Save the date: Tune in April 9 for a Host Update with CEO Brian Chesky

[Airbnb]

Last week, CEO Brian Chesky spoke to our global host community in a live video message from his home in San Francisco. He talked about the impact the coronavirus (COVID-19) is having on hosts, answered some of your top questions, and announced new initiatives to help you get through this challenging time.

He also committed to staying in closer contact with our community of hosts. We know how important it is for you to hear from—and be heard by—Airbnb leadership right now. We’ve continued to hold global listening sessions where you’ve shared your own personal stories, offered up suggestions, and asked questions, and we’ll be bringing you more Host Updates with Brian over the coming weeks, too.

So tune in for another update from Brian at 3:00 p.m PT Thursday, April 9. You can catch it live at Airbnb.com/live, or watch a recording after the event.

Thank you for all of your feedback over the past few weeks. Please continue to share any questions you have in the comments below, and we’ll do our best to answer some of them in future Airbnb.com/live events.

[Belinda55]

@Robin4  Yep, I’ve been with Airbnb 7 years, Superhost since the program began, and disappointed in their approach here. As usual it is compensate guests at all costs to hosts. This situation is no one’s fault, but they can afford to be more fair and transparent with us.

[Fred13]

@Robin4 That particular passage struck me the same way also,  the part about using the money to attract more/new hosts, as if this would be something existing Airbnb hosts would welcome as a plus when they are mostly concerned about their present abrupt economic change. That is a very strange statement really specially when one considers Airbnb will be issuing vouchers to keep the money from existing reservations, but also actuality removing them from existing hosts, but then start to expand  the existing pool of hosts that those vouchers can be used on in the future.  This is so illogical, surely we both are reading this totally wrong. Then again the new 'investor' needed to hear from Airbnb's that they will be adding to their future market share by the use of that money and that sales pitch I can understand.

Going back a step,  the extension to May 31st vs. April 30th also baffled me considering chances are this entire virus episode may gain a whole new perspective and realization within the coming three weeks. If the world takes a whole new direction by the end of this month, in example open their economies, Airbnb will find itself explaining an over-reaction on their part.

[Michelle53]

@Robin4    Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the two-listing limit was only applicable to the Superhost relief fund.    I was under the impression that the $250M was limited only by cancellation policy (thereby enabling multi-listing hosts with strict policies to get money back). 

Since I don't qualify for either program, my interest is purely academic 😉 

[Huma0]

@Michelle53 

I believe you are correct. While the Superhost fund is only open to hosts with a maximum of two active listings (and by invitation only), the $250 million pot applies to all. However, whether you get anything from 25% of cancellation fees depends on what type of cancellation policy you had in place.

[Susan17]

@Michelle53

Exactly as @Huma0 says. 

[Robin4]

@Michelle53 

You may be right Michelle, I will do a bit more digging...and now that I think about it, that probably sounds right! Airbnb protects the business that gives them the most public exposure.

I have possibly misinterpreted that....and I should have known better, to think that Airbnb might protect their bread and butter, those hosts who got them where they are is a pretty preposterous assumption when you think about it!

Cheers......Rob

[Michelle53]

@Robin4   As someone who lost their Superhost status over (supposedly) a spider in my listing,  (summertime in a Garden Unit), I no longer hold the measurements in such high regard.

I did, however, put a "Spiders and other critters" disclaimer in my listing description, after that. 

Stay Safe !

Michelle

[Robin4]

@Michelle53 

My god, a bloody spider, I am continually picking them up with my hands and putting them outside. That's what happens when you live in a garden environment...and the larger they are the more gentle they are!

Thank god I haven't hosted that guest of yours that cost you your superhost, but I did have one here that challenged me! Last morning of the stay and I asked them how the stay had been and he said...."Lovely, we have had a great time, we are sorry to leave....Oh just one thing! We got woken up by this scratching noise about 1.30 am last night. I turned the lights on and there was this possum nibbling away at the fruit in the fruit bowl on the kitchen bench"!!!

Jesus, I felt like Basil Fawlty! they said they locked it in the bathroom, so I herded it out the back door and it waddled off up the back of the block into the trees. How the hell it got in there I will never know. Anyway they were good about it and didn't cane me in the review.....but from memory I think they did say something like they felt they were on a nature reserve!

Cheers.....Rob

[Michelle53]

@Robin4  Omg, I love that !      I get 'possums in my yard, but, thankfully, none have found their way into my guest space.    We also have an urban community of skunks, coyotes and raccoons.   Haven't had any reported guest encounters, though.  Fortunately. 

Best,

Michelle

[Robin4]

@Michelle53 

The trouble with possums is they are not prepared to simply stay a part of nature....they want to become a part of our civilised society. Here is one trying to get into our kitchen one night while I was cooking dinner....

They just won't take 'No' for an answer.

If I can tell you a funny story Michelle, this house was derelict when we bought it....hadn't been lived in for about 15 years . I relocated the old kitchen cupboards up to my workshop at the rear of the block....part of my mancave.

The cupboards in question are on the left of this photo and they run almost the length of that wall. I needed a particular tool one day that I hadn't used for a long time and I was sure it was in one of those cupboards so, starting at one end I opened the first door and , no, it wasn't in there so I moved on to the next, nope, wasn't there either. I opened the third door and.....there was a possum staring back out at me. There ensued this 'Mexican standoff' situation with me out here and the possum in there! I had nothing to grab it with so, our eyes locked for about 5 seconds and I simply shut the cupboard door and moved on to the next!

Bloody possums!

Cheers......Rob

[Michelle53]

@Robin4  Thank you for a good laugh, today !!   Worst I've ever had was squirrels in the ceiling. Here, squirrels know no boundaries.

Best, Michelle

[Michelle53]

Better than "Bats in the Belfry"  'ey ?

[Rebecca181]

"...attract new hosts..." ??!!!???? 

Thank you, Airbnb Corporate, for confirming that to Airbnb, we hosts who helped to fuel your rise to glory, fame, and a much-touted upcoming IPO are chopped liver. (I think most of us already knew that, but just in case somebody didn't get the memo, I'm stating the obvious here...)

[Susan17]

Listen.. bottom line guys.. they're broke. Been trying to tell you all this for ages, long before the coronavirus was even a thing. That new $1 billion (apart from the $5 million of it they're throwing in to top uo the mysterious "Superhost Fund") will primarily be used to plug the holes in the sinking ship, to try and keep it afloat so they can limp over the IPO finish line, and their VC sugar daddies can finally get some sort of a payday

Rumour has it they're still seeking more "investment" too, and they're also going to use some of their current windfall to snap up "distressed assets" on their own site, at firesale rates (ie mega-host arbitrage and PM companies on the platform, that have been decimated and plunged into distress, in no small part due to Airbnb's 100% refund policy). Let the implications of that sink in for a minute.. 

10% interest on that new $1 billion in funding (100 million a year) on a reported valuation on just $18 billion (denied by Airbnb of course, but they refuse to reveal what their version of events is) Veering into backstreet moneylender territory now... 

Expect things to get a whole lot worse around here - particularly for small, independent hosts - from here on out. Yet mind-blowingly, there are still those die-hard evangelists who are labouring under the deluded misconception that Airbnb's intentions were noble and honourable in forcing their (our) super-generous "100% refunds" - in doing so, obliterating the livelihoods of countless thousands of good, decent, hardworking hosts, and leaving them with zero income to look after themselves and their families. 

"Doing the right thing", my arse. They gambled. They lost. And we're paying - and will continue to pay - the price. Simple as that. 

[Robin4]

@Susan17 

I can't  see any sort of IPO happening Susan. Investors are not total fools. If Airbnb had gone public 18 months ago it may have worked briefly , but Susan, you are right, the ship is sinking. The rudder jammed a year or so ago but, the Covid-19 iceberg has dealt a mortal blow! 

If they had used their brains and gathered together their core group.....that 30% of hosts who were productive....in other words they have properties that appeal to guests and are consistently booked regardless of whether they were part of Plus, Superhosts or rank and file, and got rid of that 70% that are just in it for a bob or two on the side every now and then....chooks running around in the back yard.....fighting to use a grimy shared bathroom! If they had stuck with the 4.86ers up, and got rid of the 4.6ers down, it could have worked. They could have formulated a support package that the serious host would have agreed to form a lasting relationship with. 

Instead of that they have this steadfast belief that if you are big enough you become the law....you are not just part of society, you override its conventions and dictate to it.....much like Volkswagen did a few years ago with that diesel emissions thing. They figured they were bigger than the law!

Airbnb could have been a compact highly successful organisation where each division protected the other and every component was, an achiever. I would have invested in that!

Company fortunes change on a daily basis when they are subject to the stock market, and nobody is going to invest in a sales company that has got nothing to sell, and right now Airbnb have absolutely nothing to sell, the world is in lock-down and will be for the foreseeable future.

I am preparing for the next decade in my life, and with the way the company has performed over the past 2 + years since Oct 2018 I think I am better than the way we collectively as hosts have been treated. I can't see Airbnb playing any sort of a major role in my future, the way they have in my past! And I will bet you I am just one of a quarter of a million hosts who feel the same way.

Seems like a good idea that just went wrong! 

If Airbnb are going to salvage anything out of this, that next briefing by the CEO is going to require a massive, transparent turn-around! We are all tired of what we have been hearing!

Cheers.......Rob