Summer release- who is this for? Target audience? Who benefits?

[Mandrake-And-Karen0]

Where do I start?

50 Homes Listed at the top of the Screen-

So 50 types of homes at the top of a screen to choose from?! I DO NOT believe this reflects the way that most people search and book stays! Someone, (hint Brian Chesky), has lost touch.  Location and dates btw are still at the very top of the screen when you search.  Why is that? Because that is how regular people decide their trip.  Yes, in that particular order.  One decides what is the desired location, i.e. city, town, etc and what are the dates.  Not rocket science! The several different kind of stays near the top of the screen looks visually overwhelming, very messy.  Aren't most of Airbnb stays basement rentals, apartments/condos and single family homes no matter what materials the homes are fabricated of and no matter the exterior design? I find it odd that if there are going to be 50 different kinds of properties that the most basic, most widely sought after and hosted are not included in that list.  Is this making too much sense?! As a traveler using the Airbnb I do not like the new search design.  It is superficial and unnecessarily distracting.

Why is Airbnb placing so much money on design and marketing  focused on uniqueness of rentals? I don't believe the base of Airbnb users are concerned with unique stays, particularly not at those expensive prices! Maybe it's because Airbnb is fearful that hotels, like Marriot. are catching up and may bypass Airbnb all together: https://mashable.com/article/marriott-airbnb-competitor-homes-and-villas .  

A big problem that Airbnb has to tackle is there is no uniformity in host standards.  That especially includes CLEANLINESS & HYGIENE.   This issue resulted in my cancelling my recent booking, as a guest,  after one night's stay.  The rental was unsanitary and filthy.   I booked a stay recently in a cottage that was overrun with mice and bugs! Pots and lids had mice feces, alive and dead bugs.  One of the two mice I saw came within inches of my feet.  Despite my mentioning to the Airbnb rep initially, the amount I paid, the rep miscalculated the refund.  It took nearly a week for me to get the error addressed and refunded.  As with any refund Airbnb makes you fight for every last penny you deserve.  Shameful. I am glad at least that Airbnb eventually refunded me 100% of my money. The Airbnb first tried to discount my refund minus one night stay.  I reminded him that I did not agree to book a cottage that had mice, feces and bugs nor will I be charged for that experience! !That cottage was booking at $135/night.  My refund didn't include my time and gas expense to drive to that rental.  It was over 2.5 hours away.  (Gas is not cheap these days!)   As a care-giver needing to take a much needed break I was exhausted by not sleeping well, in that mice infested cottage, and then having to defend my refund with Airbnb AND afterwards drive home an additional 2.5 hours - it was very upsetting.  Not one of the rentals that I have stayed in as a guest was at least "hotel standards of clean. "   A majority of Airbnb's where I stayed were dusty, dirty and sometimes down right filthy! Regardless of listings I have found this to be true. Yet, a number of these hosts' listings state that they follow and meet Airbnb's Covid cleaning standards.  That has not been my overall experience.

Although I was given a 10% discount for my inconvenience with the booking I am considering Marriot for a guest stay in one of their homeowner rentals because of my most recent Airbnb guest experience. It seems Marriott may have better cleanliness and quality assurance standards with their hosts.  We shall see...

Split Stays-

My thoughts on the split stay rollout? This practice could screw hosts financially who accept and benefit from long stay bookings.   It would require more frequent cleanings, too.  Hosts who offer long stays may not want to do that as frequently with each new booking.  Cleanings cost hosts money. 

Split stays would benefit some hosts who don't have exact dates available or who don't accept longer stays.

I have a hunch on why Airbnb may be pushing split stays.  They want to engage as many hosts as possible in bookings.  They may fear hosts leaving their platform because they are not making enough money/not getting enough bookings through Airbnb and/or because hosts may feel, as many have shared in this forum, that they are not respected/included in decisions that affect their earnings.  Perhaps this split stay idea is  a way for Airbnb to bump up the numbers of bookings, literally doubling them so that it sounds impressive to a board and investors.  Airbnb is still not at preCovid booking numbers and revenue.  This may be a way to manipulate numbers to appear the company is doing better than it is.

Side note- wondering does Airbnb get more money per booking by splitting stays when/if each stay is shorter, under a month. Whereas if the entire  booking was made solely with one host and the timeframe is long enough for a the hosts's offering a weekly or monthly discount?  In this scenario does the host and Airbnb make less money on extended stay, single bookings as opposed to splits?  If the total amount of days are two months or longer how are two hosts' different monthly discounts calculated? If each host have monthly discounts on their listings? Split stays seem like they have the potential of screwing hosts and being logistically and mathematically problematic.  I will see how this plays out.  I would have concern as a guest being offered split stays.  Each booking is risky.  A guest doesn't know what to expect when he/she books or checks in.  One rental experience could be fantastic and the other a dud but the need for consistent, quality accommodations, for work, is essential for most. When a guest is searching for a rental for work they are looking at essential criteria.  Corporate guests do not book on a whim. They are concerned with distance to office or place of employment if they have to check in or meet in person some of the days.  Also, there may be concerns over WiFi speeds. for Zoom and conferencing, access to kitchen/restaurant close by, potential for noise- work/sleep disturbances, possibly access to public transportation and costs.   When corporate guests eventually identify a place that has what they are seeking why would they up and move to another location especially if it's a long stay? This split stay seems  to be more focused on vacationers and not rooted in good ole common sense for workers. 

This leads to my final words. Appeal to your base, Brian C. or you will lose them.  Hosts and guests.

[Louise1073]

Lol, yes I can totally see someone trying to do that with split bookings. Fudging the numbers to make them twice as high on the quarterly report 😂

[Mandrake-And-Karen0]

Increasing numbers by design.  Perhaps Airbnb positioning to sell? 

[Gillian166]

so you complain that so many places have sub-standard cleaning practices and then say hosts don't want short-term stays cos they don't want to clean as often. 

RUOK?

I've only ever stayed in 1 place that I considered to not be very clean, and ironically it was in a highrise, beach apartment hotel style thing, but run by one of those abb management companies that are not very good, and the host doesn't care cos burn and churn is their MO. I've since learned to avoid those situations. 

[Mandrake-And-Karen0]

Standardizing  quality and cleanliness is an issue not only with Airbnb.  This may be common with other platforms.  Hotel kind of host owned properties are not a gold standard either.  I am willing to try the Marriott option after my last guest experience.  My husband and I host so I am familiar on both sides, as a host and guest. We have a uniform, high standard of cleaning with our rental.  I spoke about my experiences.  Thanks for sharing yours. 

[Anonymous]

@Mandrake-And-Karen0  Airbnb's CEO believes that the pandemic was just the beginning of a permanent, global shift away from office work and short vacations, and toward combining remote work with long trips. If most of your peers happen to be working in IT and media, it must feel like everyone is living this way now, but they might be overestimating how much the broader workforce has really changed. Or maybe they're just trying to make fetch happen.

Anyway, that's who I think the target audience is for the new updates: millennial telecommuters. It's no coincidence that the front page looks more like a dream-real-estate catalog than a travel product, because home ownership is largely out of reach for the younger generations. The trip is not really about the destination, it's more about curating the backdrop for your Instagram and playing House.

My experience with testing the new search format was that it slowed down the process of finding what I was looking for, and filled my screen with content that wasn't relevant to me. I notice how even if my search radius is the entire country of Germany, with no filters, the first 3 results are in France, Belgium, and Poland. Way too heavy-handed for my taste. 

[Huma0]

@Anonymous 

Same here. I was looking at the design category in London, but it kept showing me listings in France instead.

[Anonymous]

@Huma0  It's so weird. Flexibility is one thing, but when people start planning a trip they've generally already decided which country it will take place in.

[Huma0]

@Anonymous 

Definitely, but even if they hadn't picked a country and were just browsing for ideas, would an Airbnb accommodation search be the first place they looked?

Personally, if I wanted a holiday but needed inspiration on where to go, I would first look for great flight deals. Then, if I didn't know much about a location where one was on offer, I'd go look for travel guides or articles about it. It's only then that I would look at Airbnbs, but I'd be searching for that specific location by then.

I like the idea of staying in a historic property though, so maybe I would do a search for that, but it seems I am then only allowed to go to France. 

[Anonymous]

@Huma0  When they launched Experiences, I vaguely remember Brian talking about expanding the brand outward to become a sort of one-stop-shopping for travel. But without a product dealing with the traveling part of travel (e.g. great flight deals) that doesn't really work. 

If I'm just browsing for ideas without a set destination, it's always going to be for a short trip close to home rather than an international trip. So far, none of the updates has improved on the results.

[Marie6762]

@Anonymous 

re:  “ones-stop shopping”, etc.

Yes, I can see the ABB wizards wanting to attract and lead experience-seekers, who might click on, for example, the “wow!” category and plan their trip around that image.  It’s a strange concept, but I think they’re definitely looking for new fishing holes- and this might net a whole new generation of suckers!  Sorry for the fishy metaphors ….

[Huma0]

The split stay would work if it only applied to guests who were not finding listings that were available for their entire stay.

However, uf a guest is looking for a place for a month, and instead of showing the guest the listings that ARE available for those dates in the chosen location, it shows them options for split stays of 2 x 2 weeks, then yes, long term hosts like me will get screwed. 

While browsing the site to explore the new categories, I can see the search function has turned into a complete mess, so I don't trust it to accurately show guests what is available when searching for long stays now either.

In my experience of hosting long term guests, and I have hosted many, most fall into the category where they do not want the hassle of moving around if they can help it. So, they need to be shown the options that can accommodate their entire stay first, and only the split stay options lower down in case they don't like the first ones. 

Then there are a few long term guests who intentionally choose to move around, so that they can experience different neighbourhoods within the same city. However, those guests still book for at least one month in each place and search accordingly, i.e. enter different dates for each stay.

The split stay function is really only useful for those struggling to find somewhere for their specified dates. It should not be used to hide the real availability but I fear this is exactly what Airbnb might do. That's not only detrimental to long term hosts (and they keep trying to encourage more of us to host long term) but it's creating unnecessary inconvenience for the guests.

[Mark116]

@Huma0  I don't get the split stay thing.  It seems like this would be for a very, very small minority of travelers.  But then, Airbnb often seems to work from the margins, rather than focus on whatever the majority of categories/travelers are doing.  I don't know how else to explain their new 1x decade update to the already terrible search function, making it even worse and more complicated.

[Huma0]

@Mark116 

Yes, exactly. The categories that are mostly quite niche. The first one listed when I looked was 'grand pianos', whereas the most useful categories were hidden in the drop down menu. How many guests are specifically looking for a place with a grand piano. I don't get it.

When I saw that a big announcement was coming, I had no idea what it might be, but I certainly wasn't expecting this mess. I wonder how much money Airbnb wasted on this whilst not paying out for hosts who had their listings trashed.

[Suzanne302]

@Huma0 

I didn't believe you until I saw it myself! Grand Piano is a category? Seriously, how many people are searching for that? And the categories aren't even in any sort of order. Let's assume you do want to search by category for some reason, who wants to scroll through all those categories???

I am very interested to see how this turns out for the future...