I look at some of this and think - Airbnb makes so many unforced errors in their senior management. Host input about what is happening in real-time is key. I wish the host committee had been put together to weigh in on this. My take on the comments from the news article posted above:
1.".... In its prospectus, the company put an emphasis on building a community around its hosts and guests, positioning that community as a differentiating factor from its competitors. ..."
And yet Airbnb actively encourages multi-unit absentee investors with no ties to the communities they buy properties in (and often without the support of residents). This puts individual hosts at a severe disadvantage. I'm not sure how this builds communities. I have a bulging guest book of memories and private notes. There are non-resident individuals who bought homes in our neighborhood and flouted the law, including one we had to fight at the zoning board because he routinely advertised a single family home as suitable for large groups of up to 20. The reviews on his page confirm this. Our max in the city is 8. So there's "slogans" and there is reality.
2. "... The company will have three classes of stock. Class A stock holders will get one vote per share while class B holders, which include the founders and early investors, will get 20 votes per share. Class H holds no votes and is primarily for long-time hosts...."
Wait! What? So hosts whose inventory is the primary source of revenue for Airbnb are invited to participate with non-voting shares. So we're the fuel, but we can't vote? Are the shares cheaper? And who would we sell them to? Someone else who doesn't want to be a true shareholder? I have never heard of asking someone to buy stock in a company without having a voting share. Even the "Youth" stock we bought in an investment fund when the girls where younger were voting shares. What value is a non-voting share?
3. "....Unusually, the company has a Stakeholder Committee on its board of directors whose mission is to consider interests of “key stakeholders,” including guests, hosts, communities and employees. ..."
Anyone know who is on this "stakeholder committee"? Because honestly, the constantly shifting terms of service doesn't give me confidence there are active mom-and-pop hosts on there.
Honestly - just fix the problems hosts have identified and there wouldn't be a need for suits. And live up to the promises made.
4. ".....In November, the company was hit with a proposed class-action lawsuit by one of its hosts, alleging that the tech company violated its contract with hosts when it enforced the extenuating circumstances policy. .."
The new terms of service are effective January 2021. With a pending class action suit announced, the new TOS says hosts agree to waive the right to participate in a class action or their listings will be terminated. What? How is this helpful to keeping hosts on the platform. Again - fix the unforced errors and the terms that favor Airbnb and guests over hosts. We OWN the inventory. It would only take a more host friendly platform to build a better mousetrap. AIrbnb could be so amazing if it would stop thinking short term and think long term. Hosts are suing because AIrbnb is making the mistakes by retroactively violating the TOS we agreed to or penalizing hosts by making blanket policies to cover the few bad actors they refuse to supervise or kick off the platform. This is not rocket science. (or maybe it is - I dunno - I went to MIT and minored in Economics. These decisions wouldn't hold up at the Sloan School).
5. "....Airbnb endured numerous issues with its hosts this year since enforcing an extenuating circumstances policy in March that overrode hosts’ cancellation policies and claimed to offer full refunds to guests impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Later, Airbnb announced it would establish a $250 million coronavirus relief fund for hosts, returning 25% of what they would have normally received under their cancellation policies, but many hosts who spoke with CNBC complained that they were not receiving the correct amounts or any payments at all...."
Okay - this part kills me. My co-host lives on site. She lost her job. We still allowed cancellations because Airbnb sent emails to host asking them to consider being flexible. So I did. I would have expected the same courtesy. BUT - because Airbnb did not do the cancellation themselves I received a whopping $55. Less than the cost of a Hello Fresh box. It was a joke. I almost sent it back. And there was no invitation for the host grant even though in my industry all the work dried up. You couldn't "apply", you had to be invited.
So I do worry that much of Airbnb's problems are of their own making. I think the employees are deserving of seeing their stock options realized. I think the problems aren't at the lower tiers - they're at the top levels.
Still waiting for the host committee to activate and it needs to be 75% individual owners (should be 100%) who actively manage their listings. That's the backbone of the organization - or at least the part that fuels the touchy feeling sentiment the company sells. Many of the solutions are simple. Require government issued ID's and a matching profile photo (clear face - no animals, no kids, not landscapes) to book Airbnb. Provide full names and telephone numbers at the time of request (not booking). Profile MUST include a paragraph from the guest introducing themselves (the same as hosts are required to submit). Better customer service to provide real-time assistance. Someone who vetts all new listings to make sure they exist. Eliminate the AI bots that censor our inbox communications.
In short - GET OUT OF THE WAY.
