May Release: Q&A with Catherine Powell

[Catherine-Powell]

Hi everyone,

I am so excited to connect with all of you today.

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 before the 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.

Read more

• 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.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Catherine-Powell Gorgeous listing. Good to see you are resisting the Airbnb suggestions of. flexible cancellation policy and taking pets. I hope it doesn't damage your search placement too much.

[Brux0]

Hey Catherine,

it was great meeting you in Rio.  The Rio de Janeiro community was very happy to know you were here and meet with host from our community.  The May 3 launch, so far, had a great positive response.  It is so great that all our feedback is being listened and implemented.  

Some feedback i can give you to further improve the tools are:

1) READ BY THE GUEST

this is a great feature that has been asked for many years and everyone is loving it.  Great Job.  This is a great improvement in the previous system.

Currently the tag "read by xxxx" shows below the text you have written.  If you write another text the tag disappear from the previous text and appear below to the last text.   This means that the tag "read by xxx" will just show on the last text written. In the previous text there will be no tags "read by xxx" nor time stamps on when it was read.

The current message system, show on the side of the senders name (guest or host) a time stamp when the message it was sent.  I think a further improvement to the tag "read by xxx" could be showing a time stamp of when it was read in the same way is show when you write the messages. Adding a time stamp in each "read message" will give a context of when the message was read, than in a long reservation will be essential for example in resolutions.  One thing is knowing the guest / host read the message 5 minutes after you sent it, another thing is knowing it just read 5 days later.  

2) CUSTOM PROMOTION

It is great to be able to access the promotion in the app, and create new one.  The best improvement of the may launch with promotion is that now we see the final price of the promotion in the calendar.  Before we would just see the original price and an indicator that there is a promotion.  But was very difficult to really know the price of that day.  This is simply great.

I am sure you guys are working on it, but in the multicalendar still does not appear the final price after promotion, but still appear the original price with a green dot showing there is a promotion.

Another thing that I have noticed (and many members of the community contacted me about it) is that it was taken away the "edit promotion" button.  This was a very useful tool to further give discounts in case of no bookings.  You can still give it by removing the promotion and create a new promotion at a higher percentage discount, but it is not easy as it was before where you would simply click on "edit promotion" slide the percentage bar further and save.

3) CALENDAR

As I stated above the improvement of the calendar is amazing by being able to manage different setting by clicking on tools.  Thanks for the great job.

One thing I immediately missed, is the rules set drop down menu that was removed.  That was a great tool to be able to change or see in the regular calendar the rules set I have created and applied in the multicalendar.  Many host who used the professional tools (not necessarily professional hosts) contacted me about this.  People who have more than one property, usually activate the multicalendar and create rules set either for minimum days or for discounts etc.....  Being able to see and manage the rules sets via normal calendar and app calendar, has been a request for long time, and it was included in the online calendar with great success.  But was removed.   That would be a great feature to include again in the normal calendar and in the app calendar.  Today a guest contacted me asking if I would accept a 4 night reservations (I have a rule set with minimum 5 nights).  On my phone I cannot change the rule anymore.  Just on the desktop and on the multicalendar. 

I haven't fully tested all the new tools, and will give further feedback along the way, but I can assure you it was a success in the community, and even "those hosts" the always had something negative about anything, are really loving it and posting great comments about the launch. 

warmly

brunello

[Bhumika]

Hi @Brux0 ,

Thank you so much for sharing your feedback.

The suggestions along with your feedback definitely make sense, especially the ones that you mentioned about read messages. 

While I make sure to pass it on to our team, you may also like to send this feedback to Airbnb directly as well. You can do this for all Airbnb 2023 Summer Release features by going to Early Access in your Hosting menu.

[Tara44]

Thank you Catherine for asking and always listening!

First, what I've heard from my hosts and second my observations.  They do love the read receipt and initially felt the check out instructions were great yet someone posted about getting rated for this feature and it all changed...they are concerned they will receive low ratings because Big Bear (bears!) mandates guests drop their trash off.  And there is some confusion how this rating will be applied since some guests don't use the app and this is app only.  I was told CS is aware of communities that impose these kind of mandates and therefore assume this has been worked into this feature but just checking.

My observations are very similar to what Brunello mentions regarding the Calendar and specifically Custom Promotions and Rule Sets.  I will preface these comments by saying I use the "regular/desktop" monthly calendar to edit pricing, the booking window in Big Bear fits well with one month at a time and it's best to view that entire window at once, edit as required.  And, ideally I would love to see all discounts, rules visually all in one place otherwise it requires clicking on dates and moving from calendar to calendar.

1)  Agree, populating the calendar with the actual Promotion pricing is a great change!  Yet not being able to edit the Promotion is a step back.

2)  Rule sets...first, it would be great if the Rule set name populated the calendar, or the color as it does on the multi-calendar.  A visual look at the calendar (no matter which calendar) should communicate all pricing, amount, discounts which involve both Promotions and Rule Sets.  Rule sets are very useful for holiday 3 night minimum weekends or larger discounts between bookings.  I love them.

3)  Not being able to edit the Rule sets within this calendar view is a big step back for me.  It means I now need to flip back and forth between screens yet the biggest issue is not viewing a complete picture of pricing.  For Promotion viewing I need the regular/monthly Calendar for Rule sets I need the multi-calendar.  All in one would be best.

Love the idea of Guest Passports!  I do believe it would increase the likelihood of guest acceptance. I love it when a guest that has no reviews yet shares a bit about themselves via their profile!  I'm already half way there.  

I haven't tried everything out quite yet but many of the others look very helpful.

Thanks again, Tara

[Bhumika]

Hi @Tara44 ,

Thank you for sharing some really detailed and thought-provoking feedback here! 

Do let us know how you are getting along with other upgrades once you have tried most of them.

Looking forward to hearing more of your feedback and ideas.😍

[James2743]

Hi

I have signed up to the Early access system so I could have a look and give feedback on the compare similar listings feature.

However the 'swipe to select dates' and 'compare similar listings' is not working for me. I have provided my device information to the feedback team but have not had a response yet.

I do wonder if it is also because I use a channel manager to run my listing.

Can you let me know if this functionality is lost if you use a channel manager and if it isn't when will the bug be repaired?

Thanks

James

[Bhumika]

Hi @James2743, 

I will once again get in touch with the technical team for further advice regarding this issue. Will surely keep you posted, in case I hear back. 

Thanks for letting us know about you using a channel manager to run your listing. This will help us to relay the relevant information to the tech team.

[Bhumika]

Hi @James2743 , Let us connect via DM for further contact.

[Brux0]

Hey @James2743 , I had the same experience of yours, then I noticed that in order to swipe I need to press more.  Maybe that could be the case

[James2743]

Unfortunately not.

[Charlotte40]

me too James!  and snap - I just asked a similar question before reading yours 😉 

[Cheryl413]

I am new to Airbnb and the Community.  Where do I find this actual May Release to read about the updates? I have been searching but not finding.

[Bhumika]

Hi @Cheryl413!

You may find more information about these May releases in this link: 25 upgrades for Hosts, from the calendar to checkout.

Do let us know, if you have any feedback about these updates or if you happen to try out the early access. We are excited to hear from you!

[Cha5]

Can we have the “Reservation payouts” and “the Pass through tot” payouts for one guest be payout into one and the same bank account?

When Airbnb pays out for one booking into two different banks account it very hard .to reconcile the accounts

Especially when I have 4 listings with 4 difference bank accounts!

Thanks 

cha

[Bhumika]

Hi @Cha5 ,

Thank you so much for sharing your suggestion with us!  You may also want to share this feedback with the Airbnb Team via the Feedback Form. 

On a side note, as this Q&A is specifically related to questions about the latest May 3 release, did you happen to explore the new upgrades?

Do let us know if you have enrolled for the early access features and have any feedback or ideas for us!

[Daniel1651]

Here again, dear @Catherine-Powell , greetings from Tenerife!

The new month search tool is very intuitive and makes it easy to find accommodation by month.

That being said, from the perspective of hosts, there is some concern in the case of having one or two reservations per year for monthly stays.

Why?

Because in many cases it would mean the loss of Superhost status due to the program requirements say that you must have 10 reservations or a minimum of 100 nights (spread over "3" reservations).

Do you think there could be exceptions in the future to this rule for those hosts who provide exemplary hospitality even if the number of bookings requirements are not met?

Thanks!

New feature to select monthly stays?

Could it affect our Superhost status if we "just" receive 2 monthly bookings along the year (more than 100 nights but less than 3 bookings)

[Christine615]

Agreed. I’ve been a consistent super host but temporarily lost it after hosting four international guests from the Ukraine for a year after they extended their reservation in 6-week increments. 

Superhost should count cumulative activity and ratings over the span of hosting. Not based on volume.

[Bhumika]

Hi @Daniel1651 @Christine615 ,

Thanks for letting us know that you find the New Month search tool intuitive and easy to use.

Also, I appreciate you for putting forth your suggestions related to the Superhost criterion and we will make sure to pass it on to the team.

Having said that, I wanted to ensure that we are following the Q&A guidelines as mentioned in the post, and are asking relevant questions to the May release. 

[Sabrina-And-John0]

I feel that to be a Superhost for 60-70 different groups of guests in a year (our average number of bookings/year with an average of 4 nights/booking) is much harder (and a lot more work) than being an excellent host to a handful.  A lot more engagement is needed to be sure they are happy  and comfortable and have everything they need.

[Christine615]

Thanks @Catherine-Powell 

A host passport is a great idea. I've always had a bio on my listing that explains who I am.

A guest passport should be MANDATORY before they can book a private room. I'm mystified at why Airbnb continues to ask more from its host while controlling the flow of information and then, in return, asking hosts to assume the safety risks.

Guests who don't want to provide that information would be a red flag.

Let's go back to our roots. - Airbnb is about connecting people. Watch how much revenue that will generate when it is more an "ambassador program" than an "anonymous and cheap" motel equivalent platform. I connected with and am now friends with a number of my past guests.

Here's my interview in the KC Business Journal making the same point.

https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2023/04/28/airbnb-expects-big-revenue-for-kc-area-hosts....

[Bhumika]

Hi @Christine615 , Glad to know that you are loving the Host passport update and thank you for your suggestion about the guest passport.

Did you have a chance to go through the other upgrades? Do let us know if you have any other favourites among these. We look forward to your feedback!