Airbnb Summer Release = New Coke

[Suzanne302]

Anyone old enough to remember the "New Coke" fiasco?

Around 1985 Coca-Cola was losing sales and decided to rebrand under a new formula called "New Coke."

It was a complete marketing failure and after 3 months they brought back the original formula and called it "Coca Cola Classic."

Is there hope we might get an "Airbnb Classic"??!!

[Suzanne302]

@Mike-And-Jane0 

That's certainly some sorcery because it doesn't allow me to pick future dates!

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Suzanne302 How weird. Do you use professional tools? 

[Suzanne302]

@Mike-And-Jane0 

No, but here's some more sorcery! I just turned them on and when I use professional tools, it tells me my listing has hundreds of views on certain days! Without professional tools, the views graph showed views of 10-15 per day. I don't get it.

[Huma0]

@Mike-And-Jane0 

So, I selected the date range 17 May-15 August. The graph then automatically compares that to the 14 February-16 May. Views are still down dramatically, i.e. by 3488.

It doesn't seem to matter which way I look at it, my views (and bookings) have more or less stopped since the Summer Release.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Huma0 If you are booked for 17 May to 15 Aug then the views could be well down. 

This is all too difficult to sort out. Lets just hope that if Airbnb's revenues are tanking then they will come up with a solution.

[Huma0]

@Mike-And-Jane0 

I'm convinced the views have nothing to do with the availability of the rooms. My rooms are almost always booked out two months in advance, sometimes a lot more, because I host long term guests. Of course, you are going to get less views than if you have a room available sooner, but that would only happen when I got a last minute cancellation.

I always got enough views and bookings before regardless of the rooms not being available for a couple of months. For example, one of my rooms is currently booked until mid August It has received 163 views in the past month, but this figure drops every time I check it. In the month prior to the summer release, that room received over 2,100 views in the month prior to the Summer Release, despite the fact that it was already booked until late July, i.e. further out than it is now.

Nothing has actually changed in terms of the availability of my listings, other than they are not booked out as far ahead as they would normally be because the bookings have completely stopped since the Summer release. The views for all three rooms dropped dramatically just after the Summer Release. Numerous hosts have reported the exact same thing here on the CC. Some of them are getting bookings via other channels, just not Airbnb.  It cannot be a coincidence.

There must be some impact on Airbnb's revenues, but whether they are yet experiencing the sudden drop in bookings that many hosts are is hard to tell. Some listings are hidden, but others are not, so I imagine that some guests are still booking, they just have less to choose from, while others are getting frustrated and looking elsewhere. Of the ones booking, they may be paying higher prices because that's all they are being offered, which might counter some of the lost revenue for Airbnb. 

In the past, Airbnb always seemed to be pushing for more bookings at lower rates, e.g. with Smart Pricing and the ridiculous price tips. Now, they seem to be dong the opposite by showing guests super high end expensive properties and hiding a lot of the affordable ones.

[Gillian166]

@Suzanne302  oh I do remember the New Coke! didn't they also mess with Diet Coke in some way? I remember when FB would do updates and people would go crazy, they gave us the option to have it display the "classic" way. Adobe does this too, they offer "legacy" tools and views for people who don't need to waste time re-learning where everything is else whenever they do a "new and improved!" upgrade.

[John5097]

@Suzanne302 
Great comparison! Although  I'm not confident this will change.

They are also prioritizing listings with available week long stays, by defaulting to Any Week. But my area has an average of 3 days stays. Most guest are looking for an alternative to a hotel room. We get 10 million visitors a year. The guest are very busy all day, and want a super clean comfortable space, comfy bed, place to have coffee,  good value, very convenient booking, check in, and check out. A nice view is a plus, as well as kitchenette.  

So to keep pushing for week long stays, a stove, with the default to Any Week,  really adds to the cleaning cost that  have gone way up. So essentially Airbnb is prioritizing more expensive listings that don't fit the need of most travelers. They will simply opt for the better value of the hotel especially if the bed isn't comfortable or wasn't as clean. 

That's what I'm seeing is more expensive listings that didn't book in advance. So guest now need to go up in rates so they don't book too far in advance and also list on other platforms, as page views have dropped in half. 

Its hard to know what's going on but the travel industry is doing so well this summer its seems very likely that Airbnb is also doing well. Some listings that don't fit the extended stay, more expensive will simply need to adjust and rely on other platforms. 

[John5097]

Also, when they search for an area, for example, and have 3-4 day trip in mind, and are shown listings hundreds of miles away, far out of their price range, for a week long stay, many will think something is wrong with the website, its been hacked, and its the host that will charge them for a stay they didn't specify. 

[Mark116]

The thing is, searching for an Airbnb should not take Sherlock Holmes level detective skills and and a Mensa IQ.  You shouldn't have to continually manipulate various filters, dates, maps to find the listings in a given area at a given date range.  This is insane.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

ABB should consider a new category soon - EU homes with heating and warm water

[Doug690]

So I see I am not the only one who's bookings have dropped. 

[Fred13]

Never been to that page, till now; talking about a roller coaster:

[Nam1053]

Make simple to complicated and unuseful. Very airbnb.

- Tab today

- Airbnb Summer Release
Many things useful but not update:

- Common payment method in countries (money transfer via account, payment via fintech wallet etc...),
- Attach image or video on review,
- Remove your wrong review by yourself without contact airbnb support ...,
- Customer loyalty system tick point

- Revenue detail on Application

- etc ....

[Fred13]

What makes this whole new angle exceptionally silly, is that now the default is a week (choices are also weekend & month) BUT when you use any of those filters you can get to the regular page where you can look at a place's calendar and choose from there. A smart filter would have been 'All' and bypass any & all existing filters to be able to get OUT of the new quagmire. Sometimes Airbnb is frightenedly foolish.