Explore the upgrades in the Airbnb 2023 Winter Release

[Airbnb]

Today, we’re introducing upgrades for Hosts as part of the Airbnb 2023 Winter Release. This includes the Listings tab, a set of new tools that let you easily manage your listing and showcase the details of your home. 

The key features of the new Listings tab are the redesigned listing editor, AI-powered photo tour, and smart lock integration. Play this video for a demo from CEO Brian Chesky.

Beyond the Listings tab, the 2023 Winter Release includes even more upgrades for Hosts:

• New earnings dashboard: A redesigned dashboard gives you a clear view of your earnings in one place. You’ll find a detailed breakdown of past and future payouts, customizable reports, filters, and search. 
• Updated Co-Host tools: We’ve added two new ways to share your cleaning fee payout with your cleaner or Co-Host. Plus, you can now message Co-Hosts right from your inbox on Airbnb to coordinate upcoming reservations.

For guests, there are new ways to find great stays. Guest Favorites are some of the most-loved homes on Airbnb, according to guests. And we’ve redesigned the ratings page, adding new features to help guests understand the quality of every home.

You can opt in to Early Access to start using these upgrades or wait for them to roll out to all Hosts in the coming months. Learn how Early Access works and how to share feedback

Which feature are you most excited about?

Learn more about the 2023 Winter Release:

• Introducing the Listings tab 
• A new dashboard gives you a clear view of your earnings
• New options for Co-Host payouts and messaging
• Guest Favorites: Most-loved homes according to guests
• Revamped ratings and reviews

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

I was curious and looked for these "Guest favorite" listings.

Surprise surprise!

There ara listings with 0 reviews and these with just 2x 5* reviews marked as "Guest favorite" 😄 

But hey!

My listing with 91 review and 4,81* is not "Guest favorite" 
Neither is my second listing with 221 review and 4,83*
Neither is my third listing with 206 reviews and 4,80*
I am not even a Superhost

Thank you Airbnb 🙂

[Quincy]

Hi @Branka-and-Silvia0, thanks for sharing your feedback. I've reached out to you via Direct Message to ask for more info. 

[Quincy]

Hi @Branka-and-Silvia0, just coming back to this. I wanted to let you know that listings with zero views should not qualify for guest favorite. 

Would you be able to point me to the listings you found with 0 reviews? 

Thank you,

Quincy 

[Adriano78]

@ Branka-and-Silvia0

Hi, This is what I found today (and there are dozens of them in Seville).

A  "Guest favorites" apartment with reviews that indicate problems of cleanliness and a photo that looks like a prison apartment !!!.

I am not happy because there are many hosts that do the maximum to have an apartment as best as possible and when these hosts see that Airbnb give the  Guest favorite badge to accommodation with problems, it is just inexplicable

and the icing on the cake in the Sueprhost badge with 4.62 rating!! No comment

[John5097]

My take on it.

New Listings Tab..  

I was fine with the previous layout. It may make things easier for some host to find the amenities, but at same time will be more difficult to scroll through to make sure nothing got clicked on or off, as for example I've had both Heating and AC unchecked before on its own. Some host say to check this once a month so may be more difficult to click on individual sub categories to check and see if it's all still accurate.

AI Photo Tour..

I already had my photos organized in to each room. This was also very easy to do. As with Listing Tab, I think if host was too lazy to figure out this feature they will be too lazy to put any extra effort into their space. But no real problems and if the new design is more intuitive for host that's fine.  

Integrated Door Lock and Key Code,

This could be a major improvement. Will need to wait and see how it's implemented. Airbnb really needed to improve and offer a quick check in guide for guest, so think this is good. I've been using a 3rd party door lock manager integrated with ABB for 4 years so understand it well and has been discussed a lot. Hopefully Airbnb generates the key code at time of booking that's accessible to the host, as I would want to include it in the first message as well, and not have to wait to find out what each guest key code is. Would also need to be able to manage access time and be able to change things, but this could be a really nice improvement. 

The Guest Favorite seems to have replaced Super Host. As I suspected this will be awarded to new host as well with just a handful of reviews, while host that have been hosting a lot longer could be at a disadvantage. as over time the more review one gets the lower their ratings score. 

Including Service Fees in Nightly Rate.. 

According to the Airbnb News Room. Down way at the bottom it says the Airbnb service fee will be included in the nightly rate that host sets. It doesn't say when this will be rolled out or any more details. So does this mean we will need to increase our nightly rates by 14.2% ? Will we all get an email when this happens or will it just apply? They already have different rates depending on what cancellation policy host chooses, for example super strict has higher service fee, so this is concerning. Also any changes like this will take time for guest to transition. I don't see the point as guest can already see the total price when they search. 

https://news.airbnb.com/airbnb-2023-winter-release/

Finally, I think the real problem guest have with Airbnb is that when they click on "Under $99" tab in the first search results in google, most of  the listings below $99 have outrageous cleaning fees. It's common for listings to have $98 nightly rate and $150 cleaning fee, and these listings be in the top of the search results. This is what guest hate and becomes hysteria on social media. Airbnb said it was going to stop promoting listings with outrageous cleaning fees but didn't. As mentioned by other host, the search funtion is also counter intuitive and just dumb business model. The smartest thing you can do is put a 3 day minimum on your weekends so that they all don't get booked with 2 nighters, and be available for guest who want to stay longer. There is no option for weeknights either.  

[John5097]

Wanted to add.

In summary, if finding the amenities was challenging for host, imagine how difficult it is for guest.

1) They click on "under $99" a night in google search, only to get listings with outrageous cleaning fee. 

2) Airbnb automatically selects a random 5 days, which is alarming to guest.

3) The first options at the top of the page are for "any week, any weekend, any month". This is advertised as "flexible"  


I get they want to make it easer for guest to just click on something and get some results but the result is all your weekends get booked by two nighters, and more weekdays get unbooked. Most guest want to find weekdays also.

This has got to be driving down bookings across the platform. 

This has been discussed a lot but a "flexible" option should just let them choose a month then option for the number of days, with a check box for "weekend only".

Overall if host are challenged to figure out the most basic features and getting paid to do it, guest must have much more challenging experience trying to find the dates they want, and feel the process is deceptive.

[Quincy]

Hi @John5097, I want to thank you for taking time to give detailed feedback about the upgrades—this is very helpful! 

[John5097]

@Quincy 

I'm still getting plenty of reservations. Got 3 on the first day of the new roll out so can't complain too much. Although these two months of holiday season are some of the slowest. 

The new reviews lay out looks like a nice implement. The reviews distribution and seeing each guest star review will add a lot of credibility as I think some guest might think the reviews are fake. 

[Alfred818]

Let me preface this with the fact that I work in the tech industry. This is one the worst roll outs of changes I've seen in a long time. I can only glean from the process of the roll out, is that they didn't care or expect these changes to matter. It's a we've built the platform and you need to deal with it!

You can tell the actual users/renters are not the real voices. The property owners which I bet; are the actual cash flow for AirBnB. I'd be willing to bet that is the business model of AirBnb. They make the money off the business owners; not the renters.

I mean look at the awkward video of the "AI CEO:. I didn't hear anything in his message around customer experience for the renters;  besides how he recommends the AI photo tour... to increase the amount of booking for the property owners.

That shows their focus. Which brings me to my final and true complaint. They removed the "Superhost" filter in searching. But don't worry it's still there within the listing!!

What that means is the End User will have to click into each listing to verify the "SuperHosting"title. That is proof in itself that AirBnb only cares for the property owners; i.e. the acutal cash flow for the company. It makes sense. But let's be honest. And don't hide behind corporate jargon.

[Alfred818]

1 HR Update 9:58PM PST. No longer booking my Japan trip on AirBnb. I lost all my wishlist saved selection based off this change. I recommend all people traveling to Japan to use agoda.com, It comes highly recommended by my contacts in Japan. They have stated no one uses AirBnb in Japan. It's not worth it.

[Elaine701]

@Alfred818 

I have plenty of gripes about Airbnb, but it's not clear to me that it's "property owner" favouritist. Property owners don't pay, the guest does. And it's far more likely that the host will suffer the consequences of any dispute. 

Having said that, I find it perplexing that Airbnb by far is the leading platform for STRs. Nobody generates bookings like Airbnb. I could wrote a thesis about this, but that's not the point I wish to make here. 

What I find confusing is that virtually anyone I know prefers to use booking.com for their travel needs, almost everybody points out that it's so easy to find what you're looking for. It has extensive filters, allowing a prospective guest to define exactly what they want before hitting the search button. And it's very fast, simple and easy to understand. Airbnb sadly doesn't have this. 

Now, I've been looking on Airbnb for accommodation on a trip we'll be taking early next year, and I have to say, it's simple, but doesn't allow me any specificity, so the vast majority of the results I get on Airbnb are not what I'm looking for. It's frustrating, so I went to booking.com, and found exactly what I was looking for in a few minutes. 

The thing  I find inexplicable is that as a host, I once listed on booking.com, and it was about a year before I received my first booking.

Because booking.com is (was?) all "instant book" and you're obligated to accept any booking, this one booking proceeded to throw a big party, trashed the house, and there wasn't anything I could do about it. Like other platforms, Booking.com support was useless, and I just had to eat it. As one could predict, I removed our listing from booking.com.

So, does Airbnb favour "property owners"? No, not really. I suspect many hosts simply refuse to list on booking.com (and others) because they generate fewer bookings and there's little chance of screening the guests.

Airbnb on the other hand generates lots of bookings and for hosts, provides some means of screening out the potentially bad guests, so there's more STR properties listed on Airbnb. 

But I've been in this business for a long time, and know very well that like any other platform, Airbnb host support is obtuse and chaotic, and all these host support programmes like "air cover" are just illusions. So I only use Airbnb for what it's good at: bookings. But at least I can screen who's booking. 

In the end, I think Airbnb could learn a lot about user interfaces from booking.com. Their system is really attractive for anyone seeking travel accommodation. Airbnb is cumbersome, confusing and delivers a lot of results that guests aren't looking for. 

[Joelle43]

Hello @Elaine701 

As much as I am a fan of Airbnb because it does allow us to have communication with any future guests before booking, I can't agree with your more regarding the need to have far more filters so that guests can quickly find what they are looking for. 

All of Airbnb's major competitors have a flurry of filters that you can preselect and yet the only two recent additions have been King bed and animal friendly listings.

There are thousands of listings that guests get offered when they make a search but who wants to go through that many before finding one that actually corresponds?  And what about the offer of listings that take you way out of the search area entered into the field?

[John5097]

@Alfred818 

 My take on rebranding from Super Host to Guest Favorite is that it's more accurate as they are the guest reviews, 100%. Not sure if you can see the layout but the reviews are also shown like on Amazon so you see how many 5 star, how many 4, 3, etc. Also now each star review from each guest is also visible. 

I think this helps great reading the reviews are 100% real. 

As a lot of guest like yourself think "Super Host" means it's something the host controls. That they are somehow fake. 

Overall it's very much a guest centric platform as they are the ones spending money. Although I get what you are saying. 

I'm not sure why you canceled your reservation to Japan? Traveling that far I would be on the safe side and book one with with a lot of really high reviews. IMO.

It's best for guest to just look at the "total price" as there have been a lot of improvements and upgrades twice a year. Airbnb usually puts out two separate promotional videos, one for host and one for guest. The "total price" is a new update as well for more transparency. 

I'd be interested in any specific improvements you would like to see? Or where you think there is room for improvement. 

I think there may be some misconceptions. 

[Bettye6]

I spent all day listening and looking at the AirBnB winter roll out. When I saw Dave's video I was excited. I thought, at their encouragement to try it, which I thought was my listing (I only had 1 listing) now I have 2 of the same property. 

Trying the new listing frustrated me as the platform did not let me carry over all the hard work of describing each of my pictures showcasing my listing. The new listing accepted the picture of my newly remodeled outside of my house though my original listing has not, will not upload that picture though the "new" upgrade will, plus the new roll out has my living room as the main picture being my living room not the from of my house which is what I want. I just spent a   lot of time trying to fix what I can't.

Now I find myself very concerned

As for the very excited lock feature I personally could care less. I use the last 4 digits of my guest phone number, which they love as it is an easy remember for them. I just am not in a position to let AI pick a code for my guest. I have only been hosting since Feb. 2023, have come across several glitches that I am not able to fix, like uploading pictures to showcase my improvements to my place. Interesting that the new rollout will let me upload those pictures so I do not need support telling me I am the problem.

Just a few but now who do I go to to fix the problems? Support has been no help. And how do I get rid of now 2 listing of the same place?

I agree with most of the concerns other have posted here. Is AirBnB going to fix the bugs in the original platform or do we have the only option to use the new rollout with so many glitches I can't count.

Kind regards,

Bettye

[Jennifer2672]

Hey@Bettye6 ! I worked this through with support yesterday. They were kind of learning along with me. If you go to your computer version, not your mobile phone, and click on change photos, you can drag them into the order you want. Whatever photo you drag into the top left corner becomes your main photo. It's totally not intuitive and it has to be done on the desktop version, not mobile. Good luck!