25 upgrades for Hosts, from calendar to checkout

[Airbnb]

Your feedback inspired the upgrades we announced on May 3 in the Airbnb 2023 Summer Release. Hosts who opted into Early Access are already using many of the new features, which begin rolling out to everyone in June.

The latest tools help you do things like:

• Compare your price to the average prices of similar listings nearby
• Easily set and adjust pricing from your calendar
• Send quick replies with built-in checkout instructions
• Get read receipts, so you can tell if your messages have been read
• Share payouts and more account permissions with your Co-Hosts

We also introduced Airbnb Rooms, featuring the Host Passport. If you Host a private room in your home, you can now share more details about yourself with guests in your profile. A new Rooms Category at the top of our homepage highlights some of these listings. And updated search filters make it simple for guests to switch between rooms, homes, and other types of places.

Which feature are you most excited about?     

Select any link below to learn more and discuss these upgrades:

👉New pricing tool compares similar listings nearby   

👉Redesigned pricing tools, all in your calendar 

👉Making your calendar easier to manage in the app

👉Control what Co-Hosts can access and share payouts 

👉Introducing checkout instructions and reminders
👉You asked, we delivered: Announcing read receipts

👉Airbnb Rooms, an all-new take on private rooms

Updated on June 6, 2023

[Oliver255]

Having stupidly opted into the early access, I can assure you the fact that you'd can't reverse it awful. If anyone is tempted to opt in - DON'T. What they've done to the pricing tools is dreadful, especially moving the custom trip lengths. 

[Mandrake-And-Karen0]

Do you work for Airbnb Flavia?

I am skeptical of any new releases or messages from Airbnb.  My experience as a host of 6 years is that these sound bytes are all marketing fluff to try and entice new hosts and create an illusion for experienced hosts that Airbnb cares and is supportive of our businesses.  There is nothing that has happened during our time with Airbnb as hosts or guests that has us believe Airbnb is interested in doing anything that reduces liability or safety for guests or hosts.  That is why they are updating and forcing hosts to sign mediation agreements in order to remain on their platform.

Any changes Airbnb makes are only driven by increasing revenue.  They greedily have not learned  that taking to heart and hearing what hosts  are saying will organically increase their companies bottom line.  I'm not talking about Airbnb being primarily focused on hearing from "mega property hosts" and hotels but average hosts, people who have one Airbnb in their homes.  People like most of us who are trying to meet the gaps between inflation, costs of living and our current  incomes.

[Flavia202]

No, I don't, @Mandrake-And-Karen0 

[Stephanie]

Hi @Mandrake-And-Karen0 ,

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts on this and previous releases. It’s always great to hear from a Superhost of tenure such as yourself. 

I wanted to clarify some of your remarks above. As outlined on the Host release update, , we have released several products that are specifically in response to Host demand. To name a few: read receipts on messaging, checkout instructions to make it easier for Hosts to give guests clear guidance on finishing their stay, and price breakdown to make it as clear as possible to Hosts what their take home is for each booking. 

Both my team and myself have manually read more than 1.5 million posts over the past nearly 8 years of the Community Center. In this time, we’ve seen multiple calls for the above mentioned updates as well as the desire for Airbnb to refocus on its roots of Room hosting The launch of Airbnb Rooms fits precisely your comment “Airbnb being primarily focused on hearing from "mega property hosts" and hotels but average hosts, people who have one Airbnb in their homes.” 

I encourage you to read further on the update and perhaps try some out yourself! Here’s more details on the Private Rooms update I mentioned too. 

Lastly, The fact that other Hosts think differently (than you) about a particular feature or update is, in essence, what makes this space such a rich resource. 

Opinions will always differ and it’s important to let others have those opinions without remarking on it. Let’s constructively disagree!

Let me know what you think of the update once you’ve had a chance to dig in!

Thanks,

Stephanie

[Mandrake-And-Karen0]

We are not blocking others from sharing their opinions just sharing our own. Isn't that what the Host Circle is for? Surely Airbnb doesn't expect everyone to be "pie in the sky" about their offerings or remain silent. 

We have developed our own communication system, in part is required by the county where we live in order for our rental to be licensed.  Also, as business owners, (yes Airbnb is a business for us), we have created our own strategies for each part of the process that engages guests.

Our frustration, as I shared in another conversation that I started, is the ease in which a guest can join the booking platform  and causes problems/liabilities for hosts on the back end.  My suggestion is that Airbnb' REQUIRE brand new guests to complete profiles (or passports) and review a brief video training tutorial, as part of the registration process, BEFORE they are able to book..  Seems like that would be a no-brainer as it would cut down on some issues that a good bit of hosts deal with- lack of understanding that guests are staying in someone's home and how it's different from a hotel and to not damage the place.

AIrbnb said it's launching a Host mentorship program yet there is no requirement for guest training/orienting as part of the registration process.  Still the disparities remain in Airbnb's understanding and treatment of guests and hosts.

[BarbGrace0]

I  AGREE

It took me 10 minutes just to phrase a question regarding the new summer 2023 calendar. This host circle should be about a discussion amongst hosts. Why is everything so censored and complex now even amongst the host discussion circles, we’re limited to what we can say?? Please advise.

[BarbGrace0]

this is the fifth time I’ve tried to post this question I am trying to find out is this a host community forum we were at are allowed to discuss anything amongst each other five times my post has been taken down because it says it contains  a HTML,,, 

?????? where? I’m trying to ask a question regarding an issue.

[Stephanie]

Hi @BarbGrace0 ,

Sorry to hear about these hiccups when trying to post in the Community Center. I have reviewed the moderator area and can see nothing has been flagged there. Something I noticed about what you said about the “html” warning is quite familiar to me. 

Do you mind letting me know if you are writing your posts somewhere else then pasting them into the CC? I’ve done it in the past as well: what happens is wherever you write your post has formatting applied to it that works in that program but is not supported in the text editor on the CC. So when you paste and post it, the text editor removes the formatting that doesn’t work and gives that error message. At that point, if you click post again it should go through no issues.

Sorry for the frustration there - I can see you managed to get your posts through eventually but it’s less than ideal to have that error come up.

Regarding your comment about a previous Airbnb case, I’m going to reach out to you via DM and also follow up on your posts from FebruaryMarch here on the CC. 

Looking forward to supporting you further,

Stephanie

[BarbGrace0]

OM Goodnesss 

THANK U THANK U FOR SOMEONE ALSO HAS & FEELS THE EXACT SAME WAY as I have been feeling all on my own here for over six years,..

regarding simple common sense, rules and regulations that one would need to rent a car in our country. No an instant book 2 hours later ,,,I had a 7‘3“ tall man who just was released from prison, one day prior as he sat down at my table and proceed to stay the night communicating with me via text regarding what I’ll find if I look him up  and believe you me after that, I believe everyone in their own neighborhood county should have their own community Airbnb Business forum rules discussions regulations because he was a registered sex offender don’t get me started How he is  free to walk around after only serving six years! But let me tell you I never again felt safe from Airbnb verified AGAIN!!!  And Lordy Lordy don’t say something that may appear and fall under their rules and regulation violations, or simply have an invisible undertones you’ll start a riot on Host forum …Good for you both!!!!

I wish you the very best that was very wise of you and I think once I get out of the hospital from Guest constantly bringing Covid to my home, I will present the same regimen for our county here in Florida.

You rock, 

Silver springs, Maryland I miss my ex brother-in-law, who lives there also. 

lol 

Thank you, thank you again for such wise nothing short of genius perspective, and suggestions

[BarbGrace0]

it took me three times to reply to you that way that was acceptable and not come back CHANGED IN RED  !!

[Mandrake-And-Karen0]

You are welcome! Your experience sounds terrifying.  Glad you were safe and  hope you get and stay Covid free.  Take care.

[Georgette1]

I have had a homeless couple stay, a criminal & a drug addict.. no warning from Airbnb 

[Stephen1004]

@Stephanie Are you telling  @Mandrake-And-Karen0 not to speak up?

[Mandrake-And-Karen0]

Reads that way to me but that won't stop us from using this platform to give feedback whether or not they like it. 

Otherwise this Host Circle is just a front, a pretend feedback space that is controlled by Airbnb.

[BarbGrace0]

It doesn’t work for me I have to go into a desktop settings. I fear this is gonna be another frustrating “thing.”

[Kevin-And-Linda0]

I do not like the fact that you can no longer see or input a note on the calendar unless you use a desktop/laptop pc.  Before we could use our mobile app, much more convenient.  

[Cathie19]

Thanks @Kevin-And-Linda0 as I mostly work on portable devices rushing between daily activities; this snippet of information is important to know in advance as I use my notes. So I won’t be opting in to try the upgrades anytime soon. I need the most flexible means to operate as a host. I host from wherever i am or I need to be. Watching the tv, camping 100kms from home, in my art studio etc. I don’t need to formally set up on a lap top for wifi, nor want to….

Eg: Portable devices are so important these days. I was having my own few days camping with limited cellular data and was hot spotting my iPad to my phone to send messages to two enquiring guests whilst “out bush”. 

My laptop would have been dead in the water as I didn’t take it with me and rarely use it for Airbnb.

[Martin3344]

The upgrades sound great !

My only concern is the 'Early Access' option which appears to have been rolled out pretty widely across the user base, with no particular rationale given to us for that option. It suggests to me that this option may perhaps therefore effectively be intended as some sort of beta test of the software upgrade by the part of the host community who choose that option, prior to the final rollout of the upgrade.

This could perhaps mean that there may still be glitches in the new software, which will be discovered by early host users, with no option then apparently for them to revert to the current version if serious problems arise. I am not in a rush and will therefore just wait until the updated software is certain to be sufficiently robust before taking on the enhancements. I am very much looking forward to them though in due course 🙂

[Stephanie]

Hey @Martin3344 

That's completely fair - it is 100% optional to opt-in at this time so you can read what your fellow Hosts make off the updates here in the CC in the meantime. Appreciate your  enthusiasm regardless!

Thanks

[Jaideep1]

Hi, So I opted in for the early access and I cannot seem to see the new upgrades on the calendar screen. The settings gear wheel is disappeared and in fact the dates etc and the entire calender itself is unresponsive to any selection. I haven't tried out the desktop / browser as yet, but I am unable to make use the calendar for anything the mobile application.

As, someone mentioned in the thread, it's possible that the early access program is like a beta testing feature and probably has some bugs in it?

Unfortunately I can't roll back to the earlier version as mentioned in the disclaimer... So you guess I would have to wait and see what happens ...

[Sybe]

Hi @Jaideep1 , I'm sorry to hear about this! Could you tell us what device you're using?