform is the future and we host all surly invest in it by hosting already. Now that there is some cash can we please get paid the remaining 75% of the cancellation fee and also for all the months after where we got 0. Recouping our losses. 
Thx