How can Hosts benefit from Airbnb’s redesign?

[Quincy]

As people start to feel comfortable traveling again, they’re not always sure where to go first—or when. So we just introduced a whole new way for guests to explore listings and discover great places like yours.

The new features can help you reach more guests in the earliest stages of trip planning. For example, we’ve added 21 Airbnb Categories, from Camping to Iconic Cities, to highlight great stays that guests can browse. Your listing could pop up in someone’s feed as soon as they open the app.

As a Host, you can improve your chances of getting noticed by making sure your listing details are as current and complete as possible—and complemented by attractive photos of your space. You can find out more on the Resource Center. 

What’s one thing you’ve done recently to make your listing really shine?

[Gayle164]

We as host and superhosts have worked very hard to  make out stays stand out.  I am waterfront in Savannah, Ga and now my listing basically does not exist.  The new categories the would pertain to ANY LISTING that is Waterfront, RIver front, Creek front is now gone.  The only category now is Lakefront or Beachfront.  

So all the Kayakers/paddelboarders/ Boaters and those who love to fish now cannot search for their favorite recreation stay.  

I worked very hard to stand out with our private home stay , which is also no longer a searchable option. and now I am plain vanilla as any homestay in the middle of a neightborhood.

WHY ARE YOU IGNORING SUCH A LARGE DEMOGRAPHIC?????????????????

[Laurie6]

Same for me .....right up the road from you in  Mount Pleasant SC.

There is more to Charleston than DT or the beaches....and with waterfront the guest gets more.

[Quincy]

Hi there @Gayle164, thank you for flagging this. I will share your feedback with the product team. 

[Jesse192]

It seems the redesign removed my ability as a host, to highlight that my listing features a private bath.

My personally-crafted title clearly states "private bath" however that title no longer displays in search results. The generic "Private room in Boulder" displays instead ... just like cheaper listings that only have a shared bath. It appears my personally-crafted title displays ONLY when a guest clicks to view my listing.

Furthermore, I see no filter allowing a guest to search for "private bath".

As a host, I have lost the ability to differentiate my listing in the search results... my listing looks just like cheaper listings that do not have private baths. I believe changes like these are already resulting in reduced earnings for me on the Airbnb platform.

Please advise if I'm missing something.

[Laurie6]

it is very much the same with houses.

A 4 br house with 4 bathrooms

is not the same as a 

4 br house with 1 bathroom.

The experience would be different for the group.....as should the rates differ.

[Huma0]

@Jesse192 @Laurie6 (can't seem to tag you properly for some reason), that would explain why I am getting enquiries asking how many people use the shared bathroom. I have 3.5 bathrooms specified on all listings. Why are people asking me how many people share the one bathroom?

[Jesse192]

Airbnb support confirmed that the "private bathroom" filter was REMOVED from the website.  It's one thing to ADD functionality, but why REMOVE existing functionality?  I'm livid.

[Jazz47]

Search by region yet Africa, India, Aus and NZ, South East Asia etc are missing unless you start navigating the map. I operate serviced apartments which are not a hotel or an apartment which is where I now appear. As a data scientist I would love to know what they consider to be AI as this appears to be cluster analysis and CHAID which is nothing more than standard programming drill downs off filters acting as selection criteria. It does not take into account drive times. If you split locations in Manila which itself is 16 cities even if it is just 1 KM away it can take hours to get there. The UX is a disaster for hosts and guests. The real reason for the change is obvious it is to drive guests away from popular locations like capital cities which complain the most about Airbnb driving up prices etc.

[Gillian166]

---

The real reason for the change is obvious it is to drive guests away from popular locations like capital cities which complain the most about Airbnb driving up prices etc.

---

@Jazz47  
maybe, except that this algo is effecting everyone. i'm in a rural area and the same complaints apply to my listing in rural Australia. I've lost my unique title, and if you click "farm stay" 1 of my listings doesn't show up at all. 

[Jazz47]

Standard approach in marketing segmentation models is to create clusters on the basis of similar characteristics. In this model based on the tick boxes and descriptions a property could appear in many clusters with a binary selection to get further splits again based on the tick boxes. Just guessing I would need to see the maths behind it to be sure. No model is 100% accurate and I doubt it even considers title given the numerous possibilities on that. Like most things in computing it fails as it is not simple. There is a reason the search bar exists for over 25 years, it works and people know jow to use it. It appears Airbnb wants to get people to explore on its site which is great if you have time and money to look at different possibilities but for the average person booking a two week annual holiday I would say they have some idea of where they want to go and when they want to go and want a few places that match their tastes. This model fails to do that, it is a mess for both hosts and guests. 

Big worry for me and I guess a lot of hosts is the 72 hour reporting period when a guest can claim your place doesn't match what you put down in the listing. An open door for the con artists looking for a free break over the weekend.

[Gillian166]

@Jazz47 
I sell stock photography so there's a fair amount of keyword/algo wizardry we all analyse and try to crack 🙂 (I am however a normal person, I know bare basics )

Each site is different but my 2 favourites have this approach:
title should be short 3-5 words

every title should be unique (this is really challenging)

apparently if the titles are the same the google bot dismisses them.

Adobe also makes us rank keywords in order of importance, other sides make your flag the top kw. We don't even put actual kw into our listing, (thank god!) but I wondering if actually having the chance to write in your top 5 kw would be helpful to the bots. 
I'm really stunned they've opted for this approach where millions of descriptors are now the same. I would have assumed that ABB has world class wizards working for them, so this whole roll-out is a head scratcher. 
 

[Jazz47]

@Gillian166 

Yes it is going down the SEO route with KW because it is a 'bot' . Having read a response on here saying the categories update every two weeks it could be a neural network that they are still training. Even if it is the maths and coding techniques remain the same as it all boils down to 'if then else' logic.

World class wizards - ha ha thats a good one. Most travel related companies use outside consultants which have varying degress of common sense, IT and stats skills and a fair measure of BS. Can't name companies but the IT skills in two OTA's leave much to be desired from a UX point of view and only one has really clever people doing advanced probability functions doubt the managers understand it. As a consultant I'm old school and follow KISS. If you can't explain it to a 5 year old and they can't master its function in under 30 mins don't implement it.

If I had been with ABB I would say IMO this is a load of c**p.  Can't see them rolling it back may be a few bug fixes MS style. But hey what do I know I'm just a booker and host.

[Gillian166]

@Jazz47 

---

Can't name companies but the IT skills in two OTA's leave much to be desired from a UX point of view and only one has really clever people doing advanced probability functions doubt the managers understand it.

---

ah, THIS is a serious issue in many companies! great CEOs with people skills and great ideas can't understand the technical side.  viceversa, great coders can have tunnel vision and can't have a holistic, creative approach. I've seen first hand how the UX team can bamboozle the CEO into following their path, but it ends up not being very good for the end users, and different from the original idea. I suppose this has always existed, and you need to be an Elon Musk/Tony Stark type to truly build something great.

Given they spent so much making that lovely little film with Chesky and his dog, I agree they aren't going to roll this back. He's committed to his idea of Categories. He failed to explain that categories is a curated list, not ALL properties, so that's my first bit of advice - change the wording to better explain what they've done. AND absolutely give guests the ability to search without specific dates. 🙏🏻
@Quincy   

[Quincy]

Hi there @Gillian166, thank you again for your feedback on this topic so far. Just so you know, I will add all the points you've mentioned here to the list which is viewed directly by the product team.

[Gillian166]

Cheers. I did notice yesterday I saw another mod use the word “curated”. At least this lets everyone know that categories are a feature list, rather than all products. IMHO you need to make this distinction.  Other sites that have categories (retail, food, entertainment) include ALL offerings. 
@Quincy  it’s been over a week now, any feedback from the team(s)?