A recap of the April 9 Host Update with CEO Brian Chesky

[Airbnb]

CEO Brian Chesky kicked off this week’s talk with an update on the state of global travel: 4 billion people around the world are now staying at home, borders continue to close, and many airlines have grounded their flights. The travel industry is struggling, and we know hosts are feeling the impact.

But there’s still a lot to be hopeful about, especially when we look at what’s happening right here in our community. From offering accommodations to COVID-19 responders to sharing the magic of Airbnb Experiences from your homes, so many of you continue to find ways to host and connect.

Brian talked about all of this and more—here are some of the key takeaways from his latest Host Update:

An exciting milestone for our Frontline Stays program

Just two weeks ago, we launched our Frontline Stays program to offer accommodations for healthcare professionals responding to COVID-19 around the world. And we have been so inspired by the incredible response from our host community. As of today, you’ve already offered over 100,000 places to stay for COVID-19 responders.

The Frontline Stays program is just one more example of the tenacity and generosity of Airbnb hosts. We’re incredibly grateful for all you do. 

Clarity around our Superhost Relief Fund eligibility requirements

We’re happy to share that the Superhost Relief Fund is expanding by an extra $7 million USD, bringing it to a total of $17 million USD of support. Many of you are wondering why hosts with more than two listings aren’t eligible to apply. The spirit of this program is to help people who host in their primary homes, and we’ll be prioritizing hosts based on their tenure with Airbnb and how much their earnings have declined due to COVID-19. We’re planning to invite eligible hosts by May 15 and distribute grants by May 31.

In the meantime, we’re finding other ways to help our diverse community of hosts, starting with auto-granting Superhost status in July for anyone who was a Superhost in our April 1 assessment. That means if you were a Superhost in April, you’ll maintain your status regardless of your cancellation or booking rate. Learn more about the Superhost Relief Fund

Support for hosts who have Flexible cancellation policies

Last week, we announced that we’ll be investing $250 million USD to share in the cost of COVID-19-related cancellations. For hosts impacted by these cancellations under our extenuating circumstances policy, we’ll pay 25% of what you would have received through your own cancellation policy.

Since these cash disbursements depend on the amount you would have retained under your cancellation policy, those of you with Flexible and Moderate policies may be less likely to benefit from them. But we’re working on other ways to support you, starting with getting you more bookings as quickly as we can. We've rolled out a new search filter so guests can find your listings more easily, and we're making your listings more visible in other ways, too. We’re seeing signs that this is what guests want—the share of bookings with a Flexible policy is now 15% higher than it was before COVID-19.

A new way to connect: Online Experiences

After pausing Airbnb Experiences last month, we heard from countless hosts who wanted to keep hosting and who believed they could offer a similar level of connection online. So we’re excited to announce the launch of Online Experiences—an idea that came directly from our hosts! Online Experiences will allow hosts to earn money, share their passions, and connect with others, whether it’s an individual hoping to learn a new skill or a group of colleagues doing a team-building exercise. We’re also partnering with local organizations to bring Online Experiences to senior citizens who may be feeling lonely and isolated right now. Hosts are already offering Online Experiences like magic lessons, cooking classes, guided meditations, and more.

Interested in hosting an Online Experience? We'll be offering hosts personalized support services for curating, capturing, and sharing their online content. Learn more at Airbnb.com/onlinehost

Let’s stay connected

Your feedback has been more important than ever as we navigate this unprecedented time. So much of our response has been guided by your personal stories, questions, and suggestions, and we’re going to keep finding ways to connect with you.

We’ll continue to hold listening sessions with hosts around the world, and we’ll be bringing you a Host Update with Brian at Airbnb.com/live every week for a while. Next Tuesday, April 14, Brian will be getting insights about hosting and staying safe during the COVID-19 pandemic from Dr. Larry Brilliant, the epidemiologist who is best known for helping to eradicate smallpox. 

Thank you once again for being an Airbnb host. Please continue to share your thoughts and questions in the comments below, and we’ll do our best to address them in future Airbnb.com/live events.

[Audrey455]

Complete BS.  Yet again changing policies and not actually helping hosts.  And what type of self-absorbed individual starts a live broadcast 15 minutes late?  Obviously he does not care about his hosts...

[Lizzie]

Hello @Audrey455, 

Lovely to meet you. I am a Community Manager here in the Community Center. I just want to apologise for the delay, I'm not exactly sure what the difficulty was, but I can assure you this was unexpected. I imagine as there were a couple of people on this talk, that it could have been a technical issue, but either way, I'm sorry for the extra time it took. 

As you will see above, additional information regarding the Superhost Relief fund has been shared, if you are interested in this, as I see you are a Superhost. I would recommend clicking on the link as there is a lot more answers there–I know some of them have been popular questions here in the CC. 

Here in the Community Center we are continuously passing back feedback from hosts back to the Brian and the different teams working on many of the initiatives and share updates here, so hopefully some of this will help to make things a little clearer, but we will continue to work on this. 

I hope things get better for you and wishing you all the best. I hope to speak with you more. 

Thanks,

Lizzie

[Audrey455]

If there's a delay, and a CEO/speaker doesn't apologize for it when they start, they need to learn manners.

The additional info is BS and actually lacks info like everything else.

STOP raising money.  START giving it out and actually supporting your hosts.

[Frederic54]

No doubt that B. Chesky needs to learn manners. From the beginning Airbnb's leadership has made a bad situation worst! As I have said on many occasions (and have been bullied by some crazy members, screaming scam etc), this situation should be a real wake up call for the most serious Hosts/SuperHosts. There are many options out there, starting your own web site + youtube/google or Facebook ads, or relying on various platforms. As a SuperHost (for many years), I own and manage various properties in the Bay Area and internationally (Cabo San Lucas), I found Tripping.com pretty good for vacation rentals. However, I think many new models without fees are arising, specifically leveraging Blockchain as a method of payment and transaction, this is why I found Gigoyu.com particularly interesting. Ultimately, this crisis will accelerate models where hosts and guests are brought closer, where services (cleaning, insurance, transportation, catering) will become an integral part of the booking experience and where traditional hotels will participate. 

[Robin4]

@Lizzie 

Oh Lizzie, I know your heart is in the right place but, you are pushing a heavy barrow up-hill here. I think you are going to find a lot of critical comment will come from this.

To say hosts with a flexible cancellation policy are going to come out of this well with all this mass of additional promotion, and then say something like  "We’re seeing signs that this is what guests want—the share of bookings with a Flexible policy is now 15% higher than it was before COVID-19".........Ah, wait a tick while I double check that!

The share of bookings for flex hosts is 15% higher......what bookings? the world is in lock-down for goodness sake! At the moment in most countries it is illegal for a host to accept a STR reservation ....didn't somebody look at the global situation before putting that line in the script. Or does that line refer to guest enquiries for 2022 when most of us have left the industry!

This is where these sessions fall apart I am afraid. Like @Susan17  I also feel really sorry for him. He didn't create this global lock-down, he is an innocent player who has got caught up in it and he has got a lot more to lose than you and I .

But I would just once like to see him talk from the heart and leave the sales pitch back in the office.

Last week I watched our Prime Minister find from somewhere, $360 billion to give back to rank and file Aussies. He never once looked at any script...... he stared down every face in the press gallery and he spoke from his heart . The biggest assistance package in Australias history. He put his money where his mouth was. That was leadership, I didn't vote for him but I respect him immensely for that.

I haven't watched it yet, it was on about 5.30 am here on Good Friday,  and I was still curled up in another land, I didn't feel it was worth setting the alarm for, but once a catch-up link turns up I will watch it, but I will watch it I guess out of a morbid sense of curiosity to see how he puts himself over. 

Stay safe Lizzie .....Ade says you're a good egg!

Cheers.....Rob

[Helen350]

@Robin4  "...how he puts himself over." - Reminded me of Beavis & Butthead.

[Sharon1014]

@Robin4  It was actually 7.30am here in Adelaide, not 5.30am

[Robin4]

@Sharon1014 

Yeah I knew it was early but had not specifically noted a local time for it Sharon, a  week or so ago it would have been 6.30am when we were back in Daylight saving!

Since I am not having guests I am having the luxury of sleep-ins I never used to get. Would not do to have guests leave in the morning with the host still tucked up in bed. 

I did not set the alarm for it.....as I said, I didn't consider there was going to be any radical departure from the past sessions so I thought I would catch up on it later in the day.

By the sound of the delay in it getting going, maybe that alarm wouldn't have been needed anyway! 

Hope you are OK down there in Sellicks Sharon . If you look up there on the hill in Justs Road, I air conditioned the 'cancer castle' for Fred Shahin back in the early 2,000s. I was a mechanical services contractor and did a lot of Smokemarts work!

That house is soooo big, the average residence will take about 12 Kws of airconditioning, we put 54Kws into that place!

Sharon, we are doing ok here in SA with this virus distancing. I have been keeping a daily graph using the SA Health figures and here is where we were as of midnight last night.

I just hope they don't rush into relaxing the restrictions we have here too soon.

Take care....

Cheers......Rob

[Sharon1014]

@Robin4  You didn't miss anything worth hearing in any event by the look of it, neither did I by logging out early.  Brian might be down to an audience of 5 by next week.

Fred's castle was quite the local icon until the Buddhist monks arrived and built the 25m high night-light-show Buddha statue (and now they seem to be building an equally large accommodation facility right in front of it, about 4-5 storeys high, don't know how they got planning approval for that one, but maybe they didn't which is why it's just a scaffold still).

And yes SA is doing well with the data, benefits of being a little more out of the way than the bigger states/cities.  Reckon we might be the guinea pig state they are talking about for incremental relaxing of restrictions soon.  But I think the trade-off will be that our state borders remain closed to all and that would be a very good thing (at least until the rest of Aussie is out of danger territory, which will be a truckload sooner than the Americas or Europe).  Would be nice to be tucked up in our little wineries/beaches galore cocoon with complete freedom of movement within our boundaries and business as usual for all our privileged residents.  Cafe's, pubs, restaurants, shopping, work, accommodation, and within-state travel all back to normal.  Support local !!

[Sharon1014]

@Robin4  You didn't miss anything worth hearing in any event by the look of it, neither did I by logging out early. Brian might be down to an audience of 5 by next week.

Fred's castle was quite the local icon until the Buddhist monks arrived and built the 25m high night-light-show Buddha statue (and now they seem to be building an equally large accommodation facility right in front of it, about 4-5 storeys high, don't know how they got planning approval for that one, but maybe they didn't which is why it's just a scaffold still).

And yes SA is doing well with the data, benefits of being a little more out of the way than the bigger states/cities. Reckon we might be the guinea pig state they are talking about for incremental relaxing of restrictions soon. But I think the trade-off will be that our state borders remain closed to all and that would be a very good thing (at least until the rest of Aussie is out of danger territory, which will be a truckload sooner than the Americas, mainland Asia or Europe). Would be nice to be tucked up in our little wineries/beaches galore cocoon with complete freedom of movement within our boundaries and business as usual for all our privileged residents. Cafe's, pubs, restaurants, shopping, work, accommodation, and within-state travel all back to normal. Support local !!

[Robin4]

@Sharon1014 

You will of course notice that my chart was up a creek without a paddle. Current active cases line was completely wrong!

Going back and checking all the daily figures here is the corrected chart which takes into account todays new cases ......

It's probably going to flatten out now but hopefully in the next fortnight we can get those red and green lines to intersect. We will be on the path to defeating this virus then....provided they don't let another cruise ship descend on us!

Cheers.....Rob

[Sharon1014]

@Robin4  No more cruise ships at any of our ports, that's already been decided.  It must suck to be stuck on one of those floating germ palaces/factories that have been hovering off shore Sydney or Perth for weeks now and those ships now being told they must return to their home port, no disembarking and no exceptions.

I think our free drive-thru testing clinics everywhere have helped as well, plus the big shift for all medical/specialist/allied health appointments going to Telehealth instead of face to face.  We do a rather good job of getting our act together pretty darn quick when needed.  Aussie.  Why would you want to live anywhere else? 🙂

[Norene1]

My initial question still remains unanswered. I am cancelling the entire 2020 season. I have two non-refundable listings  My bookings don't start until the end of June and extend into October. I want my guests to cancel and MUST HAVE THE CORRECT INFORMATION to relay to them about cancelling and refund. I MUST ALSO KNOW how/if I might be compensated. If I cancel I will be charged a $100 per booking penalty. This is in the thousands of dollars!!!!! That I will loose which will be over half my yearly income. There has not been an actual policy put forward as far as I can see or read. I would like an answer.

[Sharon1014]

@Norene1   What's the rest of the story?  Why would you want to cancel bookings that are 3-6 months away given your state may be in the clear by then?  You want to go back to LTR right now instead?  You won't get an answer anytime soon because the dates you refer to are some distance out yet.

So your choices are this - you either de-list to avoid cancellation penalties and go to LTR instead right now (if that's what you want) or you stay the course and keep your bookings.  Or of course, you just go ahead and cancel everything, lose half your yearly income and suck up the penalties.  The chances of being compensated for cancelling bookings that are so far out and which may well be cleared to proceed, are not wonderful.  We'd all like answers, but there aren't many going round right now.