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?

[Jessica2144]

We have not had a new booking since this "update". The search feature zooms to random cities when I filter by categories even though mine IS tagged in a category. We used to get several new reservations a week, and haven't had a new one in almost a month on airbnb. Good news though, we are getting more via VRBO. This overall update has been devastating for airbnb hosts. Titles are gone, th map zooms to random other cities as I filter, the AI is selecting random cover photos for me. Huge impact on my bookings. 

[Lisa34]

Yes, the AI deciding what photos to use has been one of the bigger mysteries although our search is plummeting and views and bookings is another big one. The AI was using the backside of our house with our HVAC right in the center and wires going everywhere because it thought it was the most cabin like. That’s because the front of our house it’s on a ridge so we don’t have really direct photos of it because you’d have to use a drone to get them. Our properties are in Airbnb plus so we had to use their photographers who also do not use drones. For a Plus listings this is definitely been an unmitigated disaster!

[DeeDee9]

Same exact issue for us! Superhost for 5 years. New algorithm-- nothing 😞 Really hoping Airbnb reverses course on this or hears the cries of thousands of hosts. 

[Peggy137]

Somehow this has to be made public knowledge. Travelers need to know Vrbo is what Airbnb once was, and to go there first. Airbnb will do something when their earnings drop significantly, but I personally would like to see Vrbo replace Air after this complete fiasco. 

I always loved Air, but not anymore. What a betrayal. 

[Nancy1633]

I finally watched the Chesky video.  

It's clear: he has rebranded AirBnb as elite Travel Agency redirecting users to a CURATED list of UPSCALE properties based on a series of assumptions about who uses the site and why. 

The omission of what Chesky views as 'ordinary' lodging is deliberate.  The manipulation of our listings is deliberate. The site no longer serves the ordinary traveler who chooses his/her destination on their own timetable. AirBnb is targeting upscale, white collar clientele who work remotely.  From a user base that once included "everybody" AirBnb has reinvented itself to serve the socioeconomic "cream" who's got gratuitous income for jaunts to igloos across the globe, those seeking a boutique travel "experience."  That is who the company is now.  Thus their lack of response, this was their plan. 

The little people (Hosts) who've been excluded from maps,  buried, with our descriptive titles stripped, the reason is because we no longer fit in AirBnb's new business model.  We've been fired without notice. 

Face it. AirBnb views Hosts as expendable commodities, not faithful partners with families of our own to feed. In my case, it's my daughter's college tuition to pay. 

If Chesky is right, our lost bookings have been redirected to posh or unusual (OMG!) lodging. If he's wrong, he's turned off folks who know where they want to go, when they want to go, who don't want arbitrary weeks shoved down their throats, and who travel on a BUDGET. 

I have to believe Chesky is wrong. 

I'm betting that AirBnb is hemorrhaging business to other venues. In any case, AirBnb share holders should be given a heads up to what's happening below the radar. If anyone has contacts in business  journalism or writes well,  I'd suggest writing to a national magazine like Forbes or Money, or the Wall Street Journal. 

[Lisa34]

Well, we have 9 listings. Many of our listing are unique, posh places. The only ones doing even remotely OK, but are bookings at a lower rate than usual, are the less expensive ones in TN. Views for our more expensive higher end, and by “expensive” I don’t mean crazy I just mean $250-$350 per night for a 2 master suite place with stunning views in NC, have plummeted. Our bookings have vanishes and our guests who do not enter dates in their search are being redirected to properties in Gatlinburg area or even South Africa, depending on the category you search. I am not convinced anyone is benefitting.

I mean really, if you were planning to go to the mountains of NC and you search for that but are shown places hours or even several flights away you will likely leave frustrated and just not book anything. You might go to another platform or you might decide to try again later.

What a mess! We have been renting for 9 or so years so I have data on years before covid, during covid and now and I can tell you, our numbers look like when Airbnb wasn’t a household name and we had just listed.

Hopefully things will pick up on other platforms or Airbnb will back this train up a little. Our 2 Plus properties are really struggling and the non-compete is awful for our bookings right now. I might have to leave to even begin to turn this around for them.

[Nancy1633]

@Lisa34 

You've described my sister who was looking for a getaway in the mountains of NC.  First she looked on AirBnb. 

She told me that AirBnb was showing her places far from her desired destination, and was completely thrown off by the arbitrary "week" to reserve. She and her husband were looking at 3 or 4 nights, mid-week- not a week or weekend. 

She fled the AirBnb site and booked on VRBO. Too bad AirBnb never showed her one of your lovely listings.  

[Huma0]

@Nancy1633 

I think you must be right, not only because this is what the video is trying to convey, but also because there is simply no other logical explanation of why Airbnb would make such a radical change to its model. It doesn't make sense that Airbnb would make this change casually and not iron out what we are spotting as obvious flaws. It makes more sense that they don't care too much about the lost business to everyday hosts, because they hope to make more business from the higher end of the market.

As yet, I can't find much media coverage on the Summer Release, except for an odd article here or there regurgitating the press release. Certainly, I didn't find anything remotely analysing it. If anyone knows of relevant coverage, do please post links here. 

What I did fid was that Airbnb recently put out press releases about where it expects to be its top ten summer destinations. The result vary depending on the country of publication, e.g. in the UK, the results are mostly in Europe, whereas in the UK, results are in Mexico and the Caribbean etc.

What I found relevant to this discussion is mentioned here: https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/airbnb-trending-destinations-summer-2022

Scroll down to the second half of the article:

"Airbnb has also released a list of the destinations where customers are booking the longest stays. These are places where digital nomads, whether freelance or otherwise, seem to be taking advantage of the ability to work remotely. Airbnb reports that since 2019, there has been a 33% rise in the number of stays exceeding 28 days.

Five of these cities are in the UK, led by Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester. This suggests that digital nomads tend to look for the infrastructure and social opportunities of city life as opposed to somewhere more peaceful in the countryside.

One such digital nomad, Samantha Scott, offered the following advice to people looking to work remotely: "Living this way since 2018, I’ve learned how important it is to use the right filters, check reviews (and wi-fi speed!) and I always prioritise a dedicated workspace, to support my work-life balance."

Check out the top 10 digital nomad destinations below:

1. Lisbon, Portugal
2. Dubai, UAE
3. Bristol, UK
4. Birmingham, UK
5. Manchester, UK
6. Cape Town, South Africa
7. Glasgow, UK
8. Liverpool, UK
9. Seoul, Korea
10. Los Angeles, California, US "

So, if it's true that there has been a 33% increase in long term bookings then it also makes sense for Airbnb to target this market of digital nomads. However, the mistake is to assume that these digital nomads have endless amounts of cash to spend and are able to stay in the kind of place depicted in Brian's video.

Also, from the article above, it's clear that they are attracted to big, popular cities, not rural retreats. Meanwhile, Airbnb is heavy handedly trying to steer the customer away from these saturated markets, but I doubt the customer will be so easily convinced. I have hosted several digital nomads and, believe me, they had a pretty clear idea of which locations they wanted to stay.

In addition, the experienced digital nomad, like Samantha Scott above, knows what she is looking for and how to use filters. What she might not know is that now she will not see all the available listings in her desired location with her desired amenities. The map will instead zoom out and try to get her to book elsewhere instead. She will either abandon Airbnb and book elsewhere, or she'll end up booking something that wasn't quite right for her, be disappointed and book elsewhere next time.

[Nancy1633]

@Huma0 

Yep. A couple of comments about the article:

The 33% increase in long-term stays "since 2019" cited by AirBnb overlaps 2+ years of the COVID-19 pandemic.  As a proportion of total bookings in that time frame, that data makes sense; vacations and weekend getaways were dramatically curtailed, with most 9-to-5 folks working from home.  My spouse included; he worked remotely for over a year. Well, he's back in his Manhattan office fulltime now, as are the other 9-to- 5ers that I know.   

So AirBnb's reported 33% increase in long term stays, in my opinion, was responsive to the pandemic-- call them TEMPORARY "digital nomads". 

As for today, I have witnessed a surge of 'normal' travel, a resumption of ordinary folks booking AirBnbs to see relatives, go to concerts, attend weddings or other events, sightsee at a particular city or place, enjoy a sporting activity.  In my rural mountain location, we are central to skiing, hiking, fishing, kayaking, communing with nature. My guests are largely city folk who want a mountain getaway to decompress. (Note: I launched in Jan 2022, after covid vaccines and boosters were widely available.) Only my bookings have dropped like a stone since AirBnb's radical business model change. 

The demand is still there. It's AirBnb's radical manipulation of search results, forced default "weeks" or "weekends" signaling erroneous availability, a wildly zooming map, the arbitrary appearance/disappearance of my listing on a map (sometimes there, sometimes not) that has caused lost bookings and my business to fail.  

My conclusion: Chesky's 2022 Summer Release is an unforced error with devastating consequences.

As I see it, Chesky really misunderstood the shifting travel environment- that the digital nomad phenomenon was transitory. Sure, there is a niche market that CAN do the "digital nomad" thing, but the bulk of that market is back to the office...  the job postings I see are all for working on site.  Nevermind blue collar people who never could be "digital nomads": cops, firemen, sanitation workers, municipal employees, teachers, professors, local government, etc.  Somehow, AirBnb's "digital nomad"  model has excluded them.

So Chesky's new business model has gone from travel for  "everyone" to booking curated high-end properties to a niche market: financially secure adults or couples without school age kids who can work remotely, and have a hefty budget. 

Simply put, AirBnb has become-- without warning, a boutique Travel Agency for largely the upper socioeconomic strata. 

Finally, AirBnb has dangled reversing at least one change (titles) in July. Why July? Why only titles?  Does anybody know?

[Berkeley4]

While I have been a user of airbnb for years, I am a newer host, just this year.  When I went to search for a rental for myself a few weeks ago, I discovered the inability to just peruse through numerous  listings and their availabilities.  I kept attempting over and over and then realized what the new changes meant....a completely different, much more frustrating and definitely less effective searching experience for guests...which means for me as a host, fewer bookings.  No question about it.   I actually gave up my search on AirBnB and went to VRBO.  Sad.  There are so many hosts giving horrible feedback about this, I can't imagine that it won't change back.  Please just let it be sooner rather than later.

[Lisa34]

I completely agree. We were planning a trip for next week and just gave up.

[Berkeley4]

Well, obviously, it's not a good business model if people are leaving a site because it's ineffective and going somewhere else.  Fingers crossed for a shift back to what works!

[Lisa34]

I just read the question answer on here about the summer release. It does not address the default to weeklong stays or the fact that you have to have a two night minimum for weekends to even show up in that search. I’m afraid we need more information here.

A lot of our livelihoods are at stake. While I applaud the innovation of categories, I do think Airbnb needs to recognize that they are no longer the scrappy upstart company they were but instead have become industry leaders and with that comes the mantle of responsibility. I after all, when your name become synonymous with the very thing you represent you have a responsibility to your partners, I.e. hosts.

We still have received no new bookings since this release except from existing guests who have stayed with us in the past. Per the CEO of Expedia and also yesterday’s article Reuters travel is up this summer. People are “splurging“. You would not know it on this platform. Our unfilled nights are passing by and will never be recouped. I have always been a big cheerleader for Airbnb but right now I am extremely disappointed and very concerned. 

I looked at our views now that we are a month out from this release and our losses are now being compounded. Yesterday we were even lower than we were a month ago. To have nine properties, two of which are Airbnb plus properties, this is really unacceptable. We were a popular short term rental until this release. Now our guests are being rerouted to places hours away as if we don’t have anything to offer. 

[Lisa34]

@Sybe , I just got off the phone with CS. They said to be included in categories you have to have a low price (which doesn’t seem to be the case when you view categories) and the destination has to be popular. So it sounds to me like we will never be in the amazing views category! I am so disheartened. People search our area of North Carolina, Spruce Pine, and click on Amazing Views and it only shows them properties in Gatlinburg! That is hours away and certainly implies we do not have amazing views here. I would argue our views are every bit as wonderful as these who are already in the category. Pardon me, but does Airbnb only care about major markets now!?!?

This one is in Amazing views, this is the main view shot. This is the view in our listing. How is that not comparable?

[Lisa34]

Listing on Page 1 in Gatlinburg (a lovely place, but I searched our town of Spruce Pine in NC and it took me here for amazing views.