@Marie261
re: 'last 4 months been extremely quiet for everyone in Europe as well as other parts of the world.'
I wonder on what basis you make your statement? Have you seen facts and figures to support this statement. Alternatively, is it your impression drawn exclusively from the Community Centre forums?
If the latter, then please consider that only a fraction of Airbnb Hosts engage on these forums.
I can best speak for my area in London, as I frequently peruse the other listings in my surrounds. Few if any of these Hosts participate in CC, yet I can glean by their calendars that they are chugging along quite nicely.
Moreover, prior to the CC, when there were localized forums, there used to be a very good one for London. It was called London Hosts Community Hub and provided a far more comprehensive and diverse picture of the overall situation in London.-- Airbnb replaced the local forums with 'Cities'. The London site is quite lacklustre and is no longer of much interest to anyone. There are few posts, and often no posts for weeks on ends
However, many of the Hosts who participated on LHCH do not participate in the global forums; and again I can still see that quite a lot of these Hosts are evidently doing very well.
Personally, over the past 4 months I've had one of the busiest periods in 6 years. However, this is made up not only of new bookings, but quite a few returnees, the odd referral and recommendation, in addition to a couple of people from Spare Room. But this is the way I cultivated my approach from the beginning, not to rely exclusively on Airbnb. It was folly to do so based on a system whereby Hosts are entirely dependent on Guests contact. Thus in 2012 when Airbnb office in London was very accessible and the few employees set up regularly meets, along with visiting employees from San Francisco, we used to be asked for our ideas and feedback. I suggested introducing a reciprocal posting-board, whereby Guests could advertize their visits and Hosts would be able to contact Guests to invite them to consider their options. (My idea was taken from Spare Room which operates this two-way interaction).
The response of Airbnb employees was 'great idea, we'll certainly consider it.' The visiting employees from SF even said they'd take it to the boardroom over there. But I never heard again from them.