Dear @Airbnb , Catherine Powell,
It is wonderful to hear that you are committing yourself to go back to Airbnb roots where a good amount of impetus was laid on listening to the hosts. This was in fact true for Airbnb than most other platforms, many many years ago but has slowly waned off. I have raised a particular concern several times, but to my dismay over a period of 2 years that I first posted it, till date it has not invoked a response. So here it goes again, hopefully I get a response now with a fresh set of ears.
We believe we are one of the first few properties that on-boarded with Airbnb when it first launched in India. Over the years though, we have noticed a lot many properties coming up due to which the pricing has kept lowering irrespective of what we are offering as compared to other properties - with none of the parameters of location, room size, pedigree, services etc. withstanding.
Now there's a lot of properties in Delhi that pose as homestays / B&Bs but potentially lack two major things that we offer -
a) We are a Ministry approved Bed and Breakfast establishment;
b) Our family stays at the same property where we have the guest rooms
As a direct result of both the above, we are able to offer a true homestay experience to our guests.
We do not however know if Airbnb claims to be a homestay OTA through and through (apart from alternate accommodations) or openly offers guesthouses / hotels as an option as well. In case of the former, there is nothing much we can ask for except for Airbnb to closely take a look at it's partnering properties. However in the latter case, may we suggest having a separate section for (in want of a better word) genuine homestay properties like ours? Because as per the current scenario, we seem to have gotten lost amongst the hundreds and thousands of new rooms that have been invited onto your platform over the years and are fighting for visibility with new(er) properties that fundamentally seem to be working on the keep-lowering-prices-to-fill-rooms principle. We have seen time and gain that the moment we decrease our room tariff, guest interest generates almost instantly and any increase in pricing kills any traction very quickly. Now, if this is a function of the algorithm you use for promoting property visibility is not quite clear. However, if it is indeed the case, a lot of - again, in search of a better term - genuine homestay properties might be losing out to mass competition. We do understand that pricing is vital to a guest, but surely it can't be the only thing one looks at while booking.
We hope you understand that we are in no way undermining any of the other hosts and/or properties. We are sure they are all working very hard and are genuinely wonderful accommodations, equally or even better equipped to host than us. We are just trying to pull your attention towards a possible marketing opportunity that promoting or distinguishing licensed properties like ours may offer to a wonderful platform like yours that aims at bringing people and communities together. To this effect, we were extremely excited to have received communication from Airbnb three or four years ago where they were thinking of bringing, what we now know to be, the Airbnb Plus Homes version in India. But the project got abandoned midway and there was no further communication on this front from Airbnb.
We sincerely hope you understand our concern and it would be lovely to hear what Airbnb thinks about the above.
Best,
Ajay & Family
