Airbnb Plus

[Angela608]

Just listened to the new updates for Airbnb on their FB Live and feel discouraged as a Host.

I don't have an emaculately designed modern home with features that "WOW" guests. I have a humble space for budget seeking travelers in a very expensive city (San Francisco).

Is Airbnb weeding people out instead of including everyone?

[Maria2799]

We didn't charge more to be Plus, we already feel our pricing is right.  We found no advantage to belonging to Plus and have withdrawn.

[Linda513]

All I could think of was that all of the things that were mentioned should be de ri·gueur ALREADY! Good hosting, niceties are already encouraged by the fact that you get bookings and good ratings. All of those things that were touted as being something "a step above" should just be part and parcel of what we do everyday.  Good customer service from Airbnb shouldn't be a "plus" addition, something that all of a sudden is an added feature, an EXTRA. These are things that a guest should expect to begin with, and they are treating it as if, suddenly, it is something new. Maybe they will have a category way at the bottom for regular places, something like, "original, comfortable, clean, honest, basic but really nice digs, but don't bother to look here". 

[Jiw0]

Don't forget price.  In that segment a lot of guests are filtering on the cheapest possible price, so bare bones places will always be found by those people.  Doesn't require a thousand Categories of Vibeyness either. 😉

[Pete28]

Agree - we have an apt in the basement of main house, and tend to be on the lower end of pricing. The bigger problem I feel will be that the plus opens up questions of quality offered by those who haven't submitted to the 100 point inspection. The bias toward plus in listing results is also worrying - those outside will be lost in a sea of red plus labels..

- It it would also be good to de-couple it from superhost (or 4.8 overall score), since providing a reasonable set of facilities that have been inspected should be open to all as a basic set of standards.

- Haven't seen any discussion on the move to using overall score as qualifying for superhost, not last 3 months. As with many, we don't chase the superhost status - peer review is too random, and fawning over folks paying $60 night is madness. If your score drops, I assume you are kicked out of plus ? The longer you host, the harder it is avoid your avg score going down, as over time you are bound to take a few knocks. 

[Matthew285]

@Angela608, I think the new "Plus" program will be toughest on hosts where there is a flood of new listings to compete with.

In San Francisco, at least, there was the great *reduction* in the number of listings, and the registration requirements should keep the number of hosts down to very reasonable numbers.

You have what looks to be a very nice listing for a very reasonable price. San Francisco continues to have a lot of tourist visitors and not a lot of hotel inventory, so hosts with quality listings (like yourself) should be in a very sustainable situation.

There are way more AirBnB guests coming to San Francisco than the few Plus listings could ever hold, even if they booked up fully. (And they might not; they are kind of expensive.)

You have a lot of happy guests leaving great reviews.

There is nothing to be discouraged about.

You keep doing what you are doing.

AirBnB needs you.

[David126]

The message I took is that AirBnB is now a series of Communities, they were listed in the talk. 

Must be 6 or so. Probably more to come.

[Jiw0]

I think those were just listing types, many of those exist already.  The main goal of all that is to make interesting places easier to find, instead of just an endless list of listings.

I took a screen shot: 

It also gets close to what  hosts have been asking for that there be a separate indication if the place is a professional hotel or bed & breakfast.  I'm thinking that might be what the Bed & breakfast category is for.

The one that baffles me is 'Vacation Home'..   That seems a 'use' more than a particular building type or style.  100% of my guests are vacationing..  You'd think that would make it a Vacation home.

[Rebecca181]

@Jiw0 I live in a 'Vacation Home' area. I hadn't thought about this prior to reading your comment, but I bet that this category will be used often by the property managers in my area. These are 'vacation homes' with no hosts on site, and often are at times leased by the property manager to rent out short term. These property managers post on Airbnb now as of last year (Airbnb has been actively reaching out to property managers everywhere, reportedly, and made 16 policies just for them so they would feel more comfortable listing with them). My situation is a bit different: I am living full-time in an area that is nearly all 'vacation homes'. So I am a 'home' in a 'vacation home' rental area!

[Jiw0]

I see;  there is a separate setting/question for property managers though, when they ask if your hosting on AirBnB is part of a job in the hospitality business.  They ask this after you go to your listings page adn click "Update" to enter information on the new fields.

I kind of like the sound of "Vacation Home", it feels dedicated to a holiday experience. I think I'll use it for my listings.  (Also because the alternative for my listings would be 'townhouse' which sounds a lot less nice. 😉

[Donna240]

I believe a Vacation Home is typically found in resort areas, on the seashore, in the mountains. It is typically not one's primary home, but a 2nd home used to get out of the city. One of the reasons so many listings got the axe in San Francisco is that they were 2nd homes, which no longer qualify as short term rentals. Now we can only rent out our primary residence.

[Amy38]

@Jiw0

And what the heck is “boutique”?

iIn the States, a vacation home would imply it is set up for a beach, lake or hiking group trip.

[Rebecca181]

@David126 Communities - within a hierarchy. Which I think is what is causing the OP to feel less than excited about this latest roll-out. The lower one is on the totem pole, the less valued one might feel. The new home page lay-out is clearly done in a hierarchial fashion.

[Fred13]

   I got the impression the new 'Airbnb Plus' is designed for ~Airbnb~ (not your average Airbnb listing) to compete in the high-end market, to compete directly with the offerings of ~luxury~ hotels, and it will inevitably reflect in the actual prices; which are not necessarily those shown in the examples, which came across way too low (aka romance copy).

   The amount of such available high-end listings will be limited in the first place, since anyone with such articulate places will NOT instinctively want to have their impecable places rented at large anyway, because for starters they do not even have to do so - economically. And the slightest hitch will cause them to leave the program instantly.

   I essence, I didn't really read 'Airbnb Plus' as a goal for hosts to try to achieve at all, but more that certain high-end ~existing~ places with Airbnb already will be placed in a 'special category' by virtue of already being 'there'.

  P.S. And no, my 'funky' island will never qualify anyway, but a neighboring island geared toward the 'rich and boring' and who charges $3500 per couple per day and arrive in a helicopter ($5,000 per trip!) will perfectly.

[Kim87]

I tought about that also. If i had such a spotless, high standard apartment for rent, i would not rent it short term. Why bother ? Maybe it's just another way to put pressure on hosts to renovate, redecorate, invest and overall offer always more - for less. We'll see if Airbnb Plus becomes a standard. I doubt it will, but i'm pretty sure that's what they want us to feel. I'm in one of the city (Montreal) where it will be offered soon. I'll try to monitor this.

[Fred13]

@Kim87It definitely will be interesting to see how this change takes effect. Imagine ~staying~ in one of these places, I would be in 'pins and needles' the whole time. Imagine also one of these hosts filing a claim under Airbnb's infamous 'Host Guarantee'. This new program will probably create some interesting post here, it is a matter of time.