Airbnb 2022 Summer Release: What you need to know

[Airbnb]

Our 2022 Summer Release represents the biggest change to Airbnb in a decade. We’re introducing:

• Airbnb Categories: A new way to search that makes it easy for guests to discover millions of homes they never knew existed

• Split Stays: An innovative feature that pairs two listings when a guest searches for a longer stay

• AirCover: The most comprehensive protection in travel, included for free with every stay

Get all the details on the Resource Center, and tell us: Will you be updating your listing for Airbnb Categories and Split Stays? How will you update it?

[Gillian166]

it's really good to see a lot of new blood here on the forums. Hosts are NOT happy and this is happening across all platforms: youtube, tiktok, facebook, here and other forums. I do hope ABB is paying attention. 

[Jennifer2672]

@Gillian166 I just added my home to another competing platform. I've been an Airbnb host solely since October 2020. I had no desire to use more than one, but this has been so disheartening. I have had one new booking since the new rollout and it was someone who already knew about my home. And she couldn't find my listing in the platform. 

[Gillian166]

@Jennifer2672 
mmm, I also put one of my listings on bdc. I don't want to, the usability of that site is not as good and the forums don't fill me with confidence. Although i use it often as a traveller because it has more practical options than abb, and actually is often a bit cheaper. 

I might have to also ffwd my plans to get my own website functional with bookings there too, and take payments. 

[Kevin129]

Since Brian Chesky has put his face on this change, I guess he will be a bit reluctant to admit it was a mistake. I guess it will take time before the the revenue metrics force a rethink. I have noticed less enquiries also since the update. The redesign is just a very awkward and unintuitive interface for guests who are booking by place and date which I would guess is the majority of users. 

[Tony-And-Una0]

I guess the piece of the puzzle we don't know is; are the guests still booking but not with established hosts., or are they not booking at all.

If they are still booking on Airbnb, then I doubt anything will change.

[Molly396]

I really want to know this answer!!!! 

[Angela2820]

Me too!

[Annie1372]

@Tony-And-Una0 

me too 🙋🏻‍♀️😜

[Susan1188]

You're right, if shift is from superhosts to novice hosts, that is perhaps the intention.

Guest experience and satisfaction might go down but that will take a while to be noticed in the statistics.

I think what will happen is guests will click and book the wrong property and there will be tons of issues on arrival when the property is not where or as promoted by airbnb.

Combined with the new guest insurance policy, this means if Airbnb proposes your property wrongly to a guest who does not read anything, the guest then arrives and is surprised by whatever, Airbnb will give them a refund of your money or move them to another place and cancel last minute on you.

Am I wrong or is that how the new "aircover" works?  From what I understand it's once again the host that provides the cover and Airbnb that decides to refund the host money to the guest.

[Jonathan47]

It seems to me that Airbnb is making the same mistake it made with PLUS hosts. Both PLUS and "Categories" are based on something that undermines the very success of Airbnb. This was a very simple thing (like all genius concepts): Offer millions of original places to stay that are different from the streamlined offers of hotel chains. Everyone could find something that suited their quirk. And then, guests inform others if their expectations have been met.

PLUS's repetitive images and anodyne text put off both hosts and guests. Even though we qualify, we would never list there. Instead of a guarantee of quality, it has become a guarantee of boredom.

The idea of ​​categories is good, but as it is based on algorithms rather than individual hosts, it reduces for example "Amazing Views" to endless photos of a blue sea or blue swimming pools, however little the blue specs might be somewhere in the distance.

Airbnb, do yourself, guests and hosts a favor, don't give up on a successful concept. Let hosts decide on categories.

[Julie4588]

Airbnb needs to add a category for Static Caravans which are popular in the UK. There is always a tendency to link static caravans as being sited on holiday parks. However, some people prefer to holiday in  stand alone caravans with privacy. Our caravan is set in a private plot. 

[RoniSue0]

I run a nice little ‘hotel’ style Airbnb in a private section of my house, in the suburbs right next to a major university. I’m in the desert, surrounded by fine arts, cultural, pro sports, desert hikes, etc. but apparently I don’t show up in any of those categories because the VIEW from my place is a simple neighborhood. Along the thinking of what I expect when looking for an Airbnb, I offer a place that is very clean, comfortable, uses nice linens, provides lots of amenities,  has free parking and is surrounded by public transport stops, AND COSTS LESS THAN A COMPARABLE HOTEL STAY NEARBY. Out of 80 or so guests, all but one (who gave 4 stars) have given me 5 stars. I’ve workEd hard to keep up quality and earn my superhost status. I was doing well, staying booked 95-100% of each month. 
Several days before the roll out, my business just STOPPED. It’s a high season here, with graduations at the university this month, so Airbnb smart pricing was suggesting double my normal prices, and kept pushing upward, but I couldn’t get booked! My business just tanked! I’m not ‘worthy’ of a category, it seems, being just a simple, affordable, suburban alternative to a nice hotel, so I have been bottoming-out my prices to well below what they’ve been during the slowest time of year. That’s attracted me a couple of bookings, but just at a small trickle compared to the past year. I’m so frustrated that this roll out seems to have ruined my business. I feared it was happening because I got that 4-star review, but my rating is still 4.99, and this is peak season here, and I’m reading that others are struggling too, so I am now more convinced that this calamity is being caused by the recent changes. 

If Airbnb is more interested in its hosts offering million dollar resort-style places, and doesn’t value hosts that offer simple, affordable hospitality, like mine—which are what I think of when I am traveling—maybe I’m in the wrong platform? Should I go to Bookings.com instead? I’m sure to show up with filters for ‘near university’ or other cultural landmarks, or with the ability to sort by price! 

I’m watching for news of improvements closely and hoping my bookings to rebound VERY SOON, while researching other platforms. 

[Nancy1633]

@RoniSue0 @Airbnb 

Agree. Just for context, my property (cabin) is in the Catskill mountains, a very popular getaway destination because it's 2.5 hours from the metro NY area. It's 2 min from a village with every convenience, and there is tons to do.  My cabin offers an outdoor cedar barrel sauna with a window that overlooks the surrounding woods. Bookings have flowed in via searches on the (old) Airbnb platform... have gotten ZERO since the changes. 

Since I launched at the height of Delta then Omicron, plus inflation spiking, and still got bookings, the precipitous decline can only be explained by AirBnb's "Summer 2022" changes. Literally, my listing is unfindable, and Airbnb stripped away the descriptive title ("with barrel sauna") to reduce its appeal. 

I don't believe a company with the hubris to make radical changes to Host marketing and bookings without beta testing or Host input, gives a rat's ass about Host discontent. If bookings drop off radically, AirBnb will blame inflation, or gas prices, or war in Ukraine-- anything but owning the disastrous redesign and the economic pain it's caused "partner" Hosts.  AirBnb put its thumb on the scale,  picked winners and losers. Winners have treehouses and designer mansions. Losers are the rest of us, whose listings are unfindable, mischaracterized and generic.  AirBnb has changed it's mission.

I have a humble, cozy, rustic cabin offering comfort and modern conveniences to folks who want time away at a reasonable fee. Not the exotic "experience" AirBnb wants to sell, but a great experience for the burnt out NYC people my property attracted-- before. 

Good luck, everyone. 

[RoniSue0]

I apologize for the typos/formatting in my original comments. I wrote them while I was riding in a moving car.  

[Annie1372]

@RoniSue0 , @Nancy1633 @and to all the other AirBNB host that wrote on this post and the other one.

i feel the love that you have for your little place and the care that you have for your guest.

looking more in details at your listings, it make we want to go visit each one of you over the next couple of years as it looks beautiful but not luxurious, it feels great but not extravagant and because you all seam genuine people. I’m 100% sure I would enjoy myself at your places and you at mine 💝

Brian made us feel good when he gave us the power to share our homes with guests and to become host and mini- entrepreneurs.

But now 15 years later and $8.6 billion richer (as a personnel fortune) he fells that he can take all of this away from us. While I fell that we have contributed to at least 50% of his success.

how can we support each other in this personnal , yet, shared crisis?