Safari v Chrome

[Laura2327]

Hi All!

We are 3+ year super hosts who have been highly successful renting out our 5 bedroom home on 22 acres with Mountain View’s. 

We have not had one request since April for a booking - which is HIGHLY unusual. We are currently booked through September, but would normally be getting winter bookings for skiing etc… but have just heard crickets. 

I had a friend of mine search for our home on the Airbnb website, gave her available dates etc… and she couldn't find our listing anywhere - even when she put in the exact wording of our home. 

I called the support center and was told there are people looking but not booking, even though there is a 47% increase over last years searches in our town. 

Ultimately, I was told that people who use Safari don’t have as much success looking for houses as chrome users. I was flabbergasted! I asked to speak to a supervisor to get more info on this, to no avail. 

So I am asking you all - have you ever heard of such a thing? Are any of you having the same problem and what have you done to help the situation? Change to evolve or Vacasa, VRBO or Home Away? 

I could really use your wisdom! Thank you!!

Laura

[Emiel1]

@Laura2327 

Your listings are in the search system:

https://www.airbnb.com/s/homes?host_id=1106926&map_toggle=true

(maybe zoom in some more on the map when searching)

[Laura2327]

Did you use Safari or chrome to look up our home?

[Emiel1]

@Laura2327 

Firefox.

[Derek6]

FYI here are the 2023 stats on browser use on PCs

Google Chrome	77.03%
Safari	8.87%
Mozilla Firefox	7.69%

...hence the priority list for making sure those platforms are debugged quickly. 

However, the U.S. marketshare in the operating systems for phones is about 55% iphone Vs. 45% Android

I'm not sure what percentage of reservation searches/bookings occur on PCs Vs phones but I would imagine the phone usage is only increasing over time...thus compatibility with Apple OS PCs/phones is likely to become a growing priority for AirBnBs tech staff...hopefully. 

[Derek6]

I have noticed a fair amount of bugs with regard to both Safari and the iphone app...it's not just you.

My sample size of one isn't enough to draw any conclusions but it certainly makes me wonder.

My suspicion is that AirBnB prioritizes debugging on the platforms that are used the most, which are still currently Android/Google.  The problems usually do get fixed for Safari/iphone but it takes longer for them to get around to it. 

While I understand the workflow prioritization, I wonder if AirBnB are doing a deep enough dive to understand what percentage of their/our income is being derived from people using apple products vs google/pc.  It doesn't matter if more people are searching on Google Chrome if more people who search with Safari are actually booking and/or booking at a higher price point.

I have to wonder whether AirBnB are debugging the search engines for the "window shoppers" faster than the customers who actually book reservations regularly.  

Unfortunately we will never get to see that data.