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!

---

👉 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.

[Fred13]

@Catherine-Powell  . Love the update, the Host Passport and 'Guest-Seen-the-Message' features  foremost. Maybe someday a PC desktop web version will also undergo such a great update.

<a wave from Belize>

[Larry339]

As a host and moderator od the Kitchener and Area Community group our members really appreciated the email reply notification and the new pricing tool. Thanks for the updates!

[Sheila609]

Thanks for your feedback @Larry339 , it is much appreciated! I wonder who here has noticed the "read receipts" feature on their messages? (I see @Fred13  has!!)

[Stephanie]

So great to see you on the Community Center again @Larry339 🙂 And thrilled to hear you're now a Community Leader working with my colleague, Sheila. 😁

[Mariann4]

Hello @Catherine-Powell 
I was asked personally to contribute since it had been a while since I posted in CC.
This is me contributing.

I like that hosts can be able to make check-out lists to make sure their places are being well taken care of. It should not be nessescary though since the Airbnb ToS are very clear on how a place is to be left by guests: the same way they found it.

But OK. There have been complaints. Airbnb try to fix it. It's a decent fix.

Then Airbnb goes out with this statement. If hosts gets low score on their check-out list the host will be taken off Airbnb! We are talking about lists that will be shown BEFORE asking to book. Before confirmation of booking. Guest can choose not to book a place with such a list.
Does this stop the guest from booking? No... They book. Then they complain AFTER their stay that they didn't like the chores list. Low rating given. Host, transparent up front about expactations, is kicked off platform.

How is Airbnb making sure this will not happen to hosts? We already see hosts being closed down after trying to stop guests from throwing a party or breaking houserules, when Airbnb themselves are then ones who claim that parties are forbidden on Airbnb. They close the host down for following the rules. The guest walks free, into another home, trashes it and closes down another host. Can we trust that this chores list and review of such will actually benefit hosts?

Another thing about the chores. It's a long tradition in Scandinavian countries for guests to clean the entire place after their stay. It gives a chance of borrowing a place at an affordable rate. This is our culture. Being shut down because guests don't like this is an attack on our culture. And Airbnb is so adament on protecting different cultures that they really need to treat this with caution.
Does Airbnb have this in mind when they train their staff on how to treat complaints towards the chores lists? Are they aware that they operate in different parts of the world with different behavioural expectations?

As for passports. They should also be for guests. Especially for homesharing hosts and hosts who rent their homes on occasion. Ideally profile picture AND full name should be available before confirming a booking. I do understand that it might be a problem in some parts of the world. But inviting complete strangers into our homes calls for every possible chance to vet guests up front. We know CS is not very helpful helping hosts after accepting a booking that turns out to be unsafe after information is given.

The search function has yet to be fixed. It still has "any week" as default. Or any month or weekend. Many only search for area, which could be done before, and that leaves hosts like me (with a max of 5 nights and typically one night stays) out of the search result. We become invisible.

Airbnb should also bring back deposits. We provide our most valuable property. Our houses, cabins, appartments. We need safety. AirCover is flawed. People are asked by CS to change 20 centimetres of their countertops when a full replacement is needed after it's damages by guests. Or a few planks of their parquet floors after waterdamage. This is not possible. Please, bring back deposits.

And to finish off: ** All of the above is written with meaningfullnes and constructiveness in mind. Sometimes constructiveness is painful.
Also keep in mind that English is not my first language, so please give me the benefit of the doubt if something is easy to misunderstand.

I'm not going to comment further on my own post. This is my constructive contribution.

Best wishes from the beautiful city of Bergen

Mariann 🙂

**[Content removed inline with the Q&A Guidelines-  Please read the shared guidelines in the above Post by clicking on Read more]

Statement from Airbnb

[Mariann4]

TOS went missing in posting

[Marney0]

Hi Catherine 

I have new Rooms listing, I got 17 bookings in 2 weeks, since the change in wording I haven’t had a booking, not one! 

[Jenny]

Hi @Marney0 

Do you have any specific questions about the May release?

If you're looking to discuss the Rooms update, I recommend heading here to the dedicated thread, where you're welcome to get involved in the discussion.

Jenny 🙂

[Daniel1651]

Hi, it's me again! 🙂

The listing comparison tool is very interesting to see the prices of sold nights and especially, the price of similar listings that are still on the market for a range of specific dates.

Can Airbnb tell us a little more about what criteria the system takes into account to provide us with that information? Thanks!

Daniel.-

[Bhumika]

Hi @Daniel1651 , Thank you so much for contributing to this Q&A session!

We got some really interesting questions from you and appreciate the holistic approach to your questions. 

[Felicity11]

Hi @Catherine-Powell 

Welcome to the world of hosting and I am so happy to hear you are enjoying being a host! 

Thank you for listening to our feedback and for the new host updates.  

I am very excited about the ability to check my prices against similar listings in my area, and being able to see the read receipts and many of the other new features.  Many hosts here are also excited to have these new features.

Brians video was a great way to introduce us to the new features in the May release.

Like many hosts on the platform I am not tech savvy and at times I struggle to work  out how to make the most of these new functions. Will Airbnb be releasing any easy to follow videos or articles that  show step by step how hosts can set up and use these new features to their best advantage?

Many thanks from Sydney Australia.

Felicity  

[Fahrettin3]

Sevgili Saadet,

Sormuş olduğunuz soruya ben de destek veriyorum.

Yazılı talimatlar bence çok kullanışlı değil.

Bunlar videolu talimatlar olursa, daha yararlı olur.

Türkiye'den selamlar.

Sevgiyle kalın. 

Fahrettin

[Bhumika]

Hi @Felicity11 @Fahrettin3 ,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts about guides and tutorials.

It is indeed a nice suggestion and I am glad you asked. I wanted to share that we are planning to work toward it!

[Jay2060]

Hi Catherine, congrats on your experience hosting.  I have been a Superhost on the platform for 7 years, and I have decided to quit hosting after my experience with Support in the last ten days.  I have spoken to 52 support reps across 24 call centers, have 18 open and closed tickets, and even emailed you directly for lack of options.  I have yet to get any answers and realized that hosts are not valued, and in the event of any serious issue with our property or injury to our guests, we are alone.

The new release hosting tools are cool, but I am afraid Airbnb has lost its most important tool, its once great support network.  As a host, traveler, and investor of Airbnb, I am passionate about the company and greatly alarmed at the backend issues I have been seeing as the company has been growing.  The support system is disjointed, resolution and safety teams are unable to communicate directly, and support tickets are passed around like baseball cards with no accountability.  

I have provided feedback and will share my shocking ordeal on Reddit as well as this forum, but I pray a decision maker can study my experience and fix the broken support system before more good hosts will also give up and leave the platform knowing there is no support system.   The hosts work hard to open our homes to guests with faith that we are protected with AirCover and 24 hr support network.  But when a safety rep calls me racist for asking if he knew the definition of felony (pertinent for someone in safety team), or five support reps do not know what an eviction order is, the system is truly broken.  

I apologize for bringing up my personal experiences here when discussing the summer release, but I truly feel this matter deserves your attention as the hosting tools are secondary to the main tool us hosts rely on - a strong support system from Airbnb to maintain faith for us to keep the doors open to our guests.

Thank you, and I hope this message reaches you.

[Bhumika]

Hi @Jay2060 ,

Thank you for sharing your feedback about the new Hosting tools.

On a side note, I am really sorry to hear about your experience. Also please note that this Q&A session was meant for asking questions about recent releases and that you can always share your feedback for the Airbnb Team through our Feedback Form as well.

Although the team seems to have been in touch with you regarding it, I will go ahead and relay your concerns to them as well. Please feel free to read more about Aircover and related policies here.

[Karen114]

Loving the read receipt.  It's good to get a gauge on whether guest has app and is using it to receive vital communications.

 Haven't been able to access the price comparison tools and I am channel integrated with OwnerRez so that is probably why.

Love the check out list for guests on the app.  Not a fan of being penalized if the guest complains after the fact about the check out instructions.  With all the noise on the chores subject, I would think a host with an arduous check out list will not be booked and that should serve as the lesson to the host.    No need to create  one more  way to get punished on the platform  because of your check out instructions that were available prior to booking. 

The host passport is wonderful for shared spaces and I think this should be brought across the board for all hosts and all guests.  At the end of the day, we are all perfect strangers transacting over the internet. This guest passport would bring a lot more comfort to hosts as they have a lot to lose if hosting to the wrong guest.  I am in many Airbnb forums and daily there is a post about a guest not having any reviews or info and the host moves to cancel out of fear of the unknown. 

More transparency for hosts and guests will facilitate the sense of community that Airbnb is trying to achieve. Now it's a bit of a roll of the dice.

[Bhumika]

Hi @Karen114 , Thank you for sharing your thoughts about the recent releases. Really appreciate it.

[Bhumika]

Hi everyone, 

Thank you so much for participating in the Q&A session about the May Release. As we conclude this session, I would like to appreciate all of you for putting forth your feedback and questions. 

We have made sure to collect all questions and feedback for the team. Bear in mind that the Q&A session was put together for all Community Center languages, which means we have a lot of really great questions coming from all over the world!

Due to the volume of feedback received, we will be selecting top queries for Catherine to address. The criteria for selecting questions will be based on their popularity and relevance to the Host Community and May Release.

Bear with us while we coordinate the next steps. Catherine herself will write back your top questions here in the Community Center by the end of this month. 

We hope you’re as excited as we are about this Q&A. 

Thank you again for your participation and support. 

Bhumika