Get to know our 2022 Host Advisory Board members

Stephanie
Community Manager
Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Get to know our 2022 Host Advisory Board members

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First off we want to wish a heartfelt thank you to last year’s board members, in the inaugural year of the board they played a pivotal role integrating with our teams and helping us keep day to day Host perspectives front and center in our work.

 

As we move into 2022 the Host Advisory Board mission remains as important as ever, giving Hosts a seat at the table to represent the voice of the community in shaping the future with Airbnb. They will continue to influence key Host policies, programs, and products that we launch.

 

We’re excited to have @Anna1403 , @Merrydith0@Nutth0@Omar202@Pam3 , @Peter1@Shinya0@Susan208@Till-and-Jutta0@Vinícius0 and Pooja  all returning from last year to continue serving and I hope you’ll join me in welcoming the new members…

 

@Claudia331@Daniel1651@Delphine348@Felicity11 , @Jennifer3225@Kirk124@Michael-O-Reilly0@Ted--Pauline-And-Keo0 , @Ronaldo-And-Carla0@Francisco-and-Yajaira-Ho0, Sebastian, Deirdre and Nadia

 

You can expect to see our HAB members’ voices and perspectives represented in education and announcements we share throughout the year. We’re looking forward to seeing what we will accomplish together this year. You’ll probably have noticed some of the members posting around the CC already and contributing to our Hosting discussions.

 

HAB members represent the wide diversity of backgrounds and are selected due to their tremendous contributions to our Host Community. In order to get to know our 2022 HAB members better please visit the HAB landing page for more information.

 

Thank you,

Stephanie

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52 Replies 52
Stephanie
Community Manager
Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Hi @Sarah977 ,

 

We've talked about this before but for the benefit of any viewing the thread - changes, fixes, new products etc all the things that the HAB are consulted on for their representation of the Host community don't always happen immediately or even launch at all. Part of any product roadmap (for any business for that matter) is accepting that most things don't make it to market.

 

This can be due to legislations and laws specific, not just the territories it's launched in, but around the medium as a whole (sorry to share a UK link but there's some great reading on how online reviews have to be handled, for example https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-reviews-and-endorsements-advice-for-businesses/onl...).

 

It can also be because along the way the product changed to a degree that it no longer resolves or answers the reason it was being created for so has to go back into development.

 

And then there are small rollouts or pilots where the product/service can be put into Hosts hands and both the user behaviour data and Host feedback can be reviewed to better understand the real world application.

 

As it stands, Airbnb does not make public what products/services are currently in the pipeline for several reasons - managing the Host community's expectations with what a product can and should do before it is finalised, ensuring we are prioritising any products/services to fit the whole user bases needs, and ensuring we are able to be adaptive as a company as unexpected things emerge that need support. This also means @Till-and-Jutta0 , Host Advisory Board members, and indeed many of our CC community that have attended our Host Workshops, are not able to always share as much as they want (no matter how exciting what they are working on is!) 

 

The same goes for us, your community management team. 

 

Thanks!

 

Stephanie

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@Stephanie  I'm sorry, but hosts have been complaining about the constant pointless changes and increasingly user-unfriendly design of our hosting pages for years and it only gets worse.

 

I beg to differ- fixing this state of affairs has nothing to do with it taking time to make changes- it has to do with ignoring host feedback.

Stephanie
Community Manager
Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

What may seem pointless, may have an increase on usability, or a positive impact on Hosts finding and using a tool more successfully, for example.

 

This is where it would be amazing if we could start to share more information that shows, quantifiably, the impact of updates. Currently, as far Hosts like yourself @Sarah977 see, is a change for the sake of changing things.

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@Stephanie  I would love to see data on a quantifiable positive impact to various updates, because from my perspective, I don't see that the vast majority of changes have improved functionality from the hosting end. 

 

I very strongly suspect that Airbnb has made some changes in the last year that have decreased functionality from the guest end because I have problems with guests replying to messages and being confused that 'request to book' is the same as booking that never happened in previous years.

 

There have also been some really crazy things that went live, like the template that asked guests during the review process if they felt unsafe [now gone], and it beggars belief that any host would have seen such a screen and not raised a red flag about it.  And the same goes for Airbnb's idea that hosts should be hosting 5 infants for free and 5 pets for the price of 1....these things are even now 'live' and it's again hard to understand why any host would think that a guest bringing 5 infants and 5 pets should not have to pay for it.

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom


@Mark116 wrote:

@Stephanie  

 

I very strongly suspect that Airbnb has made some changes in the last year that have decreased functionality from the guest end because I have problems with guests replying to messages and being confused that 'request to book' is the same as booking that never happened in previous years.

 


@Mark116  I have also noticed this. Guests used to (in general, at least) understand the difference between IB, request to book and an enquiry, but I have had numerous instances in the last few months where they had no idea. I've had people instant book thinking they were just enquiring, then asking me to decline the request when they had already booked. I've had guests IB and then send me questions about really important stuff, stating that they would 'pay' once I had answered. I've had guests who think that repeatedly sending me enquiries about whether the room was still available, without any attempt to book it, mean it was reserved indefinitely for them.

 

While you used to very occasionally encounter a guest like this, it used to be very rare. Now it happens all the time. When I have in recent months looked at listings from the guest perspective, I myself have found the booking process (I mean how it is presented) as extremely confusing. If I didn't already know how it worked, I would have no clue.

 

On another note, there are sections of the listing that we as hosts are required to fill in, yet they are mysteriously absent from view from the guest's side. I used to be able to tell my guests where to look for certain information on the listing but now it's a minefield. Not only does it keep changing (well, that was also the case), but some of it is so obscured (why is the 'you must acknowledge' section now under the 'read more' about health and safety, which frankly no guests read, for example?) or simply gone...

@Huma0   My two biggest issues are people who Instant Book and then disappear, right up until I have to have Airbnb track them down the night before their arrival.  once these people had finally responded, again, the night before or even the day of their arrival, 100% of them expected to check-in hours before the stated check-in time.  In the past, that was practically the only benefit of IB, is that guests were shown prominently the check-in and check-out time so you could be reasonably sure they didn't plan to arrive 5 or 6 hours early, now they do.

 

The other issue is guests who make a request to book and then disappear, seemingly thinking they have actually already booked the place.  So they don't see or answer follow up messages, which now we have decided this year to ask guests to confirm they read and agree to the rules is a problem .  The last request we responded in FOUR MINUTES from the time of the request with our standard XXX we're happy to accept as soon as we back from you XXX and still  had to decline because the person never responded until after we declined them.

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Mark116 


@Mark116 wrote:

@Huma0   My two biggest issues are people who Instant Book and then disappear, right up until I have to have Airbnb track them down the night before their arrival.  once these people had finally responded, again, the night before or even the day of their arrival, 100% of them expected to check-in hours before the stated check-in time.  

 


That's interesting. I haven't encountered that particular recently, although I certainly had that in the past.

 

I do wonder whether guests see the pre-booking questions or not though as the majority IB without responding to them, and when asked, say they never saw any questions, while a few message in such a way that it's obvious they have seen them. The questions include check in time and agreeing to house rules.

 

I think that I am not experiencing the same problem as you because, as soon as a guest IBs, I ask them for all of the information required, including check in time. I will continue to chase them until I get an answer. Of course, often the booking is too far away for them to know, but as it gets closer to the time, I'll start chasing again.

 

I am sure you do all of this too. However, if a guest IBs and is not responsive to my initial questions, e.g. agreeing to house rules, I will definitely use my penalty free cancellations. There is no way that I would wait for a response until close to the check in date. I have been more lenient about it in the past but now I want to know straight up if a guest has understood what they are booking and will follow my rules. I am really not a fan of non-responsive guests and have no qualms cancelling them. I am guessing though that this is happening to you so often that three penalty-free cancellations a year are not enough?

@Huma0 

“I do wonder whether guests see the pre-booking questions or not though as the majority IB without responding to them..”

 

I don’t know what’s changed recently, but no, guests aren’t responding with the requested info from the IB message, so they aren’t seeing it, is my experience. 100% of the time.

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Colleen253 

 

In the past I have asked guests if they saw the pre-booking messages and some of them said yes. 

 

I haven't had many IBs lately (which is normal as I host long term and also because I turned it off for one of my listings), but I did have a spate of them late last year, so I'll have to go back and see if any of the guests answered the questions. I'm guessing not, as I did have to cancel, or ask guests to cancel, a lot of those bookings as most were problematic.

@Huma0  No, I haven't actually used the IB cancellations yet, but was within about 15 or 20 minutes of cancellating the reservations, in one case was on the phone with Airbnb to cancel when I finally got a response.   We always send a message immediately after anyone instant books, again, I'm talking usually minutes later, so presumably they would still be on the app, but we try to be patient since our IB message mentions the check in times and reading the house rules, and so we usually don't message them again until 5-7 days before their trip date.

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Mark116 

 

If by IB message, you mean the one we fill in and guests are supposed to automatically see, my experience has been that either guests aren't seeing (when asked, most say they didn't) it or somehow ignoring it, so I definitely wouldn't rely on them getting the information that way. 

 

You mentioned you've started asking guests to confirm they've read the full version of the house rules. I have been doing this for years now, but last year decided to add in an 'Easter egg' questions. It confirmed my suspicions that most have not read them even if they say they have.

 

I will not accept a reservation request until they've responded to the Easter egg question (and my other questions). If it's an IB, I also need them to do this. If, after several prompts, they don't, then I will tell them I am going to cancel. However, I have very rarely needed to cancel an IB because of this. It only happened once recently and that wasn't because the guest was unresponsive, he just wouldn't answer my questions (plus lots of other red flags).

 

When guests are really not responding to the IB messaging system, I will email them and/or text.

 

When needed, I also ask Airbnb to contact a non-responsive guest. This usually wakes them up! I think there was only one occasion where neither Airbnb nor I could get hold of the guest. She never responded, never cancelled and never arrived. I have no idea what happened to her.

@Huma0  No, we always send a custom message whenever someone IBs. 

 

If their message sounds like they read the automatic message which mentions rules/location/check-in, such as if they mention they agree to the rules, then our message is more about thanks, we'll contact you XX.  If their message is a one sentence 'can't wait to stay' then our message is a semi restatement of the automatic message they already saw along with some other new info.

 

This is what is so frustrating about Airbnb.  I would bet some serious money that they changed the guest prompts in the last few months so that the host IB message is now obscure and have done something to give guests the idea that as soon as they send their request to book, they're done, and have booked.

 

My god, hosts get dozens of prompts every day if not every week from Airbnb, it cannot be that hard to design a screen that reminds guests to keep the app open until the host  has approved or contacted them.  A screen that shows the full house rules that they have to click on and agree to.  Or, send the guests some prompts to remind them to stay in touch with their host, give the arrival time, etc. etc.  A prompt that gives them a pop up screen on the cancellation policy and they have to again click to approve it.

 

Yes, I realize that god forbid someone has to do 4 clicks that take an extra minute Airbnb might lose a half a percent of bookings, but it would be so helpful to all involved.  Including guests, if they got some of these pop ups they probably wouldn't always be popping off on SM that somebody scammed them, LOL.

 

 

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom


@Mark116 wrote:

@Huma0 

 

My god, hosts get dozens of prompts every day if not every week from Airbnb, it cannot be that hard to design a screen that reminds guests to keep the app open until the host  has approved or contacted them.  A screen that shows the full house rules that they have to click on and agree to.  Or, send the guests some prompts to remind them to stay in touch with their host, give the arrival time, etc. etc.  A prompt that gives them a pop up screen on the cancellation policy and they have to again click to approve it.

 

 

 


@Mark116 Quite! And this is stuff that the host advisory board should look into. From my experience, which by now is a fair bit but I am sure many hosts that are more experienced will back me up on this, is that guests - or at least the 'good' guests and those that are or will potentially become frequent customers - are shocked by how the Airbnb system works.

 

They have no idea their notifications are turned off. They have no idea that there is a 24 hour window in which hosts have to approve/decline. They have no idea that the information they see on the landing page of the listing is just a summary.

 

Most of the guests that I host would appreciate things being made clearer and more specific so that they also don't get any nasty surprises. Of course, people don't want to read tonnes of superfluous information and pages and pages of T&Cs, but they also don't want to lose out on a booking because they didn't realise they might have to answer a few simple questions or turn on their notifications.

Louise0
Level 10
New South Wales, Australia

A screen that displayed the FULL House Rules for guests would be a godsend, as would fixing the recent 'enhancements' to the calendar functionality that has made updating availability and pricing an absolutely bloody nightmare!

 

@Mark116  "I would bet some serious money that they changed the guest prompts in the last few months so that the host IB message is now obscure and have done something to give guests the idea that as soon as they send their request to book, they're done, and have booked."

 

I think you're right on that. This whole issue never used to be as much of a problem as it has been in recent history. And, I also have the 'easter egg' as @Huma0 does, which is the same info I request in my IB message (or did, as I've turned IB off again). No one supplies the requested info upon IB'ing, nor upon request to book. No one is seeing any pertinent info.