Say hello to the Host Advisory Board members

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Say hello to the Host Advisory Board members

Hello everyone,

 

When we announced the Host Advisory in December, we said we'd look to this group of hosts to represent you and help highlight the things that really matter to hosts within Airbnb.

 

To make sure they understand the needs and perspectives of our global community, the Advisory Board members are active in different ways: from contributing here in the Community Center to leading local hosting groups, to participating in product and policy feedback sessions.  

 

All of the Advisory Board members are active hosts and represent hosting from countries all around the world. They all have different stories and reasons for why they host. They are excited to get to know you, and we hope you will get to know them. 

 

Introducing...... 

 

 @Anna1403 , @Bez8,  @Antonella78@Susan208@Till-and-Jutta0,  @Nutth0@Norma17@Peter1@Merrydith0, @Pascale144@Omar202@Pooja30@Tiffany204@Vinícius0@Shinya0@Ningyi0@Samuel604 

 

Many of you have already been speaking with Till, Nutth, Bez and Peter, here in the EN CC. 

 

I ask you to support the Advisory Board members by continuing to surface the great knowledge and insights we see here everyday. Make them feel welcome here and get to know them, they want to hear your ideas and make a difference for all of our community. They need your support to do this. You can also use the tag #HostAdvisoryBoard to highlight topics to them.

 

What’s next?

Each month a different Advisory Board member will be representing the group and providing an update in the Resource Center and we’ll be carrying on the conversation here on the CC. In the meantime, @Susan208 is our first spotlight of the year, please take a look here.  You can also meet Susan at our Community Center meetup on Tuesday February, 23rd 1PM (PST)–to join view this post here

 

@Omar202 will be providing a February update, so do look out for that in a couple of weeks. 🙂

 

Thank you,

 

Lizzie (and all of the EN CC team) 


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Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

103 Replies 103

I am having problems with all  5 of these situations.  i have been run over and  being abused and stolen from guests.  Is it just me, or has it been more difficult by 2 fold to have guests around.  The other part is that there is nothing in the community guide lines enforcing that the host has 24 hours to fix any problems.  There is noting in the community guide lines preventing a guest to lie about  aspects of the listing in their review.  WHY  is that?

 

 

I recently had a guest try to extort his cleaning fee.  Air b n b  staff  did noting to stop him.  He gave me a one star review and brought an unregistered guest with him,  showed up 2 hours late and left 2 hours past check out with no good bye.  One of the worst abusive guests ever.

 

Non the less I see I am not the only host having some of these frustrations.  I am soon to give up on Air b n b  simply because it took 6  reps to  help me.  They all apologized  and continued to tell me there was nothing they could do and the 1st rep  Louis could not be reached at all.

I had to send   a screen shot of the guest trying to extort me out of the cleaning fee.  Ginray finally decided to change his mind  however said he would remove the one star review did not and I have to call up 3 other reps of Air b n b  who then said there was nothing they could do.  THIS IS A SERIOUS BREECH OF THE COMMUNITY GUIDE LINES.  air b n b  need to understand them and often speak better english.  thanks for listening.  David Wiles

I now have my rules quite clear.  Seeing that the last 3 groups of guests have tried to enter one guest and brought 5 unregistered guests and the other one extra unregistered guest,  I now state clearly that any unregistered guests will not be allowed to stay here.  I also am clear that friends in Santa Fe   who want to visit must  be registered  especially durning the covid  times.  I am trying to be open about this however fairness and honestly seems to be an ongoing issue with guests more and more.  I have lost 2 valuables to guests in the last 2 years.  I am tired of having my listing open to theft.

Brian1613
Level 10
West Palm Beach, FL

Hello HAB!

Here in Palm Beach County, Florida, we’re looking forward to working more closely with y’all. Our piece of Florida has a wide range of hosting experiences, from beachside, and the Intracoastal Waterway, to horse country in the cities that rim the Everglades.  I met quite a few of my fellow hosts while we were trying to reconnect our businesses to Airbnb when the county, and city, weren’t being very clear, or helpful, about licensure. Since then, we talk from time-to-time.  I know that one topic that comes up frequently is the disparity in “smart” pricing between Airbnb and other services affiliated with travel booking sites tied into hotels, and B&Bs. Their algorithms are very different, as they draw on data for hotel and B&B occupancies from the other partner services.  

It seems like one very mission-critical area of host support that could use a bit more explanation, and maybe a tweak, or two. 

 

One thing that came up repeatedly in our discussion was the “apples-to-apples” issue.  Jamil has a really cool trio of little homes on his property in the Loxahatchee woods. Penny runs a very boutique, elegant standalone guest house on Palm Beach Island. Leslie has an apartment in an upcoming part of Lake Worth. Dave rents out a room in Greenacres.  They’re all very different experiences. Yet “Smart” pricing really makes no distinctions for that, because it lacks the metric data to do so.

 

There really aren’t a lot of filters to ask hosts about what makes their places special, or unique, other than pretty basic amenities.  Some of them, like full kitchens, are actually banned for vacation rentals by some of the cities in our county. So some of those metrics couldn’t really be used for pricing, because the hosts can’t do much about them.

 

A couple of people suggested that the ability to be able to establish what pricing tier that you would like to participate in would be a great revision to Smart pricing.  I suggested that some sort of pricing guidance, like setting to a lower tier, as a new host, until you build up reviews, might be in order.  

 

Gus agreed, and also suggested that, perhaps, Airbnb also give some guidance to help hosts pick pricing based on what they provide, in intangibles that the host knows, in picking the right pricing tier.  If you have a Star Wars themed yurt, a lagoonside cabin, or a room that goes toe-to-toe with the nearby Four Seasons, with all kinds of amenities, those might skew towards data that shows they belong in an upper tier.  Providing equally essential, value-oriented places for people traveling that do the basics well, but have few bells and whistles, like Dave’s spare bedroom might be suggested for another tier. In between, locations like a more spartan platform tent on a farm near a beautiful spring, might be in a more experiential, tier in the middle.  

One other suggestion, by Amy, was for Airbnb to partner with someone who can provide better data on room availability in the hotel and/or B&B/Inn marketspace. When that inventory dries up, during events, and peak times, in our tourist-dominant area, rates for all available host properties should move upward.  When we have a glut of inventory, as there was in March of last year, prices should drop, and we should be notified that we need those adjustments, and not just have Smart Pricing do them automatically.

Currently, the only way for an Airbnb host to do that is to turn off Smart Pricing, and hire a company that aids in providing that data.

 

Allowing the hosts to have some input into how they envision their own marketing, and the value of intangibles that it would be difficult to quantify on Airbnb, would make Smart Pricing more relevant. Right now, most VR advice pages suggest to ignore Smart Pricing. Airbnb gets a lot of good information. Surely it can be put to great use!

Suksma,

 

Brian Ross

Brian Ross
Brad-And-Kim0
Level 2
Niagara Falls, Canada

Hi I am a super host in Canada. I am trying to contact the Canadian host  board ambassador. Appreciate assistance.  Thanks Brad 

@Brad-And-Kim0 ,

 

                                                             Kindly contact @Bez8.

                                            Canadian Host Advisory Ambassador

 

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Airbnb-Updates/Officially-introducing-the-members-of-Airbnb-s-Ho...

 

 

Best, 

Thank you 

Brad-And-Kim0
Level 2
Niagara Falls, Canada

Hi I have a few  hot topics on my radar

 

One is insurance - obtaining info on short term rental insurance for properties in USA, Canada and The Caribbean. Appreciate insights on this topic and contacts for Insurnance brokers and who is underwriting short term rental insurance. 
2nd would be great to share pricing with others. We maybe able to do better as a group. 

 

The 2nd topic is finding banks willing to finance  short term rentals properties in Canada, USA and the Caribbean.  Seems to be a limited market.

 

Appreciate info related to each of these countries.  

thanks 

 

Brad

**[E-mail address & phone number hidden due to safety reasons - Community Center Guidelines

**Please note that it is not allowed to share contact details on the Community Center**

Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Brad-And-Kim0 Congratulations on breaking competition law. 

Brad-And-Kim0
Level 2
Niagara Falls, Canada

Hi advisory board members.  

 

Is there advice for crating a regional host community and is there a regional Airbnb contact.   I am in both Niagara Canada and in Upper New York State USA. 

also are there any updates on the IPO shares fron Airbnb for hosts. 

thanks 

Till-and-Jutta0
Host Advisory Board Alumni
Stuttgart, Germany

Dear @Brad-And-Kim0 , for Information about local communities, how to find FB groups or join a meet-up:

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Get-Local/ct-p/en_clubs

On the bottom of that page there is also a link how to get a community leader.

 

Please find news for investors on https://investors.airbnb.com

Thank you 

Gillian120
Level 4
Peachland, Canada

Hi

i really would like to see Airbnb offer ‘cancel for any reason’ travel insurance 

 

I have felt obliged to give refunds due to stricter Covid regulations and am having to stop doing this. Therefore  from today am recommending this insurance in my acceptance message 

if Airbnb would offer it make it a lot easier all round 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  @Anna1403 ,  @Bez8,   @Antonella78 @Susan208 @Till-and-Jutta0,   @Nutth0 @Norma17 @Peter1 @Merrydith0,  @Pascale144 @Omar202 @Pooja30 @Tiffany204 @Vinícius0 @Shinya0 @Ningyi0 @Samuel604 

 

Hi guys, thanks for reconciling the community needs under one common board - as soon as you need more inputs on the to do pipeline - I guess is huge right now - shout, we're there! 🙂

 

Best wishes, Claudia

Viele Grüsse,

Claudia

Outdoor and Relax in Black Forest

Roderick8
Level 9
Budapest, Hungary

I don't envy the advisory boards because AirBnB keeps demonstrating gross negligence. The fax form fiasco is just the latest example. For example, a 1099 that requires five digit zip codes is not much value for American owners of personal property abroad. Hungary does not five digit zip codes. And AirBnB messed up - 8-WBENE is for foreign corporations, not personal owners.