Two of our Listings invited to “Design” Category

[Richard531]

The 1st listing was invited pretty much immediately after the Summer Release rollout.  The 2nd listing was invited ~1 week or so ago.  Both have been featured in small publications (although I didn’t mention it anywhere in my copywrite).  Both I supposed could be considered pretty design-ish.  However, but we have other listings that are equally as cool and/or even more design-ish than these.  Machine learning?  Or did a Staff member review and decide on these?  What about the others?  

If you click my profile the 2 selected where “Hilltop Boulder Shack” and “Mojave Menage”

I’m pretty sure that “Design” is the only category any of our listings have been invited to and/or sit in as of right now.  The rest seem to be in the “General Inventory” category (if there is such a thing).  But maybe that will change? 

Anyone else asked to join the “Design” category?  Any clues as to how/why that may have happened? 

Any other “Categories” have you been invited to and/or know you sit in?  Anything you think you can do with your listings to make that happen?    

Chesky said in his remarks, "there's a Category for every listing" (or something like this).  Are we all going to get our listings slotted to Categories in due time, then?

[Huma0]

Thanks @Kitty-and-Creek0 

I was never fussed about the categories at all as I thought my guests (solo, long term guests who know in advance they want to come to London), would use traditional search methods, but it seems my listings got buried even in the traditional search and the views immediately dived after the Summer Release.

I then hoped that being added to categories would help. The one listing that had been added to some categories was the only one showing up higher in searches and actually getting a few views (but no bookings). It hasn't made any difference at all though.

Luckily, I do have some bookings coming up but they were either made before the release (those are starting to dry up now) or are repeat guests. If it wasn't for my repeat guests, I would be screwed. Maybe word of mouth is the way to go... 

Long term is quite specific though. As much as my guests tell me they will recommend me to friends and family, most of those people are looking for short, not long, stays.

[Kitty-and-Creek0]

@Huma0 

I don't do longer term stays. Not only due to the fact that I  am not looking for housemates, but it is legally perilous here. I have several excellent homes that are leased by the year. It would not be practical or appropriate to STR them. It baffles me how many people rent out lovely, valuable, large houses, in quiet neighborhoods, by the night. That seems to me to be issues waiting to happen, and inconsiderate to the neighbors. Just my humble opinion and I am not everyone...

[Huma0]

@Kitty-and-Creek0 

Yes, I get that. The law here can also be quite perilous for landlords in that respect, but as a live in host, it's a bit different. The law here in the UK very much protects the tenant in most situations, but protects the landlord when they live there too and it is their primary home. Those renters are then classed as lodgers or licensees and do not have tenants' rights. If I was renting out an entire unit, I would probably not consider doing long term stays on Airbnb.

As for housemates, well, Airbnb was my alternative/escape from them. I have had many wonderful short term guests. However, after a few years hosting, I realised I much preferred doing long term stays. It's not just that it's less time consuming (when I did short stays, it was taking over my life and interfering with my job) but it's just less stressful than having strangers in and out of your home every two days. The latter means you can never actually relax and feel like you are at home. I imagine that is not so much an issue if you don't live there though.

Of course, you do get the occasional bad long termer and that can be a headache, but I try to screen guests very carefully and you have more occasion to do that with long term ones, i.e. more correspondence (turned off IB a few months ago too). What I have found though is that long term Airbnb guests are, in general, nothing like housemates. That is the reason I switched. They do not act as if they own the place, nor throw parties when you are away. They are way, way more respectful. I think most of them appreciate that they are visitors in your home, even if it is for a few weeks or even months. They are also aware that you get to review them!

[Ann72]

Yes @Huma0 only the design category shows extra details.  Now like @Gillian166 I can hardly find the categories except upon going to airbnb.com.  Once you put in a place they disappear.  I found them again once but can't remember how!

[Gillian166]

@Ann72  thank you for confirming i'm not crazy, haha. I swear before i could put in a destination and then I could choose a category, that's how i found myself in Pools and Farms. Now if i choose "amazing pools" i get the half of the eastern seaboard of Australia. 😅 

Like i said, it's a useless filter, and whatever they've done, has made it, impossibly, even worse. 

[Huma0]

@Ann72 @Gillian166 

I think that has been the case for a while. I am not sure if you remember, but several weeks ago, I mentioned that I searched for 'castles' in Australia (after it being mentioned that's what Airbnb was promoting over there in their ads) and ended up with a list of mostly tiny homes, with a few barns and a cave thrown in. I realised that, even though I had selected the castles category, as soon as I selected Australia as the destination, it had removed the category and was just showing me a random selection. 

Another thing that I noticed was when I search a particular category, then try to add in more filters, it defaults to whatever is the first category on the list. For quite a while this was islands and now it is barns.

[Ann72]

Can't see you in a barn @Huma0 🙂

The other thing that happens is that when you set the map to a certain area, it zooms in and out all over the place when you switch categories.  It would make sense to me that, after choosing a location within a certain radius, a guest might want to see categories in that location.  But the map goes crazy.  Or it did.  I can't reproduce that right now.

[Huma0]

@Ann72 

You're right. The map goes completely nuts when you do that. Or at least it did when I tried it and I tried quite a few times. 

I've got nothing against barns. You'd be surprised at some of the places I've slept. A barn is luxury in comparison.