Laura's Letter: Superhost Week 2018 recap

[Laura_C]

February 7, 2019

Hi everyone,

Congratulations to all of you who achieved or maintained your Superhost status in the January assessment. It’s an awesome accomplishment. Thank you for continuing to set a wonderful standard for hospitality in our community.

Your commitment to excellence inspires me, and that’s why it was such a thrill to help create and launch Airbnb’s first ever Superhost Week in December. It was a chance to highlight all of you to our guests and to celebrate and recognize everything you do. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Here are a few highlights:

• Social spotlight: We filled Airbnb’s social-media channels for the week with Superhost stories and profiles, and the response was fantastic. More than 7 million people engaged with the content on Facebook, including this video of Superhosts James and In Ja, of Hollywood, California. Dan, of "Danville," Florida was featured in our most-watched video on YouTube. And on Twitter, Superhost story tweets were seen by more than a million users.
• Marketing to guests: Superhosts were featured in a banner at the top of Airbnb’s home page to give Superhosts more visibility. More than 8.8 million people saw the banner, and more than 160,000 people saw our brand new guest-facing web page. The page gives guests a better understanding of what the Superhost badge icon on your listing represents: the amazing hospitality you provide!
• Updated Superhost page: We also made changes to our Superhost page, to make it easier for you to learn about and take advantage of your rewards.
• New long-term hosting policy: We introduced new criteria to ensure that those of you who host longer stays have fair access to the program. Before, hosting 10 stays was the only way hosts could qualify for Superhost status; now, hosts can qualify if they host 10 stays or if they host 100 nights with a 3-stay minimum. These changes seemed to resonate well with hosts. I was pleased to see responses like this one, from host Gilles, of France, in the Community Center: “Thank you for taking into account the requests of long-term hosts to allow them to access Superhost status. Thanks to Airbnb for listening to the needs of the hosts and coming back with new strategies to meet their needs.”
• Community Center interaction: That brings me to my own favorite part of the week: getting to interact with hosts from around the work in our Community Center! I wrote a letter in our Community Center at the start of Superhost Week, and more than 45,000 hosts read it, and there were more than 1,400 comments. We’ve read each and every one, and during Superhost Week, I had the chance to respond and chat with many of you. Thanks to all of you who sent suggestions and ideas. We’ll be looking to you for inspiration as we continue to improve the Superhost program.

Congratulations again to those of you who are Superhosts. We appreciate all you do— and so do Airbnb guests. In fact, over one of Airbnb’s busiest nights of 2018, one out of every three Airbnb guests were staying with Superhosts! That’s a testament to how much Superhosts help power the Airbnb community. Thank you.

Happy hosting!
Laura

[Don210]

Kia Ora Superhosts from Papamoa, New Zealand.

[Christina164]

Hello Luara, 

So nice knowing the company and you have our backs being superhosts. We give it our all to treat everyone with respect, acceptance, and trust into our homes. Its such a pleasure being part of this commuminty! I look forward meeting you one day soon in San Francisco! Thank you for all your hard work and let's continue keep giving the best hospitality to everyone. God Bless and thank you!  

[Kim-And-Fred0]

Hi Laura, yes thank you Airbnb for creating the SuperHost week.  I like the changes. 

That said,  I would like to say that at least in Portland, Oregon the majority of hosts in our Host2Host.org community are experiencing a steep decline in reservations; January and February are usually decent months, we made more money the first month of hosting in 2012. 

I notice when I or one of my host clients log into Airbnb that the Airbnb Plus Homes and Experiences are front and center and it took me a minute to figure out how to help my students do a search on the website for non-plus home hosts.

It seems that the model of Airbnb from nearly a decade ago has shifted alongwith it the novelty of staying with a host.  I am probably outnumbered in this forum, as we live in and share our home, but One Host One Host and Live Like a Local has shifted to guests (now that Cannabis is legal in Oregon and the advent of Alternative Dwelling Units) want to have a private, personal, with no contact from hosts. 

And with Airbnb going public soon, then Brian Chesny will have to be held accountable to stock holders instead of hosts.

Fred and I pride ourselves on being ambassadors to Portland, as we have both lived in Portland over 35 years and love it here.  We are uncertain if reservations do not pick up if we will continue hosting, this saddens us greatly as we have made friends and enjoyed meeting and learning from the 20 countries that guests have come from.  

I appreciate having this forum to share our joy, success, and frustration.

Kim and Fred 

The Slater House PDX

[Laura_C]

Hello @Kim-And-Fred0, it's great you like the recent changes to the Superhost program and I hope you like the things we are currently working on. 🙂

Congratulations on being a great Superhost and an ambassador for your area. I'm sorry to hear you are getting fewer bookings on Airbnb, I have seen this reported elsewhere on the CC too ... my team is digging in to see if there's anything going on. I'll ensure they look into your situation too.

We are also looking into ways to highlight Superhosts listings to guests in an intuitive way. During Superhost Week we tried out some approaches, including having a Superhost banner on the homepage, which had great results. We're looking into how we can replicate some of those experiences more often. If you, (and the rest of the community!) have any ideas, I'd love to hear them too. Thank you ~Laura

[John741]

Greetings and Salutations to the wonderful Airbnb SuperHost Community...keep up the good work and good luck to you all...John in Buffalo, NY

[Amrita8]

Dear Laura, 

It is truely inspiring to be added  as asuperhost ,I as a senior citizen will try and improve my home to make it more friendly to guests particularly for children and seniors.

I had lately injured my foot and could not avail the reward from our Airbnb team.as every  year pass by i feel more of a member of the world community. It was wonderful reading your post.

Thanks a million.

Amrita.

[Laura_C]

I'm sorry to hear about your injury, @Amrita8. I hope you are feeling better and are now back on your feet! Thank you for being such a caring host and a great member of our community. Congratulations on becoming, a very well deserved, Superhost~ Laura

[Amrita8]

Thanks a million Laura, though it seems al ong while to start real travel I can get by for now.

I am already feeling better after your touching mail .

Thank you once again for your encouraging words 

Much Regards 

Amrita.

[Dylan-And-Justin0]

This is exciting, seeing how this people to people led experience can be supported and rewarded. Thanks for all of your hard work in connecting us! 

[Dylan-And-Justin0]

A quick question: What are the different levels of superhosts? How does one go from level 1 to 5? 

[Lizzie]

Hello @Dylan-And-Justin0,

Lovely to see your comment here. Thank you, for all the hard work you and for being a great host. 

To answer you question on the different levels. These are based on your activity here in the Community Center, ie. number of posts made, kudos received etc. so it is not linked to your profile as a host. Everyone who comes into the Community Center starts at level 1 and heads upwards. 🙂

I hope this helps and I hope you will enjoy exploring the Community Center a little further.

Thanks again,
Lizzie

[Geoff65]

Hi, from Geoff & Helen, Johannesburg

[Wayan27]

Hosting has been so much fun and thanks for sharing ! Congratulations to all the Superhost around the globe for your fabulous achievement in hosting and hospitality. 

[Jean553]

Im wondering why all the sudden my guests are being charged occupancy tax. One guy stays 2 non sequential nights a week, and is getting soaked with cleaning fees and this new tax. When was it instated? Also, how can i cut him a deal through airbnb, since he's paying the fees, occ tax and cleaning fees?

[Adam645]

Does anyone know if the Superhost requirements are different for Atlanta?