Tools you can use for hosting longer stays

[Emilie]

Longer stays are one of travel’s latest trends, and we’re here for it. We’re also here to support you with welcoming guests for 28 nights or more.

As part of the 2022 Airbnb Summer Release, we’re rolling out more ways that guests can discover your space in their searches for great stays. The new features include nearly two dozen new Airbnb Categories of listings for guests to browse, and Split Stays, which lets guests divide their time between two comparable spaces on one trip.

We’ve also put together some tools—and a checklist—to help prep your listing, your calendar and booking settings, and your space for longer stays. You can find details in the Resource Center. 

What tools do you use for hosting longer stays?

[Laura2592]

Where is the option to make a long term guest sign a lease and pay a security deposit?

Until that exists, its madness for someone to invite a potential squatter into their space. 

[Emilie]

@Laura2592 I don't believe there is a functionality for this at the moment, however if you think this would be valuable I'd like to share this idea on my end. Could you tell me a bit more about how do you picture this working, and at which stage of the booking process? 

[Huma0]

@Laura2592 

Here in the UK, if they are renting a room in your own primary home, then the renter doesn't get tenants' rights, but that's just one scenario.

For anyone renting out to long term guests where that is not the case, I would say that a contract and a deposit is a must.

Even though they can't turn into squatters at my place, I would still prefer to have a security deposit at least because guests break things all the time (actually short term guests cause more damage in my personal experience). Accidents can happen, but I am sure they would happen less if there was a substantial deposit at play.

Of course, there Airbnb deposit was a complete nonsense. It would need to be replaced with something 'real'. It doesn't matter what amount you specify or if you call it "a deposit". If no money actually exchanges hands, then it's not a deposit, is it? It's just a made up number.

[Emilie]

Hi @Huma0, 

In regards to how split stays work, I'll see if I can get more information and let you know. 🙂

That's a lot of great suggestions for homeshare Hosts that host long stays. I see your point about the checklist, I'll let the team know. In the meantime, what you've collected here and any other advice would be super useful if collected in a standalone topics here on the CC, so Hosts for whom this checklist isn't quite suited can still find some guidance!

Emilie

[Huma0]

@Emilie 

Thanks for that, but I had another read through of the article and it says:

"Each Split Stay pairs two properties that match the location, property type and amenities from the search."

However, @Anonymous did a search for this and was suggested to split his stay between two listings in different countries. I don't think it is working!

[Emilie]

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@Huma0 wrote:

@Emilie 

Thanks for that, but I had another read through of the article and it says:

"Each Split Stay pairs two properties that match the location, property type and amenities from the search."

However, @Anonymous did a search for this and was suggested to split his stay between two listings in different countries. I don't think it is working!

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@Huma0 Aaah gotcha. I've added that up to my query about more details on how it works, so will let you know as I find out more!

[Anonymous]

@Huma0   After posting that, I tried a couple more searches to see if it was an anomaly. It wasn't. I gave the Search robot the entirety of Germany and the whole month of July, and it still kept suggesting split stays that sent me over to Poland or Netherlands in the middle of the week. And not for any lack of vacancies in Germany! 

I see nothing wrong with lightly sprinkling some lesser-known nearby places into search results, but come on, don't frontload the irrelevant stuff!  If the first things Google gave you when you searched for Brad Pitt was pictures of Harvey Weinstein, you wouldn't use Google anymore.

[Huma0]

@Anonymous 

Lol, no I definitely wouldn't!

I'm trying to figure out how you are seeing the split stays because my searches just have a normal looking list of results. I can't see any suggestions for split stays.

So, I search for mid May to mid June as I reckon availability will be limited for a month and it is if I look in my immediate area. As I zoom out, more choices come up, but it tells me availability is limited and I should use the instant book filter.

I zoom out more. The top listing it shows me now has only six reviews and a star rating of 3.8* which is labelled as a 'rare find'. Below that are mostly listings outside of London. There is another listing that is labelled as a 'rare find' but it's also new, so that doesn't make sense. I thought the rare finds were listings that are normally booked. 

At the bottom of the page, it asks if my dates are flexible and shows me listings available 7 days + or - the dates.

No sign of any suggestions for split stays. Is there a filter I am missing? I can't see anything about it in the filters list either...

[Anonymous]

@Huma0  The search parameters I was using were:

Region - Germany

No. of Guests - 4

Pets - 1

"I'm Flexible," July 2022, 1 week

Every time, the top result is in a different country and the suggested split stays are in two countries.

Browsing from the .com domain, which might make a difference if some features are still rolling out.

[Huma0]

@Anonymous 

Mmm, I'm guessing it's still rolling out as the results I'm getting for here look pretty much the same when I put in dates, location and number of guests. It's not showing anything in another country, or any split stays.

I'm only getting results in random countries when I click on the new category filters.

[Stephanie]

Hi there,

If a listing has the capacity to Host a guest for the desired duration of a stay, no Split Stays will be offered. What that means, for example, is if you have all of June 1 to June 20 free on your calendar and a guest wants June 1 to June 20, it will go through as a normal booking.

Split Stays are only shown if a guest picks a listing but it doesn't have that full duration availability, in which case, the screen shows other listings the guest could consider moving to so they can have the full desired duration just in more than one listing.

But yes @Anonymous and @Huma0 - different countries definitely doesn't sound right and other ends of the country perhaps aren't quite right either. We're feeding back this behaviour to the product team - I hope to come back soon. And sorry if I've repeated any information you've already heard 🙏🏻

Thanks

[Huma0]

@Stephanie 

Thanks for the clarification and sorry you are working so late today!

That makes more sense if split stays are only offered when there are no options available for the full stay on the listing the guest has chosen.

One of the things that confused me though was that on the resource centre article, it said that guests who searched for a week or more would automatically be shown split stays. It also said that guests searching for 14 days or more would be shown 40% more options with the split stays added. So, that contradicts what you have just relayed above.

Yep, showing split stays in different countries is obviously a problem, so I'm happy you're communicating this back to the team.

[Anonymous]

@Stephanie  

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"Split Stays are only shown if a guest picks a listing but it doesn't have that full duration availability, in which case, the screen shows other listings the guest could consider moving to so they can have the full desired duration just in more than one listing."

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This is not true. Split stay options are being shown to me in the very first page of initial search results, when I haven't picked a listing and there are thousands of non-split vacancies available that completely fit all the parameters I set. No matter how broadly I target my search, the first results I'm shown all seem to be well outside of what I was looking for. This doesn't make me think "ooh what a great idea for a trip that I hadn't thought of," but rather "yikes, I guess Airbnb fired all its programmers now too."

The example you show in that screenshot really isn't any better, though at least it's the same country. There are many reasons I might want to book a place in a big diverse city like Manchester for 7 nights - maybe I'm there for work, visiting friends, checking out the vibrant nightlife and thriving LGBT and arts scenes, or visiting the places Morrissey used to hang before he became a fascist. Whatever it is that takes me there, I can assure you that splitting up the trip and spending half the week in little old 96% white Lincoln does not achieve the objective. It's a small town 2 1/2 hours drive away, lots of history but none of the things you'd want from a week in a bigger city. Even if you were open to splitting the stay for a different experience, you still have Leeds and Liverpool much closer by, and 514 listings in Manchester that are available for the whole week. 

In short, the janky algorithm is proposing plans that no human in their right mind would ever suggest. It looks to me like an experiment in behavior modification, rather than a tool for delivering useful results. The thing is, people don't trust your product when they can plainly see how the AI is designed to manipulate them.

[Emilie]

@Anonymous @Huma0 We've let the team know about all the behaviours you've identified and questions you've raised while trying out split stays, thanks again or testing it out! As and when we get more info we'll come back and let you know. 🙂

[Huma0]

@Anonymous 

Yes, I also can't see why someone would want to split the stay between Lincoln and Manchester unless they already had plans to do so (e.g. visiting friends/family in both locations). It doesn't make any sense to do this on a whim.

The very few guests I have hosted who intentionally split their stays in London between different Airbnbs (these were all long term guests), did so because they wanted to try living in and experiencing different neighbourhoods. They were quite specific about what type of Airbnb they wanted, but more so about which area they stayed in, because that was the whole point of it.

On top of that, it needed to be convenient, e.g. one of them still had to go into an office two days a week, another wanted to be reasonably close to an aerial arts facility where she was training and another needed to go to university several times a week. I can't imagine any of these guests considering staying in a distant suburb, let alone in another town or city, especially not a small town when they wanted to be in London.

Where guests had to split their stay due to lack of availability, e.g. they wanted to extend their stay but my rooms were already booked, they looked for Airbnbs as close as possible, I mean literally around the corner from me. They chose my neighbourhood for a reason (besides anything it is very conveniently located with great transport links). They don't want to split their stay between Stockwell and Southampton!