Airbnb Answers: Guest profile photos

[Airbnb]

Update: January, 2019

A few months ago, we told you about some changes Airbnb was making to the way guest profile photos are displayed. You can read the original post, below.

Now that those changes are being introduced gradually, we want to make sure you have all the information you need. Here’s a recap of what will be changing, along with some tips.

New photo process

Moving forward, rather than displaying a potential guest’s profile photo before the booking is accepted, you’ll receive a guest’s photo after you’ve accepted the booking request. If you have Instant Book turned on, you won’t notice a change to the booking process.

Airbnb does not require guests to have profile photos. Although most guests provide a photo, some have told us they don’t want to share a picture of themselves when booking, and we listened.

At the same time, many of you told us that you value guest profile photos, and we listened to you, too. That’s why we’ve introduced a new option for hosts to be able to customize their own booking requirements.

New host control

You now have the option to require that your guests provide a profile photo. Again, the photo will be visible to you only after you accept the booking request. If you’d like to require your guests to provide a profile photo, you’ll need to turn on the control option in your settings for each of your listings, either on mobile or on web. Specifically:

On mobile:

1. Go to the listing you’d like to require profile photos for
2. Tap Booking settings
3. Tap Guest requirements
4. Look for the Profile photo section and tap Edit
5. Tap Require a profile photo
6. Tap Save

On web:

1. From your host dashboard, click Listings
2. Click Booking settings
3. Next to Guest requirements, click Edit
4. Check the box next to Profile photo
5. Click Save

If you take this step and a potential guest doesn’t already have a profile photo, they’ll be prompted to upload one before they can request to book your space. A guest’s profile photo will not be available to you until after you accept the booking request. If the guest doesn’t want to provide a photo, then they won’t be able to book your space. 

Additional support

If you choose to require that your guests have a profile photo and one of your potential guests uploads an image that doesn’t show their face—a photo of a sunset or their dog, for instance—then you can call Airbnb’s Community Support. They’ll work with you to address the issue, and if you feel uncomfortable hosting someone without a photo that shows their face, you can request to cancel the reservation penalty-free.

As a reminder, Airbnb’s nondiscrimination policy prohibits hosts from making booking decisions or canceling reservations based on race, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status. 

As an extra step, as always, you can require guests to provide a government ID to Airbnb in order to be able to book your space. You can read more about that process here.

Why these changes are important

We talked with lots of hosts and guests about profile photos, and we think these changes satisfy the core concerns and feedback we heard. We’ll be paying close attention to how these changes to profile photos affect our community, and will continue working to improve and simplify the process to ensure you feel comfortable hosting. We hope you’ll share your feedback with us so we can continue to build a community where everyone can belong. Thank you for hosting.

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October, 2018

You've been asking a lot about guest profile photos, and Airbnb has been working on new policies to address your concerns. Here is an update from Airbnb:

Today, we’re announcing some changes we will be making to the way we display guest profile photos.

Moving forward, rather than displaying a potential guest’s profile photo before the booking is accepted, hosts will receive a guest’s photo in the booking process only after they’ve accepted the booking request. Airbnb does not require all guests to provide a photo. Instead, we’ll be giving hosts the option to ask their guests to provide a profile photo, which will only be presented to hosts after they accept the booking. We have discussed some of this work in the past and we want you to know more about the changes we will be making in the coming months.

We have participated in a number of conversations with hosts and guests regarding this topic. We have listened to our community, and while most guests provide a photo, some guests told us they don’t want to share a picture of themselves when booking. We also recognize that concerns have been raised about the potential for photos to be misused in a way that violates our nondiscrimination policy.

At the same time, hosts have told us that they value profile photos because they can help hosts and guests get to know one another before a trip begins and help hosts recognize guests when they check in. Additionally, we’ve seen how photos can be a useful tool for enhancing trust and promoting community.

We want to balance these concerns. Airbnb does not require guests to provide a profile photo when booking a listing and, as we discussed earlier this summer with our hosts, we will be implementing a series of changes in the months ahead:

• If a guest chooses to provide a profile photo, that profile photo won’t be displayed to the host as part of the booking process until after the booking is confirmed.
• Because some hosts value profile photos and want to be able to know who they can expect at their front door, we will give hosts the option to ask that guests provide a profile photo prior to booking, which will only be presented to the host after the host accepts the booking request. This new option comes with important safeguards that are designed to ensure our community is fair and open to everyone:
  • Hosts must turn on this feature for each of their listings proactively, before they receive a reservation request.
  • If a host asks for a profile photo, we’ll prompt guests to upload one to their Airbnb profile before they can request to book that host’s particular listing; however, the photo will not be presented to the host until after the booking is confirmed.

If a host cancels a reservation after they see a guest’s photo, the guest will have an easy way to contact Airbnb and report any concerns about potential discrimination by the host in violation of our nondiscrimination policy and Community Commitment. If any guest believes he or she has been discriminated against and notifies our team, we’ll immediately help them book an alternative listing consistent with our Open Doors Policy, investigate the report, and take appropriate action. Any host who violates our nondiscrimination policy may be permanently banned from using Airbnb.

This announcement follows the commitment we made in 2016 to evaluate how we display guest profile photos in the booking process. As we implement these changes in the coming months, we hope you’ll share your feedback with us so we can continue to make thoughtful changes that make the Airbnb community a place where everyone can belong.

[Mandy3]

Check out my new profile photo.  Oh, they are going to hear about this. 

[Johnny-and-Mark0]

Here's the real reason. The IPO is coming.

Business Insider: Uber, Airbnb employees are worried by fears of recession.
https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-airbnb-employees-are-worried-by-fears-of-recession-2019-1

[Susan1028]

unfortunately, as a true capitalist rag, we cannot gain access to the article without a paid subscription.

without asking you to plagiarize by cutting and pasting, perhaps you’d offer the ‘cliff notes?’

[Radovan2]

It's amazing how Airbnb can ignore all these pages of comments from, mainly, Superhosts who are obviously, and with the reason, really disturbed by this terrible change, and with the ridiculous explanation given.

It is really putting us into an awkward position and we might leave the doors of our properties widely open as well, letting anyone in to do whatever he/she wants with our property, belongings...

This company is making huge profits from our properties and should give more thought to what we think about changes in their policies!

And, yes, I have followed a gut feeling once and declined to book someone who had no photo on the profile, no reviews and a fishy story about the last minute honeymoon trip, and after exchanging few messages it turned out that they are already in my town, clearly not honeymooning!

Yes, there are a lot of dishonest people out there and we should be allowed to receive at least as much information about our potential tenants as we are required to give them!

P.S. Needless to say that in my listing the guest photo requirement still didn't appear! 

[Patti4]

Yeah, I don't see the option in my booking settings, either. WTF?

[Duda5]

 @Radovan2 it is available to some hosts in NY already. We won't be able to tell if the person who is at your property legitimately booked your place and is the owner of the account by only having the ID verification process which is securely stored by airbnb, if we have nothing to compare to when they arrive. You don't know their faces so it doesn't matter if the account have a verified ID. We will start getting 3rd party bookings and not even know about it. 3rd party bookings are not covered by airbnb host guarantee. 

Please contact airbnb here: https://www.airbnb.com/help/contact_us/message

[Susan1028]

😡

[Susan1028]

@Everyone

This has notning to do with racism.  It's about greed, with no regard for our safety.

Corporations and prospective stockholders respond to bad press.  Tweets, social media blasts, and bad press are very public and get fast results.

If every host tweeted and connected with other hosts in their city and contacted the media, they'd listen because ABB is newsworthy...

[Nini12]

I really agree to Kerem and Ahouva, I dont like this new system , because we as a hosts should have been known who is coming to our places,   in order to prepare your flat flaxable for them ... it is  much more interesting to know your  guest's age and apparanec. 

Wish you all Best Regards.

Nini

[Mandy3]

Until this new change, I felt safe having strangers come to my home and stay with me, sharing bathroom, kitchen and living room.  I've had over 350 guests, from 22 countries and less than five bad experiences.  I've been superhost 11 times - every time, since I started with airbnb.  I check out my guests, and based on their smile, determine if I want to share my home with them.  I've turned down less than ten potential guests, because I didn't feel safe.  I didn't think we'd get along.  I even asked one guest to send me a photo of him smiling, as I could not get a read on who he was with his sunglasses and cycling helmet on. Once - and only once - I had a guest refuse to send me a photo of her smile.  No worries, there are a whole lot of other places she and her friend could stay.  I denied her request, and she sent me nasty emails for a month after she left Canada, and returned to Germany.  I finally had to block her from sending me emails.  Apparently I was right to not have her in my home.  Not everyone is a match, and yes, it's my perogative as a home owner to refuse.  That's why it's called a request.  Airbnb does not own the property and hire me to host their guests whether I like it or not.  I'm not an employee. This is my home and I will most certainly decide who does and who does not enter it, let alone spend the night. 

My new profile photo is a clown.  All photos of my listings have been removed, and a hand written note "I'll send you photos of my place when you send me a current photo of your smile".  Anyone reading my reviews will know I'm an interesting woman, with a heart of gold.  AND I have boundaries that have served me thus far in my life.  I do not fit well under anyone's thumb.  

[Raphaela4]

Mandy,  I totally agree but I am in a state of shock, gobsmacked at yet another change that goes against everything airbnb stood for. A community that builds on trust (between guests and hosts!) -superhosts that have their unique hosting style (because of choices they can make) -strangers that become friends

(because I am entitled to trust my instincts and know for what guests I am the right host) etc etc. 

I just got the superhost badge 18 times in a row and up tilI now, was praising airbnb to everyone else around me. To the extend that I had guests from other letting sites now just booking through airbnb. Why? because they realised the difference of knowing each other a bit even before booking makes a good match possible. Because they understand we are no anonymous hotel they just use. 

I do rely on airbnb as an income and because I really believed in the concept. I hope we are not on a passage of loosing the best of our hosts who have been the reason for how far airbnb got until now.

[Susan1028]

This has notning to do with racism.  It's about greed, with no regard for our safety.

Corporations and prospective stockholders respond to bad press.  Tweets, social media blasts, and bad press are very public and get fast results.

If every host tweeted about this and connected with other hosts in their city and contacted the media, they'd listen because ABB is newsworthy...

[Janette44]

I totally agree that a photo beforehand, of the guest is definitely necessary.

[Sophia53]

Hello . Just wandering, has airbnb thought  about guests not booking a listing after seeing a hosts picture? Thanks, Sophia.

[Sophia53]

I believe it is civil for guests and hosts to  be able to see who they are coressponding with beforehand. Thanks, Sophia.