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?

[Kristina46]

Truer words were never spoken. Lower prices bring out the riff raff.

[Gigi169]

Totally agree. I never drop my prices. I prefer “macys” customers and not Walmart customers.  So far it’s been worth it. No nightmare guests and it’s worth my while. 

[Suzanne302]

So this is almost comical. Now the home page is showing different listings for me. (no more $8,500/night in Joshua Tree, boohoo) The listings shown are still only affordable for the ultra rich, mostly. But as I scroll down I see a couple spots taken up by "Stay in X location and Y location."

The comical part? "X" location is Raleigh, NC and the "Y" location is Smith Mountain Lake, VA....They are hundreds of miles away. Tell me, someone, WHO would realistically be looking to stay in two random places like that, hundreds of miles away from each other? What purpose does that serve?

@SybeI don't know if that's an intentional part of the algorithm (which seems insane!), but if not, you might want to pass that one on to the programmers too!

[Julie-and-Brad2]

Finally looking through this conversation and getting a good understanding of why our inquiries and bookings have been so slow.  We are in Lake Tahoe area and by spring we are usually getting inquiries and bookings like crazy for summer.  Crickets.  We have tried changing pricing, minimum day requirements, etc.  We are also RIVERFRONT!  Amazing views of the river and forest service land across the river.  Do we show up in any categories? No.  Someone explain to me why there is a category for “Grand Pianos” but not “Riverfront”.  We hired a Airbnb recommended photographer and have excellent photos to no avail.  We are headed to VRBO to get some bookings.  

[Jennifer2672]

@Julie-and-Brad2 I reluctantly put my listing up there two weeks ago. I'm normally filled out 2 months in advance at minimum. Since the rollout, I have had one new booking from someone who knew about us already (she couldn't find the listing) and 1 inquiry for open dates at an extreme discount that I couldn't accommodate at the last minute due to my cleaner being sick. Now have 2 new bookings on VRBO. I never wanted to be on 2 platforms, but summer is our peak season and my July is only partially booked and August/September are completely open. If Airbnb's goal was to drive hosts to other platforms, it worked. I can't sit here and wait for them to work out the bugs. I need to cover my expenses now. 

[Stephanie365]

Add me to the list of people whose views are down. My views are down 40%.  Due to my location, I typically only get 1-2 night weekenders or passers through from the interstate during the non-summer months. But June, July and August, I typically get at least 4-5 bookings of a week or more.  Haven't received even an inquiry about a longer stay. Every booking I've had since the rollout has been for one night only. "Just passin'  thorough".

[Martine883]

Same here, in Florida, 7 mn to the Beach. I have had 3 months full (less 2-3 days), and then a big silence on booking requests…fortunately a guest for most of the month of May, on one of my 2 listings, but it is anormally quiet. I searched myself as a guest and I saw one thing:  Now when Guests look for Beach 2 categories, only the listing located in cities named xxx Beach are appearing…! So whenever my 2 listings are very close to the beach, they don’t show!  😕

That’s VERY unfortunate, and I am afraid that this new update  breaks my success action right in the heart.

[Gigi169]

This may be helpful in some areas, but I just did a search on my town of Volcano on the Big Island of Hawai’i and all of the first listings are not even on the same island. That’s a big problem as mainland people don’t know the names of the different towns in reference to which island. This is a problem. People will not be happy to have plane tickets to one island and their Airbnb they booked through a search with a specific town have them something that is a completely different island. 
See attached photo… Volcano is in the search bar and Lahaina is the first 2 listings (Maui) and Honolulu is the 3rd listing (Oahu) and it just goes on from there with much of same. 
this is a huge issue for island travelers. Not to mention not fair to the hosts. 

[Lisa34]

I agree. The search is funneling people away to the markets that have already been populated for the categories.

We had a guest book our place and almost immediately cancel because he realized he had booked our place which is hours away from where he and his extended family had thought they had booked.

Outside of the fact that you can see on our views that we had a tremendous drop off starting May, the other reason I feel reasonably sure it is the update is because Price Labs adjusts our price according to traveler demand. Our prices are set a fair amount above our minimum - in some cases at our maximum for later in the month. If there was no demand it would be at the bottom of the range I allow.

I have overridden Price Labs for the dates coming up in the next week to our lowest price allowed (the lowest of our off-season price) and still nothing… because we are not getting the views. 

[Jeremy785]

It is absolutely appalling to me that these issues have been going on for a MONTH now and Airbnb has not done a single thing to acknowledge the problems or say a single thing to reassure the hosts that they are doing something about it. Their so-called "support" has been completely useless and my time spent dealing with them would have been better spent banging my head against a brick wall. 

[Natasha-and-John0]

@Airbnb it does appear that hosts are no longer equals in the business model. We are being treated as insignificant. 

[Michelle53]

@Jeremy785 @Natasha-and-John0      The only metric that has any relevance is "Booked Nights".   Hosts have never been "equals in the business model" - we are only the provider of assets that Airbnb does not want to own itself. 

We haven't heard anything because they are most likely waiting for the May numbers to come in. 

There only three outcomes, after that.

a) "Booked nights" goes up - everyone at Airbnb celebrates a job well done, and sends congratulatory messages out everywhere.

b) "Booked nights" stays the same - Airbnb tweaks the search algorithm to improve "Booked nights"  and possibly tells hosts some changes have been made due to our input.

c) "Booked nights" goes down - Airbnb further tweaks the algorithm to improve "Booked nights" and makes some placating remarks to hosts about how our voices were heard, and changes have been made.

[Louise1097]

The fact that there is no response from Air is perhaps the worst thing of all. They just don't care? 

[Jeremy785]

@Louise1097 This is what I have been saying. At the very least, they could tell us they are aware of some teething issues and reassure us that they're working to make it better. Instead they are silent to us, while still pushing their great new features on social media. Their so called "support" continues to tell me my listing is fine, all the while ignoring the actual issues that I have contacted them about. Either they are completely incompetent or they have been instructed from above to deny any issues. 

[Louise1097]

We are moving from Air.

Nobody can find our mid-week availability any more, nobody can book weekends either (we are 3-day min), and Air is telling prospective guests we have no availability until mid November, which is a complete lie.

I have had enough.

What are your top 3 OTAs to sign up with?