Introducing new COVID-19 safety requirements, updated guest standards, and more in the latest Host Update

[Airbnb]

In the latest Host Update, Catherine Powell discusses quality hosting, updates to guest standards, and new COVID-19 safety requirements for members of the Airbnb community. 

Last year, in an effort to hold guests accountable for their actions during a stay, we announced new guest reliability standards. Since then, roughly 100,000 guest accounts that violated these policies and standards have been suspended or removed. In response to ongoing host feedback, we’re adding five new criteria to our guest reliability standards to address late checkouts, unauthorized pets, removal of approved security devices, and other issues. 

Between now and the end of the year, we’ll be investing in improvements to our systems and processes. These efforts will help us in making progress to ensure consistent enforcement, quicker response times, and higher overall accountability with guests.

As the heart of the Airbnb community, we know you work incredibly hard to provide the highest level of hospitality for your guests. When travelers have a bad experience with a host on Airbnb, it affects hosts’ reputations in their local communities and governments—and hurts our community as a whole. We’ve noticed recently that a group of listings didn’t live up to our expectations for quality. So just as we are removing guests to help protect the Airbnb community, we’ve decided to suspend or remove listings that have a consistent pattern of serious issues or that have regularly received low review ratings and failed to meet guest expectations.

In most cases, hosts with affected listings have already been notified and there is an appeals process in place to help address concerns. To learn more about these updates and how they may impact you as a host, watch the full Host Update. 

To help keep our community safe and trusted, starting October 12, hosts of stays will be asked to commit to a five-step enhanced cleaning process. Hosts will be required to attest to the protocol by November 20. If you’ve already attested, you’ll simply need to follow a quick prompt to agree to wear a mask and practice social distancing. New hosts will also need to commit to the safety practices. According to internal Airbnb data, listings enrolled in the Enhanced Cleaning Protocol are some of the most popular listings and have three times more bookings on average than listings that were not enrolled in the protocol.

We know health and safety has been top of mind for both hosts and guests alike, and we will continue to try and ensure standards are being met. As always, thank you for sharing the topics that matter to you. Please let us know what you’d like us to cover in future Host Updates with Catherine. 

To read a full overview of the video, visit this Resource Center article.

[Michelle53]

Hey all,

I just saw this video update from Catherine this morning (apologies if this is duplicate posted).

The new 5-step protocol is here :-

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2809/what-is-airbnbs-5step-enhanced-cleaning-process

Step 1: Prepare

Proper preparation can help you and your team clean more efficiently and more safely. Make sure to:

• Ventilate the space before and during cleaning, when possible
• Use disinfectants approved by your local regulatory agencies for use against COVID-19
• Always read the directions and warnings on your cleaning products carefully
• Wash or disinfect your hands, and wear a mask and gloves while cleaning

Step 2: Clean


Cleaning is when you remove dust and dirt from surfaces, such as floors and countertops. Make sure to:

• Sweep, vacuum, dust, and/or mop areas before sanitizing
• Wash all dishes and laundry at the highest heat setting possible
• Wipe down hard surfaces with soap and water

Step 3: Sanitize


Sanitizing is when you use chemicals to reduce the number of bacteria on surfaces such as doorknobs and TV remotes. Make sure to:

• Spray high-touch surfaces in each room with an approved disinfectant spray
• Let the disinfectant stand for the length of time specified on the product label
• Allow the surface to air-dry

Step 4: Check


Make sure to:

• Refer to the best practices in each room-by-room checklist to make sure that all areas are cleaned and sanitized between each stay
• Share these requirements with your hosting team and cleaning professionals

Step 5: Reset


To help prevent cross-contamination, it's important to finish cleaning and sanitizing a room before replacing items for the next guest. Make sure to:

• Wash your hands and replace gloves before replacing guest supplies, linens, and cleaning kits
• Safely dispose of or wash cleaning supplies and protective gear
• Don’t re-enter a room once it’s been sanitized
• Empty and/or clean your equipment (ex: vacuum, microfiber cloths) between each turnover

[Kelly149]

This is absurd...

... when possible

.... per your local agencies

...use product guidelines

....pay attention to what we told you to do, in that other doc that isn't listed here

... use soap/water instead of actual cleaning products

... tell your professional cleaners how to clean

...don't treat your trash dangerously

... sanitize after cleaning

...replace supplies after sanitizing

....don't enter a room after sanitizing ^^^^

just completely incompetent... and I will say again, I've upset guests with house rules, with guest counts, with pricing, but I have NEVER received anything less than perfect cleaning marks and my place is a BARN and this whole idea is complete overreach. ABB can't manage THEIR part of the business decently (recent CS debacles anyone??), but they think they're a good resource for telling ALL hosts of ALL different types of listings all over the WHOLE world how to do one of their most primary functions. Frankly, if I didn't have a clean space I'm pretty sure my 4 year review history would show it. But somehow ABB thinks we're all idiots running rampage with our and guests' germs during a pandemic. Right, like none of us have considered that we should protect ourselves from germs at this time, thank you for your very helpful list.

[Sarah977]

Absurd and inconsistent is right. These ridiculous lists of disinfectants- if washing your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds deactivates the virus, why wouldn't soap and water, left on a surface for 20 seconds, achieve the same thing? Where's the common sense? Lysol is laughing all the way to the bank.

I predict that a year from now, people are going to be coming down with all sorts of mysterious ailments from being constantly surrounded by all these disinfectants sprayed everywhere, and we're going to see a rise in super bugs- bacteria and viruses that are resistant to all disinfectants and antibiotics, etc.

That said, I have always wiped down all surfaces which guests would touch, with bleach wipes after the basic cleaning since I started hosting, so if I were open to hosting my home-share now, which I'm not, little would change in my cleaning protocol. I would use the bleach wipes on things like the wooden headboard, which I only washed down before, and a few other things, but I've always cleaned every square centimeter of my guest space as if the previous guest could have been sick with something.

[Ann72]

@Michelle53  Thank you.  More do-able than the previous protocol.  75% of this is what good cleaners do anyway.

It's still annoying.  It's just bookings-driven, not health-and-safety-driven.

[Sarah977]

It's not even bookings-driven, since from what I've been reading on this and another hosting forum, the majority of guests aren't even asking about hosts about cleaning protocols and really don't seem to be all that concerned.

What it is, is what Airbnb has become well-known for now- virtue signalling. "Look what a socially concerned and responsible company we are, requiring all our hosts to commit to better than hospital-level cleaning".  Also, it serves to cover their butt- if all hosts have to agree to this or be delisted, then if any guest claims they caught COVID at an Airbnb, they're off the hook- "Hey, we can't take any responsibility for that- it's the host's fault for lying about the enhanced cleaning."

@Ann72 

[Helen350]

@Sarah977 I guess this mean the end to hypoallergenic listings then? - No chemicals?

[LaNetta0]

@Sarah977 Prior to the pandemic I was using Melaleuca products (check them out) - chemical free, but accepted by CDC as viable products for cleaning and disinfecting.  I still use many of them, but have started using Clorox & Lysol for disinfecting because I think my guests expect a certain/familiar smell when they arrive.  I really want to go back to my environmentally safe and chemical free products.

[Sarah977]

Yes, I'm quite familiar with Melaleuca (Tea Tree) and use it a lot for many things. Antibacterial, antiviral, anti-fungal, bugs hate it. I spray a tea tree oil/water mix on my dog to keep fleas and ticks off her and if you're sitting outside in the evening, a few dabs on your skin keeps the no-see-ums and mosquitoes away. 

If I were a guest, I'd much prefer the smell of tea tree oil and knowing the host had used something natural to disinfect, as opposed to Lysol and bleach, and I'd think that many other guests would feel that way as well. But I know that there are many people who associate the smell of bleach, disinfectants, dryer sheets and other things that really aren't good for you to breath with "fresh and clean".

@LaNetta0 

[LakeLove0]

So true, the Medical Medium, Anthony William has a podcast called 'Air Fresheners, Scented Candles, Colognes and Perfumes: Killing you Smelly" Alcohol is terrible for your liver yet everyone is using it in the hand sanitizers and sometimes requiring the use of it! Anyone with any health issue should be pushing back on these new rules.

[Ann72]

@Sarah977  Nice phrase - "virtue signalling."  And you're right about that.  But this is a bookings-driven change.  Note the repeated "hosts who committed to clean saw THREE TIMES THE BOOKINGS."  THREE TIMES THE BOOKINGS.  Emphasis theirs.

[Colleen253]

@Ann72  "hosts who committed to clean saw THREE TIMES THE BOOKINGS."

That's a fairytale they are counting on hosts falling for. Meant to drive more to sign up for the (also a fairytale) cleaning protocol.

[Ann72]

@Colleen253  Yes, I know it's at best an aspirational statistic.  But it still means that this measure is bookings-driven.

[Lisa723]

@Ann72 @Colleen253 "These listings ... have had more than three times the number of reservations in comparison to those that haven’t enrolled.*" All this means is that of Airbnb stays booked during the measured time period 3/4 of the bookings were with listings that were enrolled. That says nothing about guests' preference for the badge unless you also know the baseline percentage of available listings that were enrolled and how otherwise equal listings with/without the badge did, revenue-wise. @Airbnb is counting on most of us being innumerate. Unfortunately, probably a safe bet.

Of course, it also says nothing about how the badge correlates with actual listing cleanliness and safety.

[Ann72]

@Lisa723  "Airbnb is counting on us being innumerate."  Ha, yes!

Still a bookings-driven decision.

[Super47]

@Lisa723

Great point. Also, it wasn't specified how many of the listings that have chosen not to enrol in the onerous ECP program are actually active, or how many are in regions where hosts are still getting little to no bookings anyway due to travel bans and restrictions, so feel its not worth their while signing up and going to all that extra time, effort and expense, when their income is already minimal. So many variables that could easily produce this very convenient 'three times the bookings' stat.

And just anecdotal, of course, but a large number of hosts who are getting bookings are reporting - including on this forum - that many (if not most) of their guests don't appear to be making any mentions whatsoever about enhanced cleaning initiatives.