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.

[Lisa723]

@Katie thank you for the clarification.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Katie Thanks for this HOWEVER when I looked at attesting to the simplified 5 step process it just drives you to the full-up enhanced cleaning protocol.

@Emilia42 @Lisa723 @Helen350 Have any of you looked at the attestation?

[Emilia42]

@Mike-And-Jane0 I just signed up and it brought me to the enhanced cleaning protocol. However, the badge now says this:

And when a guest clicks learn more they see this:

So it looks to me that for simplicity the ECP has been replaced with the 5-step Enhanced Clean which basically just means wash the sheets, disinfect the doorknobs, wear a mask and keep your distance. Guests really wouldn't know it entails anything else.

(It used to say this:)

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Emilia42 Brilliant - thanks

This is effectively what we have been doing so should be fine. Just a shame Airbnbmake it so confusing

[Lisa723]

@Mike-And-Jane0 @Emilia42 @Katie @Airbnb 

The five-step process includes:

• Wash all linens at the highest heat setting recommended by the manufacturer. Remember to change your disposable gloves before you handle any clean linens.

• Wash all dishes, and empty the dishwasher. It’s important to wash all the dishes to help ensure hygienic standards. To make sure that you have enough time to clean them between each stay, consider limiting the number of dishes that guests can access.

What "all" means here could be open to interpretation. If "all" literally means "all", vs. "all used/dirty", I think we will be leaving the platform. We could theoretically remove spare linens from the houses, but if we have to remove all cookware and tableware that we can't run through the dishwasher at every turnover, that would eliminate one of our major selling points.

[Helen350]

@Mike-And-Jane0 @Emilia42 @Lisa723 

"Sanitize every high touch surface" - A get out clause; "high touch" is open to interpretation! Door knobs, handles, taps, yes, but anything else?

"Empty the dishwasher." I don't have a dishwasher! I'm sure I'm not the only one! - Especially those who host in rural areas of developing countries!

- And what of the Airbnb culture of guests leaving as they find/doing their own washing up? Is this a licence not to bother if they think hosts will be doing it (again) anyway?

[Katie]

Hey everyone, just a heads up that I have added some links into my above post in reference to the five step process. (It links to the Help Center article.)

Also @Helen350 there is some information on private room hosting in this article which might be useful for you and any others who host in a shared space.

@Mike-And-Jane0 @Lisa723 @Emilia42 

[Lisa723]

@Katie @Catherine-Powell @Airbnb 

The wording has changed, leaving even more room for interpretation:

• Wash all dishes and laundry at the highest heat setting possible

Should we interpret "all" as "all in the house" or "all used/dirty"? Without knowledge of the previous wording, any reasonable person would assume the latter.

[Kat162]

Thanks @Emilia42  - Do you know if Air BnB still implements the 24-hr automatic block between stays? This has not been addressed in any of the literature (via News or Air BnB) I have been able to source!

[Emilia42]

@Kat162 Airbnb does not require the 24-hour buffer in between guests. That 24+ hour buffer is probably the most scientific/reliable approach to keeping guests/hosts safe but it is merely a suggestion. Airbnb probably saw how much money is lost when you cut a host's calendar nearly in half.    

[Kat162]

 @Airbnb @Catherine-Powell ... Thankyou @Emilia42 for confirming! I found it strange this was not addressed when early this year it was one of the forefront points of Enchanced Cleaning and prevented many hosts from committing, as back-to-back bookings already existed. All the best lovely & thanks for your well-composed, to the heart of it posts!

[Rory15]

@Emilia42 Air don't give a toss about what actually works, but are instead wedded to their rules. Like almost all US based approaches to the virus, its a confusing mess, mostly for show and doesn't work. Air have quickly forgotten who their partners are, again. 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Emilia42 Signing up or otherwise is now moot for us as there is no longer an opportunity to do so.

I am sure I must be missing something or has the button disappeared? 

[Sarah977]

It appears to me they also changed some things in the enhanced cleaning booklet as well since June. The new date on it is Sept.21st. I couldn't find anything in there about washing ceilings and walls, like there was before, or taking down all the drapes and washing them, (maybe I just missed it), and for those hosts who are saying they can't afford to buy all the recommended cleaning products, I don't see anything that says that you have to, for instance, use Lysol spray, just use recommended disinfectants. Well, plain old 70% alcohol is a virus-killing disinfectant, as is bleach (which is most effective mixed 1 part bleach to 9 parts water- more bleach isn't more effective, the water content is crucial to the disinfection process) , and bleach and rubbing alcohol are cheap. 

If I was hosting now, which I don't consider safe in my home-share, at least not here in Mexico at the present time, there is really nothing in that list that I didn't normally do anyway, pre-COVID. I've always wiped down light switches, door knobs, etc with bleach wipes, always vacuumed and mopped and gotten in all the corners.

Pretty much the entire cleaning protocol just seems to me like cleaning 101- as if you were teaching some 16 year old how to thoroughly clean a room. 

@Emilia42

[Jenny371]

@Katie obviously didnt ask the New Zealand folk what they thought. Considering we arent like most other countries with Covid