Host questions answered: Airbnb’s Summer Release

[Stephanie]

Updated Jun 19, 2022

Just to share a quick update that we have created the promised Resource Center guidelines for listing descriptions has been published and you can read it here.

Hi Hosting Community, 

A month ago, we introduced the Airbnb 2022 Summer Release with a new way to search designed around Airbnb Categories. 

Since then, we’ve gathered feedback from thousands of Hosts through our Community Center, Host Clubs, emails, and in workshops with the Host Advisory Board and Host leaders. Thank you for your valuable comments and suggestions. 

Today, we want to share an update on some of the important feedback you’ve shared.  More updates will follow. 

You can read about them here.

Please continue to share your ideas and feedback as it directly assists in how we evolve our platform. 

Your continued support, feedback and constructive thoughts on this and many of our release features is incredibly valuable and I encourage you to continue sharing here.

Thanks,

Stephanie

[Eddie-And-Sandi0]

Hi Roxana,

A close neighbor by "The Roads,"

a lot of hosts around my area

I don't know if they are starting 

to feel the change I guess you

already have. Once it starts

hitting people down here they

will start calling complaining or

getting out. Its a real shame

Miami has given Chesky a lot

of business pre and post

pandemic, we were never

close down here, and there was

enough business  for everyone. I guess all

our hard work was not enough for AIRBNB

[Mariann4]

So... You MIGHT fix SOME of this in July. When travellers are finished making their plans for the summer. Good plan! 👌

[Tony-And-Una0]

Can we have the number of reviews displayed again, like every other travel site I have ever visited.

Please.

[Mark4274]

@Stephanie was I can see from many of the comments here the new release has caused major problems for hosts. It is high season and before you did the new release we were booking like crazy. We had an 83%  occupancy in June and have nothing in July!! I can see by your own statistics that no one is seeing us. The new release has literally us out! We have all 5 star ratings and the guests constantly comment on how wonderful our place is. We are not a large but depend on this revenue. I feel like you are throwing me away so someone can book a windmill!

[Patricia1945]

I feel your pain, we are exactly the same  😞 

[Susan1188]

@Mark4274 
The problem is even worse than that.
You're right, your usual guests will be booking that windmill, or a submarine tree-house.
And then , they will be uncomfortable and have a bad time.
Leave a bad review.  Bad experience all around - for the host that lost the business, for the host that got the bad review, for the guest that got a product he never would have chosen if AI didn't do it for him.

Airbnb will be known as  the place to find a bubble in the woods, not a place where you can easily search for a comfortable property with king bed and blackout blinds in the city where you want to go.

[Lorna170]

@Stephanie   Please convey to your marketing team the following message:  Fail! Fail!

I am booking very well through verbo.

[Susan1188]

I'm onboarding with a channel manager and opening up booking dot com listings again.

[Patricia1945]

• We will design for the long-term benefit of all stakeholders.
• We will measure our progress for serving each of them.
• We will adjust when we don’t get it right

This is a copy and paste from Airbnb 2021 , you are quiet right this summer BS is a huge fail for us , we were fully booked prior to this release and usually the month going forward was also highly booked, our June bookings are the worst ever and there is ZERO bookings for the last two weeks in June , ZERO bookings for July , how can this be Airbnb ? the only way it can be is that your new platform has stuffed your short stay bookings, you are either a short stay accomodation company or a travel agent, which is it to be ? 

[Victoria696]

Due to the changes when searching for  accommodation to book myself as a guest (rather than being a host) I no longer use Airbnb as there is not enough information in the search results eg number of bedrooms and bed configuration along with review numbers etc. These are really important when I book a property and it’s too time consuming to click on every listing in the results to see if there are enough bedrooms or beds for us as a family or group, so it’s more convenient for me to use another OTA platform which does show this info in the search results.  

Also as the category section still doesn’t show up any properties in the areas I am searching as the AI does not work for that area I no longer had faith via Airbnb I was being shown the full range of accommodation available and so I used another platform for a wider variety of properties that I could filter through myself. 

I am concerned that if even I as an Airbnb host have given up using Airbnb as a guest then how will this affect my own bookings for my property going forward. 

[Brandon655]

The new search criteria has drastically diminished my views(from about 350 down to 125ish) and subsequently bookings I'm sure.  We are beachfront and while we are the first listing to pop up in All Homes, as soon as Beachfront is clicked we disappear altogether.  I've made sure all of the amenities are correct, changed the cover photo to show the beach, and spoken with support.  The response I got was less than satisfactory basically just stating that my listing showing up under certain filters is not guaranteed and maybe it will show up as beachfront soon.  We rely on the bookings for income and this greatly impacts interest in our listing if people don't think it is on the beach.  The new filters are making us rethink the whole thing - it's terrible.

[Huma0]

@Brandon655 

The views from one of my rooms went down from over 2,000 in the month prior to the Summer Release to just over 200 in the following month. They now stand at 169 for the month, but I expect that to keep going down.

Another room that normally got a few hundred views a month is down to just seven views. Seven views in an entire month!

With the exception of some quiet periods due to COVID, my rooms have always been fully booked since I started hosting in my home back in 2016 and since I switched to long term only, are usually booked up months in advance. Some people might suggest that there are no views because there is limited availability for the next few weeks (those were already booked before the changes) but I am 100% positive that is not the case as my listings were always booked up in advance unless I had a last minute cancellation. 

I don't believe that my target audience would use the category searches (with the exception maybe of shared homes) but these changes are clearly affecting how the results show even with the traditional search settings. The only way to see my listings is to zoom in on my neck of the woods, which very few guests are going to do when looking for a place to stay in London. They want to see all the options available for their dates and budget and probably think that's what they are seeing, when there are literally thousands of suitable listings wiped off the map. They will either end up booking something not ideal for them or choose to book elsewhere than Airbnb.

[Martin91]

As I've mentioned before, it doesn't matter that my remote mountain cabins are "cabins," that the description talks about the rustic cabin feel, the reviews mention cabin, the photo captions mention cabin, the photos obviously highlight the cabin features, the title mentions cabin, and the listing type is marked as.... you guessed it CABIN - yet half of the cabins I manage are not even listed under the category called CABINS. It's really crazy that Airbnb is arbitrarily letting their failed AI funnel all the bookings to half of the vacation cabins in our area while others sit empty. Regardless if the other places are still listed in the "All Homes" section, EVERY SINGLE GUEST traveling to our mountains are looking to stay in a CABIN and therefore they will ALL use the CABINS filter. And more crazy that Airbnb won't even make a request form for hosts to submit a request to have someone look at the listing to confirm what the AI could not. On the bright side, due to my lack of bookings with Airbnb I've gotten a huge boost in VRBO bookings to fill the calendar. 😉 

[Martin91]

Oh and you'll notice in that photo the AMAZING VIEW and the cool A-Frame style roof. But this listing isn't in either of those categories either. It's truly bizarre. 

[Martin91]

And as far as having good photography, the photos of the A-Frame styled Cabin with an Amazing View are airbnb verified photos that Airbnb uploaded taken from the Airbnb assigned photographer! Can't make this ish up! LOL