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.

[Emilia42]

@Lisa723 I would really like to know this as well. I signed up for the ECP yesterday but I would rather sign up for the 5 steps (if they are two different things??!) Maybe I will deactivate the ECP and wait to see if anything else if offered before November 20th?

[Naomi320]

@Emilia42 They are one-in-the-same. When you sign the 5-step commitment you are committing to following the 39-page cleaning handbook. It's mentioned in Step 4.

"Refer to the best practices in each room-by-room checklist to make sure that all areas are cleaned and sanitized between each stay"

[Julie82]

@Lisa723 I agree with all your comments. Has Airbnb answered your questions yet? I too want to know if we need to commit to the five step process or the entire 39 page handbook. If the commitment is to the handbook, I may need to leave Airbnb. It is not realistic to have a home with a full kitchen that I rent and be expected to clean everything every time. The same goes for some of the bedroom cleaning standards. 

[Lisa723]

@Julie82, no, neither @Airbnb nor @Catherine-Powell has responded to my question here, or to my direct message.

[Jennie131]

Any advice on how to inform guests that even though they booked a house with a kitchen and kitchen essentials, that these things will no longer be available? I can't wash every dish, plate, spoon, pot, pan and cup between guests AND have no one enter for 24 hours AND be able to pay my bills, especially with the pricing that Airbnb suggests I rent for. 

[Lisa723]

@Jennie131 yep. And if this is the requirement, why is it not also required to wash every other object in the house? Books and games, for example. Is it expected that we remove from the homes every item that cannot be washed on every turnover? If not, then why a clean pot sitting at the back of a kitchen cupboard? It's totally nonsensical.

[Sarah977]

You know what I've noticed  this forum over the past few weeks? That hosts who are quite conscientious about doing proper cleaning for COVID, hosts who have been keeping themselves informed about the latest findings about surface transmission, hosts who wouldn't think of greeting guests without a mask on, or not maintaining social distancing, are the hosts who didn't sign up for the enhanced cleaning protocol, because it's absurd and there's no way they are going to get up on ladders to wash the ceiling, or take down all the drapes between bookings and wash them, etc. And all that isn't necessary- it doesn't pose a threat as far as guests becoming infected.

So the responsible, informed hosts didn't sign up because they had no intention of doing ridiculous and useless things, and they weren't going to lie and say they did.

Yet I've read several guest posts saying that the place they booked had the enhanced cleaning badge, yet the place not only hadn't been cleaned to those standards, the place was dirty and didn't look like it had been cleaned at all.

So it appears that many hosts who have poor cleanliness standards to start with have no qualms about lying in their listing about following the cleaning directives, therefore this entire thing is totally misguided and pointless.

@Lisa723

[Emilia42]

@Sarah977 Yep, that's how I see it too. Almost all of the listings in my area with lacking cleanliness stars have the enhanced cleaning badge. 

[Carol280]

So true - well done for pointing this out Lisa! 

[Helen427]

@Lisa723Anything's possible when Politicians are told to "follow Science & do as Scientists tell them and the snowball effect...I bet none of those who are telling us what to do do half of what they are telling us to.

 Great you are doing well with your other avenues for bookings 

[Helen427]

Hello @Jennie131  from across the miles in Auckland, New Zealand

re Smart Pricing & recommended pricing, have a scan through here in CC for some great discussions & suggestions how to price your property/ room to cover  your time & expenses.

All  the  best

Central To All Home & Location

Remuera, Auckland, New Zealand 

[Jennie131]

It's not a matter of pricing. I can't sell a product at market rates when it costs me more than market rate to prepare it for offer. 
I'm closing down. 

[Ann72]

@Airbnb   100,000 guests removed - this was the real headline for me.  That's a robust enough effort that I don't think every one of the bad actors will have the get-up-and-go to create new accounts, though obviously some will and probably already have.

I already wear a mask when seeing guests or interacting with people who enter my home and require they do the same.  I provide a supply of masks for the guests and for them to hand anyone who has to come into the space, like cleaning or repair people.  It just makes sense if you have any interest in stopping the spread.  We're not out of the woods yet.

[Super47]

@Ann72

Considering Airbnb is still attempting to rehouse certain guests that have been evicted from one listing for violating House Rules, with other unsuspecting hosts, I'd take that 100000 headline figure with a huge pinch of salt.

Besides, there's a bit of a discrepancy between the CC post and the Resource Centre article. Again.

Community Centre. 

"Last year, in an effort to hold guests accountable for their actions during a stay, we announced new guest reliability standards. Since then, about 100,000 guest accounts that violated these policies and standards have been removed"

Resource Centre. 

"This builds upon the work that we did last year, when we announced our guest reliability standards. And since the end of last year, roughly 100,000 guest accounts that violated our policies and standards have been suspended or removed"

A week or two's suspension is probably not going to be too much of a deterrent (or a hardship) to any guest who only uses the platform every now and again (as the vast majority do) 

[Sarah977]

I wonder how many of those 100,000 accounts that were removed were simply accounts of scammers who send hosts those "I'll charge my employer for the booking, but not really stay and we'll split the payment" inquiries, or the ones that attempt to get hosts to click on some link that will steal their account info.

And since many hosts have reported getting scores of these in a single day, every one from a different new user account, those could account for a huge percentage of the suspended or deleted accounts.

Nowhere is it said that the accounts were deleted for being bad guests, or even having made a booking, it just says they have violated the standards or policies in some way. As usual Airbnb has come up with wording designed to leave the impression in people's minds that is something other than what it actually says.

@Super47 @