I largely agree with your assessment. Thank you for your post.
I have been wondering about their next quarterly earnings statement. Last I checked their stock was not trading for much more than we were offered it for purchase when they were going public. I think this is what will move the needle outside of obvious signs earlier than that that they’re heading in the wrong direction.
I do think they are hoping to professionalize their hosts and I can understand why. Frivolous claims and last-minute cancellations by hosts are detrimental to their brand.
I have confidence that with enough feedback they will change or adjust some of these features so they are more friendly and hopefully be more inclusive to properties that are not in major markets.
After all if they’re only booking major markets they’re going to lose revenue because there’s only so many properties there. I would venture to say they were already getting most of those bookings anyway.
What I see happening is that they’re rerouting a lot of business away from smaller markets to these large markets just by the sheer fact that the categories are mostly populated in those major markets. because the categories are not populated in smaller markets it automatically zooms out to the bigger one because that’s where the bulk of properties in that category are located. If smaller markets also had a fair number it wouldn’t zoom out quite so much. I’ve already tested this theory with our properties in the Nashville area.
It seems to me if they could help hosts get in the appropriate categories and get rid of the default to a weeklong stay that would cure a lot of ills and increase bookings.
I am not against categories at all but I am against them being so elusive. We qualify for several of them but so far, even with new photos and descriptions that clearly state we have a designer building, amazing mountain views, and chefs kitchens along with many reviews that say the same we are still not in any categories in our mountain of Midwest properties.
This is extra frustrating because two of our properties are Airbnb Plus and have been inspected by Airbnb themselves to prove that we have such amenities. I don’t know why they are depending solely on AI to make this determination.
We are waiting this out and giving loads of feedback. It is a major change and roll out for them. They have a lot of money and resources invested in it so it will take time to work the kinks out.