Open letter to Airbnb founders -
I am grateful to you because I built my business using your platform, however, I find that in the unprecedented time we are living you are turning your back on us
You want to save your brand and be a Hero, and you are doing it at the expense of the hosts. The refund you unilaterally decided to give is for the most part ours. You are so proud to say you are not charging commissions - that is only a small portion of it and worse of all you are giving it back as a voucher! what a hypocrisy, how shameful!
You are leaving us with $0 - So how do we support all the workers that depend on us? And how do we support ourselves?
Before your rule I was giving 75% refund to all guests and guests were grateful to recover most of their deposit given they had originally agreed to a non-refundable rate when they booked. In my opinion I thought this was fair and also a lot better than the 0% refund that large hotel chains or huge events like Ultra were/are giving.
Keeping 25% would have allowed me to stay afloat and pay my hourly workers.
With $0 I risk being late on my mortgages and might need to layoff people.
I will not forget your actions at a time when you should support us and I will work tirelessly so I do not have to depend on you as much as I do now for my business.
I invite other hosts to do the same, give preference to other channels like VRBO who respect us as the partners we are.
