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

[Mariann4]

Still no fix of the default search period of one week any time. We're still not able to set one night any time. 

Why are Airbnb not listening? This default setting is hiding thousands of hosts from search results. 

[Quincy]

Hi @Mariann4, thank you for taking time to share your feedback, which we always take into account.

What do you think about the new features that have been released?

[Mariann4]

I think that it's more important to fix the issues that are already there @Quincy . I am a SuperHost. Just not anymore. Since Airbnb now promotes me as Guest Favourite. I didn't ask for the guest favourite badge to hide my superhost badge. 

Problem is we are asked afterwards. No. That's wrong. We're told afterwards. And when we raise concerns you simply don't care.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

 @Mariann4   We got beautiful and detailed icons and that shows how Airbnb care  (Brian's words)  🙂

I would be happier if ABB fixed old, important issues, like 5 pets for 1 pet fee included in accommodation price instead of a separate fee, 5 free infants, showing kids-unfriendly listings to families with kids, default 1 week/any weekend default search etc etc...

And what about cleaning fee for short and long stays? Why they can't be the same amount? Why I have to charge 9€ short stay to be able to charge 10€ longer stays? I don't like 9€, I like round numbers. And why ABB just erased cleaning fees for short stays so we lost cleaning fees before we noticed and made changes?

Why ABB hides important info like description and house rules behind "show more >>" links that nobody can find and read? It makes our job so much more complicated and time consuming than it should be.

[Mariann4]

Excactly @Branka-and-Silvia0 !

There are SO many issues that needs to be adressed first. 

Also: every time there's a new release thousands of hosts get kicked out in the dark from search results. It has happened to me three times now with two summer releases and one winter release. I'm still invisible in the new search method due to the default setting of one week.

And @Airbnb is not helpful. They are taking income from hosts by continuously adding more bugs to their system with their new releases in stead of fixing their old.

Now with the new verdict in Italy where Airbnb is deemed guilty of tax crime their bugs are starting to cost THEM money as well....

[Kirsten266]

A possibility to add photos in automatically send messages!  @Quincy 

[Quincy]

Hi @Kirsten266, It's lovely to see you here! Thank you so much for sharing a suggestion to add a feature.

In addition to the suggestion you've shared, what do you think of the upgrades? 

I would love to hear your feedback on this.

Quincy 

[Robbie54]

@Quincy are you or other moderators even listening? Hosts have given Airbnb feedback for years on issues that need resolving, but instead of implementing them Airbnb, in their wisdom, choose to come up with random "improvements" and totally ignoring hosts suggestions, which is apparent in this last update. 

Guests have commented this on the thread and it feels like their comments have been brushed aside as you're more interested in thoughts on the new update. Unbelievable...

[Quincy]

Hi @Robbie54, thank you for taking time to share your thoughts here.

The Community Center team's role is to ensure this community remains safe, engaged and constructive – we're not directly involved in building new features on the platform.

However, we will always do our best to ensure that all the feedback that is shared with us does make it to the right team.

If you want to give feedback directly you can do it here.

Thank you,

Quincy

[Andrea6232]

Ciao!

In general I like the new Winter Release, although there are some things yet to fix, for example I would like to have the possibility to sort the photos in each room of the photo tour.

I agree that unfortunately there are bugs that have not yet been resolved, not even with the new release, such as “Where you'll sleep" section – order reversed https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Ask-about-your-listing/Where- you-ll-sleep-quot-section-order-reversed/td-p/1844927

Hope it is on the way ...

Andrea

[Quincy]

Hi @Andrea6232, I hope you're doing well! I appreciate you taking time to read the upgrades. 

Please do continue sharing your feedback as it is very helpful to us. 

Thank you,

Quincy 

[Andrea6232]

Ciao @Quincy , another feedback: I did not see any possibility of changing the order in which rooms in the photo tour are displayed, I think this possibility could be useful.

Andrea

[Quincy]

Hi @Andrea6232, thanks for getting back to me. This Help Center article should explain more about reordering photos.

If you still run into some issue with this, please let me know and I will reach out to you to request more info about this. 

I hope this helps.

Quincy 

[Andrea6232]

Thanks @Quincy , the article says "Within the photo tour, you can reorder the first five photos on your cover page" ... but I would like to reorder all of them!

[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.