Need some advice on failures of municipality services in South Africa

[Reo55]

Fellow greetings to all the hosts out there, I would like to reach out from South Africa and try to find out how Airbnb is managing some of these issues.  As some of you might not be aware but in south africa service delievery is almost non-existent . 

Today we had a guest stay with us when the local municipality decided to switch off the water supply for maintenance , and the guests got so upset because they didnt have water while it was off, so they just left can phoned airbnb support and said we didnt supply them with water and airbnb took their side and refunded them. 

Things we did to try help. "we supplied a 1000l tank with water prior to the guests arriving . they used this all up in the first night . 

we try to get schedules from the municipality to try give times of downtime but they are not capable of such planning and as a result we never know when they will switch either electricity  or water back on  .

So my question is the following: if the municipality cuts the power nation wide "like loadshedding" are all hosts allowed to get a refund even tho they stayed there?

does the same apply to any other services we are not responsible  for ?

I had the Airbnb case person call me and tell me, there was not water so you have to refund them , and I asked him so if its national load shedding then does the same apply and he said yes! 

I felt like the case manager was unfair and did not give us a chance to explain the situation or take note of anything I said . 

How does the rest of the community feel about this experience we are going through ?

[Michelle53]

@Reo55   I took a look at two of your listings and neither one mentions the possibility of load shedding or failure of water delivery in the description, as far as I could see, even though it is a well-known situation in-country.   

If a guest doesn't know about or understand load shedding, and lack of municipal services, and they aren't prepared for it in advance, of course their expectation would be to have water and electricity available for the duration of their stay.  This is particularly true of international visitors. 

Airbnb regards this as a failure to deliver an expected amenity, and, of course, will refund the guest. 

You might want to consider updating your listings, or making sure you send some information about municipal services (or lack thereof) to guests, in advance. 

[Reo55]

Yes thanks we send all info to our guests once they book as there is too much info to contain in adding to our listing , Guests are made 100% aware of the troubles we face in South africa which include the water issues as well as the Nationwide electricity cuts, guests still have the option to cancel in 24 hours should they not be happy with the current situation, so all guests arrive knowing very well of the situation and have decided not to cancel as they have been told. 

I went through 38 listings in the area and do not see a single mention on anyones listing that there are rolling blackouts in South africa and the country is in a water crisis . 

Further I would like to add That I do not think this is something airbnb would chose to look at when it comes to refunding when there is no power or water as this is something that happens daily in South africa, if they just allowed every single guest to get a refund when there was no electricity or water, then Airbnb would not be able to function at all in South Africa . its not viable then . 

In the past my wife and I stopped complaining to airbnb as when we traveled in 2020 some places didnt have power for 2-3 days and airbnb told us its unfortunately not in the control of the hosts as it was a municipality issue and beyond anyones control . so how can they take that stance then , but a different one with us as a host. it doesn't seem to be consistent . 

[Michelle53]

@Reo55  Support is very inconsistent.   Most CS reps just want to clear a refund request case off the desk as soon as possible - they aren't going to take the time to try and understand the in-country situation.  If there isn't anything in the listing description, that's all they need to make the decision in favor of the guest. All you can do is suitably educate incoming guests as best you can.