Im in South Kona Hawaii. My spectacular ocean views are my fortune. Review after review mentions my views! It's by far the favorite guest feature of my listing. I'm also in a neighborhood with one of the only private beaches in Hawaii. (Homeowners own up to the high tide line, very rare.) Yet I am not included in either the Beaches or the Views categories, despite having these two major draws in the title and photos. When I look at the beaches category, there are homes listed that are nowhere near any beach and are tagged to inaccessible beaches that require 4wd and trespassing to get to. Just dandy! It's as though no human actually reviewed things before it went live. Oh wait.
I have also had a plunge in views and have been receiving only oddball inquiries, which is something that typically happens whenever they change the search algorithms.
Yes, you can search the old school way, but it's buried under several steps, is counterintuitive and the interface clearly tries to deter you from doing so. Default is set to week long, weekend, etc.
Websites should be easy enough for Granny to use. They are nervous enough booking something online where they are spending thousands of dollars. They will simply go elsewhere, to Booking or VRBO where it's easier.
Digital nomading is a trend that is already fading. During the pandemic, I did get these kinds of travelers. But last year it starting changing back to tourists. They typically book three or four nights with me (drier, tropical, peachier, sunnier side) and the same on the other side of the island (jungle, rainforest volcano, waterfall side) since our island is so vast and diverse. The new search makes this more of a challenge for guests to achieve and a real chore to search.
This redesign seems hastily rolled-out, not ready for prime time and full of glitches and errors. The categories could be a great side feature for fun and browsing, but is not practical for most. Not everyone desires to stay in a shoe, potato house, windmill, castle or 16,000/night Joshua Tree masterpiece of architecture. Most just want a comfortable, reasonable place to stay that's not a hotel. Please give us that back!