Corona Virus - how to ensure health of guest and hosts

[Holly396]

I am super hosts in Amsterdam area and have been hosting about half year.

recently I have a lots of guests worried to come to Netherlands or even EU, and want to cancel their reservations. I gave them full refund, as I knew how bad is corona virus, and what my guest lose from this (flight cancellation, room reservation, etc).

all my guests coming, have been travel to other EU countries (including Italy), now you see how bad in Europe now. how fast the virus is spreading.

last Sunday (Mar 8),  my husband's colleague has been confirmed with coronavirus, his company's HR told him to stay from home and work from home for next 14 days. so I think the best to cancel the reservation for the  guests who are going to come In March. so I did that.  my guests all agreed, and I will give them full refund. however, airbnb penalized me for such cancellation, even though I am trying to do something good for my guests.

I have been struggle to get so called "medical certificate" to prove that my husband need to be isolated from medical point of view and meanwhile we are so worried that my husband and I were infected, and monitoring our body temperatures every day.  I met GP, GP said for corona virus, is all done by GGD (public health), so I called the hotline of GGD, they said there is no such thing for isolation, they never give, and said airbnb is so strict on this.

even worse that airbnb customer service told me, I should not tell the guests we are isolated, and continue hosting??? OMG, what if my guests get infected, who should they blame to.....

I am so disappointed for airbnb, how they treat this epidemic,  there is high risk for guests and host to get infected.  I ask them what airbnb will help hosts and ensure the health during corona virus outbreak, is it going to cover by so called "host guarantee", they said "no", there is no update on this, as coronavirus is new. so basically means. hosts, you have to take care yourself. as you are not insured at all by airbnb,  same apply to guests...

I raise this topic, just to get some advice from other hosts, what you are currently doing? are  you worried? especially to the guest who are currently hosting in EU countries.  we need to raise our voices high to get attentions from airbnb.

as now airbnb will only waive penalty if have medical certificate. if you are worried, you cancel, then it is your own problem, but we talked about our health here as hosts...and our worries for our guests...

according to me, airbnb should waive for anyone who is afraid to travel or host, as this is natural disaster,  should not base on country policy or etc. it is so bad that they still charge guests / hosts for their worry of health. do not have any mercy on this. so disappointed. .....

[Anonymous]

@Holly396   That's a lot of cancelled bookings. I don't understand why you only contacted Airbnb after cancelling the bookings, as in the process of doing so you would've had to tick the box agreeing to the penalties. It's never advisable to assume that penalties will be waived for you without confirming this first. It's not that you were wrong to follow self-isolation orders; it's just that the situation is evolving much faster than all the service operators can possibly be trained to adapt to, so there's not much room for doing things outside of protocol.

That said, Airbnb appears to be crapping its pants right now in general, as the Pandora's Box that the misguided Extenuating Circumstances clause has always been is now burst open right as the travel industry is tanking. Now they're stuck in the position of changing their cancellation policy on a near-daily basis; confusion and conflicting information abounds here. If the policy is not working for you today, check it again tomorrow, and the next day, and so forth, until you get the one that works for you.

All the best to you and your husband, I hope you stay in good health and don't get too irritated with the isolation period!

[Mika8]

@Holly396.. said that you have the quote from the support that you should not tell the guests that you are isolated, and continue hosting only by phone and not by mail. The head of airbnb would definitely not that (proven) words like that go public .. try twitter .. there the support is often more 'sensible'.

[Holly396]

finally, I have an agent is willing to help me in fair way. so I provided him the evidence that my husband and I have lived together from government paper. then he helped me to cancel all reservations. and meanwhile my guests also told me that their concert or exhibitions are all cancelled. If I did not cancel, they will cancel too. the situation is getting really bad. it has been proved that there are community infection already in Netherlands. so we are so scared now, and do not know how long it will last. I did not cancel my reservation in Apr. hopefully it will get better, then I can start to host again.

[Holly396]

for now, we just stay at home, and monitor the whole situation. hopefully In next few days, my husband and I have no symptoms, and we are all healthy and stay healthy!