Dear Brian Chesky,
So the very same day that you release your message to hosts, AirBnB cancels another three bookings at our properties, and despite your promise to give 25% to hosts, AirBnB has told us we will in fact get nothing at all.
This is because AirBnB’s much publicised 25% refund policy does not apply to bookings after May 31st 2020 and all the bookings cancelled yesterday were for June 2020.
So in less than 24 hours we have already discovered the massive difference between your words, and harsh reality. After May 31st AirBnB gives no support to hosts whatsoever, and is continuing its inequitable policy of giving 100% refunds to guests.
For those hosts that have not yet listened to your message here it is
https://www.airbnb.com/d/host-message
I think I need to explain to hosts what is actually going on here, as right now Brian your actions do not suggest that you really care about Host welfare at all and your talk of “being a partner” with hosts, is a bit like a hungry cat suggesting to a bunch of mice they come by for dinner some time.
Firstly back when this all began, you and AirBnB glibly announced yet again that they were going to use their hated and inequitable “Extenuating Circumstances” policy to ignore and over-ride any agreed cancellation policy and give 100% refunds to any and all guests (and so 0% to hosts), even if there were no actual travel restrictions in place, and guests were already in the location of the property.
This announcement was made for one reason, and one reason only, which was that AirBnB wanted to ingratiate itself to guests, so they would book again through AirBnB.
Brian you and your AirBnB underlings try and portray this action as being done for “Public Health Reasons” but that is total nonsense.
Yes by all means cancel bookings to prevent travel, that is for “Public Health Reasons”, but how AirBnB then decides to allocate the value of that booking between the host and the guest is a commercial decision – and by allocating it 100% to guests and 0% to hosts, you and AirBnB showed your total disrespect and lack of empathy for hosts and the entire hosting community.
Under normal circumstances, AirBnB gets away with destroying the rights and livelihoods of hosts using its despised Extenuating Circumstances policy as only a small section of hosts is affected, but this time it miscalculated.
This time AirBnB was destroying the rights and livelihoods of every single AirBnB host worldwide. And the reaction was immediate, with thousands of messages, petitions and threats of legal action. It was made worse when competitors like VRBO/Homeaway said they would honour cancellation policies agreed between hosts and guests and respect both hosts and guests and expect them to agree themselves to a fair allocation.
So AirBnB hosts started cancelling their AirBnB accounts, and switching to VRBO, Homeaway, TripAdvisor and other OTAs. It was this action, and not “listening to hosts” that finally got your and AirBnB’s attention, as this impacted the one thing that you really care about – AirBnB’s profits.
Brian you know that without hosts AirBnB’s business is toast. And so you also knew you had to take action, and decided to throw a bone to the starving host community to try and head off the rapidly building boycott of AirBnB.
So you promised to give 25% of the value to hosts of bookings cancelled due to COVID-19. But, there is the catch, it is capped at USD 250 million, and only for bookings up until May 31st 2020.
This sounds impressive until hosts realise that there are 650,000 AirBnB hosts, and so this works out at an average of less than USD 400 per host.
Also AirBnB is a USD 38 billion company, and you Brian are worth more than USD 4.2 billion, so in fact your supposedly generous pledge is just 0.65% of AirBnB’s value (or less than 6% of your own personal net worth).
What is more AirBnB is giving zero assistance to hosts for cancellations from 1st June 2020 onwards. It also does not overturn the basic injustice that guests get 100% refunds and hosts get nothing at all, despite this being a natural disaster that affects everyone equally, and hosts still have to cover the substantial costs of their properties and the staff at their properties.
Brian, your announcement while welcome, and appreciated, sadly has turned out to be little more than a sticking plaster placed on a now gaping wound, that is only going to get worse in months to come.
I am not going to go into the other measures you offered, as they only apply to very small subgroups within the AirBnB host community (superhosts with mortgages or rent payments and certain specific US based hosts).
Look Brian, somewhere deep inside AirBnB and inside you I hope you realise there is a chance here for you to make AirBnB a better company, one that hosts could genuinely partner with.
So I also want to provide some constructive proposals that will actually enable that to happen, as you are clearly struggling to do so.
Brian, this is all you need to do:
- Immediately extend the 25% payment to hosts to cover all COVID-19 related cancellations, both now and in the future. Cap it by making clear (which you have already) that it does not apply to bookings made after 14th March 2020. That caps AirBnB’s liability, and ensures hosts still get something to cover their costs and pay their staff.
- Give guests the option to donate part of their 100% refund back to the host, to help the host to cover their costs. Set this up in the cancellation process, so guests can choose to “refund” a percentage in exactly the same way that a host can refund part of a cancellation to guests. Treat hosts and guests equally. Do not introduce a separate voluntary system - that is a waste of time.
- Respect the cancellation policy and scrap Extenuating Circumstances. The cancellation policy was agreed to by both the host and the guest – why override that and force 100% refunds to guests and leave hosts with nothing in the event of a natural disaster that affects everyone? You state in your speech several times that you will honour the cancellation policy for future bookings – so just do it! Announce the end of this awful & unfair policy.
- Provide optional travel insurance on your site for guests and stop making hosts provide it for free and with no say whatsoever through AirBnB’s Extenuating Circumstances policy. That is inquitable and unfair on hosts and makes AirBnB look like a tone deaf bully (which it absolutely is).
- Give hosts the right to refuse bookings from guests if they do not have travel insurance. If Extenuating Circumstances is scrapped, this becomes less of an issue, but there will still be hosts that want this.
- Provide business interruption insurance on your site for hosts. Our biggest business interruption risk - by far - is AirBnB itself. If you want AirBnB to genuinely be a partner to hosts, then AirBnB has to stop destroying hosts business. It really is that simple.
Brian, most of these measures cost very little, and some may actually result in new streams of revenue for AirBnB. Many outside of AirBnB would just view them as common sense.
If you really want AirBnB to be a “partner” with hosts, then you have a historic chance here to right the injustices of the past, and build a real relationship with hosts based on respect and fairness and equality with guests.
Come on Brian – you can do it!