Covid-19.....lets help each other

[Robin4]

Reading many of the posts on this hosting board almost all correspondents are critical of the way Airbnb have handled this current pandemic situation.

What disturbs me is, some are trying to whip up hysteria by creating scenarios of their own which is not helping.

One host here  @Sheila22 has claimed she as a guest has double dipped on her travel insurance and also got a refund from Airbnb and then goes on to talk about price slashing, guests cancelling and rebooking at cheaper rates and even looting!! She then backtracks and says she is a host and just trying to put different ideas in the mix!

Sheila, I appreciate that you are simply trying to play the part of 'Devils Advocate' with your comments, but this is seriously not the time to be doing it! 

The hosting community are going through hell at the moment......as it stands this will cost me $20,000 this year if there is no short term remedy to the current pandemic. And all 3+ million of us hosts are going through the same thing.

I am also concerned that this pandemic could spell the end of Airbnb! To suddenly lose $94m in invest-able funds is not something a service company with few tangible assets can handle. Airbnb depend on cashflow and, that cashflow has stopped. The company may quite possibly not recover from this.

We are a community of hosts who collectively have a mass of experience and ideas to draw on. This is the time to be constructive and support each other and think of alternate ideas that may help us get our hosting wagons back on the tracks again once the worlds medical brains get on top of this. 

Please folks, can we be creative, not destructive!

Cheers........Rob

[Robin4]

@Susan17 

Hi Susan, I hope all is good for you over there in Dublin. If you have a look at my booking calendar you will note my situation is now the same as yours, I have lost all my bookings. After tonight I can have a big holiday!

You have always been a wealth of accurate knowledge where Airbnb is concerned and I fear you are once again correct here. I cannot see Airbnb surviving this current crisis. They have too much to lose and nothing to gain by their refund stance.

Do you remember that Monty Python film, 'The life of Brian' ? One seen in that film has a line of departed arriving at the pearly gates and  St Peter as the gate keeper asks each of them as they approach......"And what is it for you, crucifixion or freedom"?

https://youtu.be/arwZcw0Ejcc?t=43

Airbnb have tried to convince us (the gatekeepers) that they are the path to freedom......

I fear they have chosen crucifixion!

Cheers......Rob

[Ute42]

.

Hi @Robin4  ,

I am concerned about the wellbeing of airbnb as well.

Lufthansa, the famous german airline, has 763 planes, 700 of them are grounded. International travel has come to a complete stillstand and noone knows for how long this will be going on. A stillstand of international travel is a disaster for airbnb.

I think airnb had a total revenue of 4 B USD in 2019. They closed the 4th quarter of 2019 showing a loss of $ 276 M. In 2020 we now have 3 quarters to go. How much will their revenue go down in these 3 quartes compared to 2019 – 50% or 70%? And what kind of loss will that generate?

To add insult to injury Brian Chesky decided to refund all service fees to guests for stays from march 14 to april 14, that's one month. How much money is that? $200 to $300 M? He already had that money in the bank and now he's returning it all. I don't know if that was a wise decision.

Laurence Tosi, airbnb's ex CFO, wanted to go public in 2018 and he got into an argument with Brian Chesky about it. In hindsight 2018 would have been the perfect time to ipo the company. Their IPO is impossible in 2020 and it will be impossible in 2021 as well.

Will they survive? Or will Jeff Bezos take over the company. He must be making a hell lot of money these days when people can't leave their houses and buy everything online. Amazon has the data of hundreds of million people worldwide. Not only do they know where people live, where they get their parcels delivered to, they also know what people buy, how much the buy and how they pay. Airbnb-Verification would be a piece of cake for them, just verify Yourself by using Your Amazon account. You don't have an Amazon account yet? Sign up.

A takeover by Amazon would also end the ongoing airbnb softwareglitches. Amazon knows how to run a software, they have no glitches.

Oh boy, where will all this be ending up.

cc: @Susan17 

[Robin4]

@Ute42 

A great perspective Ute.....but I would not have expected anything less from you.

It may be that by talking like this we are becoming 'prophets of doom'  and merely hastening the end of Airbnb.

But, lets face it, Airbnb's primary concern over the past 4 years has been for themselves, we hosts now need to put our interests first, not Airbnb's.

On the other hand this could be the 'kick in the pants' that Airbnb needed, the reality check that you do not just arbitrarily dictate how millions of people should run their affairs.

Homeaway/Stayz have seen this coming and have given their hosts/guests reservation options which may at some point need to be reviewed. But at least their business has not stopped, there are alternatives.

Thanks for your ideas Ute, these days you probably put them over better in English than you would in German!

Cheers......Rob   

[Joan23]

IMO Airbnb have taken pretty thorough steps to eliminate the possibility of discrimination, for example profile photos are no longer shown in booking enquiries. I don’t know whether the new policies were introduced either as a result of complaints and prior to the class action being initiated, or early on during the course of the court case, or whether Airbnb fought tooth and nail against changing their policy (which, given their pro-guest stance in almost everything, I doubt). In the first two scenarios, then the complainant had achieved his objective of eliminating as much as possible the opportunity to discriminate, and should have been settled early on by mutual agreement with a small goodwill payment. Did the discriminated against guest take action against the real culprit?... 

[Irene879]

@Robin4 

Nice post, very well said.

Let’s not flog the old dead horse. He served us well for many years, and now he’s lying dead on the ground, felled by a virus.

Now we need a solution on how we’re going to move forward and get all this work done.

But life may never be the same without that old horse. Boy, do I miss him.

[Elizabeth10]

On the subject that @Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 stated, "they just simply need to want to do it", here's another example.   In the past, many hosts have communicated constructive  feedback to AirBnb that offering travel insurance should be implemented.  In the current situation,  having it built into the cost of the booking process would have produced a win-win situation for both guests and hosts.  So maybe this will be a wake up call that it is a critical change that needs to be implemented to really support hosts.   

I couldn't help but notice, as I read AirBnb's letters, when they verbalized their "sympathy" of the impacts that hosts are experiencing, how many times AirBnb have asked hosts to provide free accommodations.  That also generated media attention and good will towards Airbnb, but it actually came from the host pockets.  So I can emphasize with the statement "I find it very difficult to actually correlate their words to their actions".  Sigh.

[Sheila22]

I'm very sorry Roin that you are so literal, but the scenarios I am presenting are factually based upon real stories I'm hearing from Hosts (and SEEING, as they have posted screenshots of the messages demonstrating this has been happening).  These situations are truly occurring.  And these scenarios are real versions of "looting," enabled by Airbnb.  It is historical that during times of crises that people take advantage of the situation, and that is referred to as "looting."   You're actually very insensitive and offensive to label our hardship as "hysteria."  I realize at this point this forum has turned into a place for Aribnb-apologists, which is expected as it this "community forum" is Airbnb's property.  We knew they would start shutting down abused Hosts fairly quickly.

So, any Host who has been 'thrown under the bus' by Airbnb (as was so perfectly phrased by another Host in an extremely popular post that has now been censored), knowing this moment would come, we've move the disenfranchised Hosts' conversation to a private FB page called "Airbnb Hosts United."  We are discussing openly and freely the current situation with others who are experiencing the same abuses from Airbnb. We are trying to support each other with helpful information and sharing ideas for plans moving forward.  Please join us.  @Paul60   @Patty168   @Ange2   @Lisa723   @Ryan-and-Darnie0   @Juana69   @Shey5   @Goda-and-Paulius0   @Mc4   @Danny10   @Arief79   @Will283   @Sharon1014   @Kingdom’s-Vacation0   @Kyle180   @Caleb-and-Rachel0   @Carole158   @Elizabeth516   @Petrea1   @Rosanna51   @Tetiana11   @Sharon579   @Sam397   @Melanie251   @Vad254   @Aune-Katariina0   @Jean5108   @Therese16   @Ella59   @Ekin1  @Piotr48   @Jamie362   @Janet--And-Doug0   @Melanie749   @Paul351   @Melissa934   @Maddy3   @Aisling40   @Sara-and-Ian0   @Joy980   @Yaniv16   @Mika8   @Shirley424   @Nan5373   @Lee---Amber0   @Robert427   @Andy2352   @Lily74   @Robbin6   @Adriano78   @Wannie3   @Lucas-And-Betty0   @Rosemount1   @Patricia1545   @Alex---Michael0   @Vali2 

[Juana69]

@Sheila22 would love to join the conversation, however I closed down my FB account a long time ago, as they censor and manipulate news feeds and posts too 😞

[Sheila22]

I totally get it.  It was these easiest way for me to quickly set something up with privacy settings to let in only people who were Hosts dealing with this specific situation.  People in this forum were aware we would soon be censored and Airbnb apologists would start attacking us, so I just wanted to quickly get something set up.  You are always welcome if you change your mind.  Please stay safe and best of luck! 

[Sheila22]

Ok.  I didn't realize.  I will figure that out.   Here is the link...let me know if it doesn't work.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/861430217655400/

Stay safe! Stay strong!

[Lee---Amber0]

Hi there - that FB group being private isn't showing up in a search - how can we join it? Can't find it.

[Sheila22]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/861430217655400/

[Sheila22]

Here is the link for the private page called Airbnb Hosts United.  It is specifically for Hosts who've been "thrown under the bus" by Airbnb.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/861430217655400/ 

@Paul60   @Patty168   @Ange2   @Lisa723   @Ryan-and-Darnie0   @Juana69   @Shey5   @Goda-and-Paulius0   @Mc4   @Danny10   @Arief79   @Will283   @Sharon1014   @Kingdom’s-Vacation0   @Kyle180   @Caleb-and-Rachel0   @Carole158   @Elizabeth516   @Petrea1   @Rosanna51   @Tetiana11   @Sharon579   @Sam397   @Melanie251   @Vad254   @Aune-Katariina0   @Jean5108   @Therese16   @Ella59   @Ekin1  @Piotr48   @Jamie362   @Janet--And-Doug0   @Melanie749   @Paul351   @Melissa934   @Maddy3   @Aisling40   @Sara-and-Ian0   @Joy980   @Yaniv16   @Mika8   @Shirley424   @Nan5373   @Lee---Amber0   @Robert427   @Andy2352   @Lily74   @Robbin6   @Adriano78   @Wannie3   @Lucas-And-Betty0   @Rosemount1   @Patricia1545   @Alex---Michael0   @Vali2  @Lee---Amber0  

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Sheila22 

Theres lots of discussion. It does become very tiresome when the same subjects and problems are brought up over and over again without conclusion. Naively, I thought airing problems here might lead to improvements in the platform or aid the community. Sadly not.

Like all large organisations, no notice is taken of the colleague at the sharp edge who identify problems daily and those problems just sit, cause consequential issues, reduce profit and fester making the colleague feel abused and undervalued whilst the organisations profits falter... Such is life.

Will your discussions change anything Sheila ?

[Sheila22]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0  Good question. I don't know.  But certainly not on this forum.