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.

[Super47]

For sure, @Sarah977. And there's usually a lot more truth to be found in what Airbnb don't say, than what they do say. They're skilled at that. 

[Super47]

@Sarah977

Also, the wording is "100000 guest accounts have been removed" - not "Airbnb has removed.." or "We have removed.." 

Doesn't clarify how many of those guest accounts have been removed by Airbnb, and how many have been removed by the guests themselves 😏

[Ann72]

@Super47  Thank you for taking the time to clarify, Penelope.  😘

[Kristi5]

I've been deep cleaning and disinfecting since March - as we had the first case in the US here in WA state -  including all surfaces that might be touched by others.

My question is this: there are a lot of wood surfaces in my apt and I have discovered that wood does not like disinfectants - at all.

Wood, being porous, sucks up the disinfectants and now much of the wood surfaces are becoming sticky. The finish is being eaten away it seems.

I do try to use a polish after I spray and clean, but I still do one last spray of the apartment before I leave. 

I've had a couple of comments from guests, thinking the counter or table was dirty due to the sticky feel. I've now had to explain to my guests why it may feel this way (as I KNOW the entire place is clean enough to perform surgery) and I've actually had a guest (before I realized) give me a 3 star for cleanliness. 

Is anyone else finding this to be an issue? Is there any other option?

Thank you! @Catherine-Powell 

[Sarah977]

And all the information I have read says that the virus doesn't remain active on porous surfaces like wood, cloth or paper for more than 24 hours max, so if a host leaves 24 hours between bookings, those things shouldn't need to be disinfected anyway. Airbnb is way over the top with this.   

@Kristi5

[Catherine-Powell]

Hi @Kristi5,

Thank you for sharing your experience here.

We have worked with medical experts, including Dr. Vivek Murthy, to create this cleaning program and to ensure that it covers the necessary steps, and is thorough, but also achievable for hosts. It is also designed to be adaptable to each listing, depending on your individual space, so the products you use may vary based on the surface that you are cleaning, and it may be that you need to find a different product to better suit the wooden surfaces.

We also have more information in our Cleaning Handbook, so please refer to this for more pointers.

Thanks again for your feedback and I will pass this onto the team.

Best,

Catherine

[Kristi5]

Thanks for the link. I have already read and have been following deep cleaning methods since Feb/Mar for the little apartment I rent.

Here's the problem: the stripping of the wood finishes has already begun. Meaning, due to heavy deep cleaning using disinfectants which are meant to kill a virus, at the same time has been - over this whole time - taking the finish off of many of my wood surfaces.

I will, of course, continue to deep clean for my safety as well as my guests, but I was hoping someone had advice on a product that disinfected as well as helped wood surfaces.

It's possible there is no solution except to shut down and refinish the wood surfaces. 

Thank you for your advice.

@Catherine-Powell 

[Kristi5]

REPLYING TO MY OWN POST:

Welp ...... we had a guest with CV19. And yeah, they chose NOT to tell anyone until after. So the health department had to backtrack to find out where these a**h***s stayed.  😠

**(this was back in July'20)

The Doctor doing the first leg of the calling talked to me (hysterical me, I might add -- as this really SUCKS and I was kind of irritated).

We discussed the contact of the guests, the timeline, all of it.

SO .... because I'm such a deep cleaner (thanks to my OCD Dutch mother) and for the fact we have been a Contact-less Host since we began in 2015 (auto keylocks folks!) AND because there was a 24 hour break between guests, he said there was ZERO chance of anyone contracting CV19 from these idiots (I'm using kind language so I'm not dinged). Because of that ... we didn't have to have any of the follow up from any other Heath Department! (whew!!)

I asked him about the wood surfaces and he said that wood is not one of the surfaces that can transmit the virus. He said I could still use oil-based cleaners on all the wood surfaces (so as to preserve the finish) AND continue using my heavy-duty disinfectants on the other hard surfaces (glass, countertops, tile, etc).

YAYAYAYAYAY!!

Happy ending! 

[Sarah977]

@Kristi5  From early on in the pandemic, the scientific information was that the virus didn't remain active on porous surfaces like wood, cloth, paper and cardboard for more than a short period of time. And that info hasn't changed.

And while it can remain active on hard surfaces like plastic and metal, it doesn't at all on copper- copper actually renders the virus inactive.

Surface transmission is a quite slim possibility, anyway, as it requires a very specific set of circumstances.

Airbnb's cleaning protocol has been over-the-top from the beginning. (Wash the porch ceiling? That's just ludicrous.)  I think constantly spraying Lysol all over everything in a home is going to lead to all sorts of other health issues, aside from it destroying the finish on some surfaces.

[Kristi5]

I shook my head at the “washing all the dishes in the kitchen and all the linens in the cupboards.”

yeah. okay. 

[Lisa723]

@Sarah977 @Kristi5 @Catherine-Powell 

Innovation Hub Feb. 26 has a really interesting interview with an expert (Rob Dunn, professor of Applied Ecology at North Carolina State University) explaining how extremely misguided the obsession with surface disinfection is:

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/512646501/innovation-hub

@Airbnb is still threatening to block our calendar for not agreeing to remove from our houses all the kitchenware and linens we can't rewash at every turnover-- though we are maintaining a four-day vacancy buffer between stays.

[Kristi5]

Ohmyhell. I’m so sorry. 

and yet ....... for my own safety ..... my guest doesn’t have to post a pic or say where they’re from or any other pertinent information about themselves — and they just joined two days ago. 
Oi. 😕

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Catherine-Powell Can you confirm with your so-called experts that laundering the curtains is a) necessary and b) expected by guests. I really don't believe the Hilton (for example) launder their lovely thick curtains between guests nor do their guests expect it.

Its the stupid things like this that make the whole concept lose credibility.

[Helen350]

@Mike-And-Jane0  - I'm about to have guests check in who booked a mere 2 hours ago.... "Can you give me some time whilst I make the beds?" - I messaged..... ("And wash the curtains." - Said no one ever!)

[Yocencia0]

We just last week had a guest that brought an unauthorized pet and covered our security camera as well as extra guest and parking on the lawn.   We opened a case and the guest left (after an hour in the cabin), however they left a 1star review which was eventually removed after nearly 8 hours of back and forth with support that kept telling us that the review did not break policy.