I have recently started Hosting and I absolutely love it. Meeting with guests and sharing my home has been an incredible experience and also given me a deep appreciation of all that being a great Host involves. Coming to the Community Centre and reading all the comments and suggestions from you, I can see clearly what a powerful resource this forum is for Hosts across the world.
Last week, Airbnb CEO, Brian Chesky, announced the 2023 Airbnb May release with many exciting updates to our platform, including features for Hosts designed to enhance your overall experience on and off the app.
I wanted to take a moment to thank you for all the feedback across our forums and channels including here in the Community Centre. Your feedback guides how we prioritize the updates we make across our service, our policies, and our product.
And the feedback doesn’t stop at the release. I’m inviting all of you to our very first Community Centre Q&A session. This is a moment for us to have an open conversation to answer questions you have about our May release.
Our wonderful team of Community Managers will help coordinate the Q&A and ensure we have an environment where everyone is respected and feels comfortable to ask questions and share their thoughts. One request of you for this Q&A, is to keep your questions related to the 2023 May Release. I know you will not be short of questions and I promise we will have more opportunities to discuss other hosting matters in the future.
Please submit your questions beforethe end of this week – Friday the 12th of May. The Community Managers will gather the most relevant and popular questions and I’ll make sure to write back to your top questions here in the Community Center by the end of this month.
Thank you all and have a wonderful day!
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👉 Make sure to read and follow the Q&A Guidelines. Click "read more" below.
Remain respectful in your interactions with other Hosts and the Airbnb team. Let's make sure our communication remains meaningful and constructive.
Kindly keep your questions focused on the 2023 product release and provide relevant feedback on the topic.
You may use the comment section to ask questions related to the release and the like button to upvote a question that you would like to see addressed.
Be as clear as possible regarding your question, describing what you want to know and why you think it’s relevant for Airbnb’s Host Community.
All questions will be reviewed. We’ll prioritize the most relevant and popular questions – those concerning our global Host Community and directly linked to the May release.
Kindly focus your questions on the features and enhancements included as part of the May updates rather than what’s not included.
We reserve the right to remove replies that do not follow the above guidelines
We will do our best to ensure that critical concerns about Airbnb’s 2023 Summer Release are addressed.
Hi Catherine, KONNICHIWA I'm Rie, a HAB member 2023 from Japan.
All Japanese hosts are very happy with this update!
Especially the READ feature was well received! They are very excited about that, as it was previously suggested to the FB community by a Tokyo host @Ken2 It's a great, responsive update.
Here is a suggestion from the Japan community. Currently from the guest side, The order in which guest reviews are posted is based on the order in which the languages set by the guest on the app are given top priority. However, we experience long lockdowns due to the Corona disaster, and older reviews sometimes come first. It is not nice from a host who is constantly trying to update, to have the complained about reviews come to the front of the list, even though they are being reviewed and improved. The overwhelming majority of guests want the latest guest reviews to always come to the front because of the automatic translation feature. (We've already surveyed the Japanese community!)
PS,
Our Japanese hosts are very proud of you for presenting Japan's efforts in your Skift interview. Especially your pronunciation of "KANKEI-JINKOU" was perfect!!
I love that analogy @KatieKayMead0 - Hosts are the trees that keep the whole Community strong, thriving and nurtured. That first connection being a seedling is so apt! 🌳
Can’t find what you’re searching for? Click start a conversation to ask the Airbnb Community!
I love the passports for Airbnb Rooms hosts. It makes me feel more confident to book an Airbnb room knowing a little more about the host I will be staying with.
Ooh @Jenny we are so on the same path. I think a good book is an essential part of a good holiday. I keep a bookcase stocked with a wide range of books so I hope there is something there for every one to read - old and young, fiction, design, science... i have guests comment on how much they appreciate this.
thanks for the chance to ask questions here - especially because I can't make the community leader sessions.
In our community group in NZ, the resounding feedback is how much people love the "read"feature.
My question is whether the new "compare prices" feature works if you've connected to a channel manager.
I chose to connect to a channel manager because I wanted to take pay all of the service fees for my guests, and I can understand that this would affect my ability to select multiple dates or pricing features (as they're done through the manager) but had thought I would still be able to compare listings?
Thank you so much for letting us know about the positive Host feedback and sharing your questions!
Similar listing comparison tool has been insightful for many Hosts. Did you happen to change your pricing strategy after reviewing listings nearby?
Also, the potential glitches have been reported to the respective teams and they are actively working towards it. The Host feedback is valuable to us and it helps us constantly improve. Really appreciate all of it. Keep sharing!
Glad you are enjoying the hosting journey. We love it - it's what John and I are both passionate about - connecting with people and helping people make connections.
Feedback from our club members in Mid-Wales is very positive. My favourite is the read 'receipt' and that is echoed by the members. I did look at the other upgrades on the early access (another great idea) and found the ones I was interested in easy to use.
It is great to hear that you enjoy Hosting and connecting with people. Thank you for sharing such positive feedback with us!
I was curious to know which are the next most interesting features that you found easy to use and are super helpful. Do you have any questions about the latest release that you would like to ask Catherine?
The other upgrades I thought wee great were the 'compare listings' - it gives an idea of how booked up other places nearby are when you might have a bit of a gap to check you are not alone (or otherwise) and also the Check-out instructions - great for both hosts and guests (we are fairly frequent travellers too)..
i suppose sort of related to the compare listings I would be interested to know if you will be bringing back the 'dates guests are looking for' that used to be on the platform many years ago. Its helpful for knowing future popular dates and a bit of a heads-up that a booking may come in for those dates. Hope that makes sense..
Thanks for the opportunity to comment on features and for listening 😁
My host club’s favourite feature of the new release was “read receipts” too, and also being able to compare local booked nights prices. Some hosts are reluctant to change to the new upgrades until they have no choice, because they are still confused and upset about the categories, and think things might get even worse.
Many hosts are not in the categories they should be (myself included), and tbh the AI doesn’t seem to work.
I was put in the right categories after appealing to CS, but a few weeks later they have gone, disappeared!
Personally however this hasn’t affected my bookings, so I’m going to just chill out about categories, and do my best to reassure the hosts in my club that actually, it probably isn’t categories that has affected bookings.
Thank you so much for putting forth the feedback from your Host Clubs and I guess everyone agrees that Read Receipts and Similar Listing tools are topping the charts. 🎉
Appreciate you sharing the concerns about categories. We will make sure to pass it onto the appropriate teams. And really glad to know that it has not affected your bookings. For many best things to come🎉.
