@Laura2592 I don't know if Airbnb has actually lost its original cachet - its brand image still seems to be holding steady with the young, Western, budget/midrange travel demographic it was built on. The farther you get from that core group in age, culture, or financial status, the less comfortable your peers are with booking an Airbnb. I'd liken it to a certain kind of politician, who quickly builds a passionate following among a key generation, but who struggles to find a balance between energizing the base and expanding it - and then, once they're seen as being empty-headed and beholden to the donor class, they wind up accomplishing neither.
In the near future, we may find that their biggest mistake was trying to expand too fast into market domination with a brand that just couldn't be stretched that thinly. The attempt to rebrand as a luxury product with Plus and Luxe was an ill-fated experiment that only alienated the core market. The Bad Romance it has with big-time property managers has expanded the inventory but only with a deluge of crap listings. The injection of hotel listings into the search results made them look hopelessly unfocused. And ever since they outsourced and downsized customer service, they've guaranteed that hundreds of people every day will experience a totally clueless person as a direct representative of the brand and conclude they have no idea what they're doing.
And now we have the explosion of parties during the pandemic, which seems to be the first thing that comes to mind for many people when they think of Airbnb. They're not entirely to blame for the destructive and occasionally deadly incidents we've seen in the news. But on the other hand, this crisis seems like a predictable consequence of all the ways they've encouraged a passive, hands-off model of hosting. Listings are privileged in search if they offer self-check-in and Instant Book, and hosts' efforts to protect their homes with surveillance are penalized whenever a guest complains. Many hosts are even afraid to decline bookings that look like trouble because they get threats about their Acceptance Rate. Forget about this "Made possible by hosts" BS - the overwhelming message here is that the more engaged you are with vetting your guests and supervising your home, the likelier your listing is to fail.
I think Airbnb could have some real longevity if it gave up its quest for industry domination and narrowed down its focus to what it can actually be good at: short-term vacation rentals from a diverse assortment of low-volume, fully engaged hosts who know how to keep their properties under control and still deliver great hospitality. Winking at you here, Chip.
