Get to know our 2022 Host Advisory Board members

[Stephanie]

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, @Pam5 , @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

[Диана5]

здравствуйте 

[Sarah977]

@Stephanie  

"...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."

It would certainly be enlightening for hosts to be privy to how our voice is being respresented and what policies beneficial to hosts the HAB has influenced. So far we have been told that we are not allowed to know what the HAB actually has and is working on, and policies have become worse for hosts. 

Telling those who are supposedly being represented that how we are being represented  is some closely guarded secret is unbelievably odd.

[Huma0]

@Sarah977 

Yes, it's all rather mysterious. I randomly clicked on a few of the returning hosts listed above and noticed they all stopped posting on the CC several months ago. Have they been sworn to secrecy and are no longer able to comment here? Does seem like a strange coincidence. Also rather odd if they have been chosen for their contributions to our community that they no longer contribute here on the CC...

[Quincy]

Hello @Sarah977, I've noted your points. I can safely say that much of the work that HAB is working on alongside with the wider team are part of longer term roadmap. While they cannot always share updates on what they are working on you will see their voices and perspectives present throughout future launches this year.

Perhaps this is not entirely what you would like to hear at the moment, however, I can assure you that Hosts are being represented whenever the HAB is involved. 

[Laurelle3]

@Stephanie I would like to welcome @Till-and-Jutta0 to the Host Advisory board as Till is the only name that I recognise from the list of other hosts named from the community forum pages. Along with meeting him on the community forum zoom meetings and I am sure he will continue with his positive approach and advise on any issue.

Welcome to all the other host joining the Advisory board.

[Till-and-Jutta0]

Hi @Laurelle3 and all!

Being a Host Advisory Board member in 2021 was very moving for me. My 17 colleagues and I worked on a lot of topics and it was very interesting to get to know the different perspectives of the global community. I am grateful for everything I have learned that year as a Board member and for the voice I have been given. We discussed many topics and influenced company decisions, amongst them the huge area of Belonging, Covid Safety, Community Initiatives (such as sustainability and community funds), Marketing Initiatives and Host Empowerment (such as pet fees, AirCover, customer service updates, reviews, cancellation tools).

For those of you who don't know me already through my community works on the various forums, besides improvements in host diversity and representation, and the hot topic sustainability, my personal focus is directed to “good hosting” with host empowerment and education plus listening to hosts including an improved feedback system and an arbitration board for unsolved support issues.

Airbnb already helps strangers quickly feel at home, and this war is showing more than ever before how important Belonging and inclusive travel through host education is.

I am really happy to be one of the 24 members of the 2022 board again, to advance the host issues and to serve the community.

[Helen3]

@Till-and-Jutta0 

Would you be able to give us a summary of what work has been carried out by your group since you were appointed  with outcomes in terms of any changes that have been made, particularly what work has been done around these areas. 

1. Hosts having their listings suspended automatically when a guest registers a safety issue, particular issues like CCTV where it is clear the host has met Airbnbs T&Cs for notifying guests about this on their listings

2. Revenge reviews - Airbnb refusing to remove what are clear revenge reviews when a host complains about guest behaviour/damage

3. Host concerns about Airbnb Guarantee process

It would also be good to understand @Stephanie  how new members of this advisory group were recruited. What critieria does Airbnb use to select hosts to be a member of the advisory board. 

[Quincy]

Hi @Helen3, HAB members are chosen due to their tremendous contributions in Host community programs including engaging in the CC, Host Clubs, ambassadors and others.

I hope this clarifies. 

[Quincy]

Hi @Till-and-Jutta0! Glad to have you with us in 2022 as well! 😃

[Till-and-Jutta0]

Thank you – and all the others in the many forums which I follow – for sharing your thoughts and ideas! You can be assured, that – “sitting at the table with Airbnb” – I (as well as my HAB colleagues) keep all the subjects and issues in mind when we are asked for our advice, and even when we express our thoughts and concerns beyond the many sessions.

Maybe I just have been lucky that until today I didn’t need the host guarantee or the new AirCover personally as a host (knocking on wood). As a community leader and a person who is interested to read the host (and guest) stories and discussions, it is interesting to see a growing number of positive experiences with AirCover. I have no statistics, but the reports saying that AirCover is working much better than the previous host guarantee give me some hope.

I know there is still a lot of work waiting for us. I personally think the most important topics are sustainability, diversity and belonging. In this world of war and destruction, kindness still exists.

[Mark116]

@Till-and-Jutta0   With all due respect, I have to disagree that 'sustainability, diversity and belonging' are the most important topics for the Airbnb community. 

Far ahead of those utopian ideals are things like anti-short term rental legislation, poorly trained customer service staff, enhancing safety measures for guests and hosts and increasing usability of the web site.  Airbnb has not done a great job on any of this real world critial issues, and should probably work on improving in those areas as a priority.

[Till-and-Jutta0]

As a community leader in Baden-Württemberg Germany I know very well the challenge to find fair STR rules for all sides. We are inviting politicians to our local meetups, visit them at the city halls, and talk to them in order to give homesharers a face and voice.

And I know many of my colleagues do the same. I’m really thankful for this tremendous voluntary community work, which they do for free. Whenever needed, Airbnb provides us with help and advice. Whoever is willing to support this community work, could look on https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Get-Local/ct-p/en_clubs to find and join a local host club.

And I personally think, that belonging - during this time of escape and displacement and - is more important than ever.

[Mark116]

@Till-and-Jutta0  My experience is different. 

Jersey City's government went from a positive welcoming relationship with Airbnb, in fact a  model of how Airbnb/city government relationship could work,  to within less than 2 years,  installing numerous mandates that limited STR to owner occupied dwellings.  That's a huge failure of government relations.

I saw firsthand that Airbnb's grassroots/community outreach response was disorganized in the extreme.  We would get emails about city council meetings with only a few days notice, sometimes only 1 days notice.  Not a single one of the email messages we ever got included the email/phone/twitter/contact information of the relevant local officials or any boilerplate messages that hosts could use when contacting the mayor or city council. This is like Grassroots 101 level stuff that was missing.

Instead, Airbnb apparently spent all of it's money on an ad campaign which failed to sway the voting public and the anti STR referendum passed.  Given that they had already lost all their legal battles with New York City, losing again in Jersey City was a huge failure of both strategy and execution.

[Sarah977]

@Till-and-Jutta0  What about one of the basic issues for all hosts which hosts have been complaining about for years- the constant revamping of our hosting pages, which become mmore and more difficult to navigate with every pointless change.

Why do we have to search for the monthly calendar view, for instance? Why is there not just a line in the menu which says "monthly calendar" to click on? Why does getting to that calendar require clicking on the name of our listing to the left of the monthly calendar, which is completely non-intuitive and no one would ever figure out on their own?

Why has Airbnb not listened to all the posts here saying the changes to that  calendar are terrible and it's very hard to read for anyone but young  people with great vision?

Why are programmers designing the hosting pages and always fiddling with them and changing things when they have no idea what works for hosts? Why are they not being advised by hosts?

We still have zero idea what the HAB is working on, but "launches" are not how we need the HAB to represent us. We need things fixed which don't work for us as they currently are.