Conscious Travel

[Sabrina1015]

Airbnb has opened the door of many homes for people like me, Digital Nomads and Travelers. It has allowed me the opportunity to experience new cultures, meet new friends, and immerse myself within a community. However, as I continue to travel I start to understand my impact, our impact, on the local community and those I now get to call my friends.

Tourism is slowly starting to pick up again, and as remote working makes traveling more accessible, less known destination are being “discovered.” Those with enough resources are eager to make new property investing, while ignoring their impact on the local community. 

It’s impossible to not fall in love with the pristine water and the warm smiles of the locals, but as foreigners continue to buy property, and people like me continue to create a demand for modern, high-end accommodations, we continue to push the very people who made us fall in love with these towns in the first place. It’s my job, and your job Airbnb, to start making more conscious choices and decide which role we want to play in this issue. So here are my suggestions: 

For the Conscious Traveler:

1. Create a unique badge/filter for properties owned by locals, that way users like me can easily find those listing and directly contribute to the local economy
2. Offer an option to donate to a local organization while completing booking 

For the Local Host:

1. Offer discounted fees for locals to list their property
2. Show listings hosted by locals higher up the result page 

For the Conscious Host:

1. Offer incentives and discounts for those who are making clear efforts in creating a positive impact in the local community and the environment. 
2. Create a visual system to clearly illustrate the ways a host is contributing to the local community and the environment (i.e. partnering with local organization, allowing a certain number of units to be rented by locals at a reasonable price, energy saving efforts, etc). 

These can be some small changes in the right direction, but I believe Airbnb has the opportunity to use their platform to continue to lead the travel industry towards a more conscious and sustainable future.

Sabri

[Annie1372]

Allô @Sabrina1015 

great thinking, I enjoyed reading your many ideas.

i hoped you share them in other blog too.

[Sarah977]

@Sabrina1015  I like your attitude. One thing you should realize, though, is that hosts offering discounts is asking a bit much for many of the exact type of listings you are talking about wanting to book.

For instance, I have a private room/private bath listing for solo travelers. Guests share my kitchen and outdoor spaces. I have had wonderful, interesting guests from all over the world and it has been an enriching experience both for me and my guests. I still keep in touch with some of them.

I often walk around town with them, pointing out things of interest, good places to eat and shop. I've taken them to beaches they would never know about as a tourist and that they wouldn't be able to get to without a car. They get insights from a local- it isn't some faceless, self-check in, investor owned rental. It's my home.

Most of my guests are environmentally and socially aware people, as I am. I've been pleasantly surprised that many ask if I have a compost pail before I have a chance to point it out to them. They don't throw their plastic bottles (and most carry reusable water bottles) in the garbage, they put them in the recycling bin. They understand when I explain that water doesn't gush out of the water lines here 24/7- The city sends water for a few hours a day which fills my tanks. It can't get wasted by taking 45 minute showers, or leaving the water running while brushing your teeth or flushing the toilet just because you threw your nose blowing tissue in it. There's plenty of water for me and my guests if we respect that it's not a resource to waste. 

One guest took 2 rescue dogs back to Oregon with her to their new adoptive owners, which is arranged through a local animal rescue facility. Another guest lives on the other side of Mexico from me and told me she feeds all the stray cats in her town- she has taken that on as her personal mission. 

Another guest came all the way from Prague to take a special course at a local retreat center. The retreat provided food and lodging, but she booked my place for a few days before that to explore the area. I took her to a beach out of town, where 2 of my gal pals joined us, then we all went for dinner. My guest said she had a fabulous time and after she had finished her week-long retreat she called me and asked if maybe we 4 could all get together for lunch before she had to leave for the airport, which we did. 

I charge a budget price for my listing to keep it affordable for the type of guests who are a good fit for me and my place. It is priced taking into account the expenses involved in hosting, my time spent cleaning and communicating pre-arrival with guests, and the profit that makes it worthwhile to do this, which is really peanuts- I make far more money with my upholstery business.  If I offered discounts, it wouldn't be worth my while to host at all and guests like you wouldn't be able to find places like this to stay.

Yes, please pressure Airbnb to separate local owner-run listings from property-managed, remote owner listings. Get your friends, family, co-workers to do the same. This is just a discussion forum for hosts and guests- Airbnb doesn't read the posts here, so send your ideas directly to Airbnb.

I would like to see home shares, on-site host and hands-on host listings as a separate category. It's fine if the host lives in a separate dwelling on the property, next door or even 2 blocks away. But the criteria would be that they live locally, own the home they are listing, manage their listing themselves, and have some personal interaction with guests. 

Hosts like us have been asking Airbnb for this for years, and it falls on deaf ears. But Airbnb listens to what guests want if they hear it enough, because they fill their coffers with guest fees.