There have been lots of posts from hosts who are frustrated that their listing isn't appearing on searches. Last night I had a frustrating experience from the other side of the bed!
I am planning some upcoming trips and wanted to do some research to book accommodations through Airbnb - which will be a first for me, although I am an active host. I was very excited to be able to experience the other side of Airbnb as a guest, after having had such pleasurable experiences as a host.
I put in my dates, the basic features I was given to choose from (entire home, 1 bedroom, Instant Book OFF) and price range. What appeared was what seemed like a completely random, and overwhelming, list of hundreds of options that I then had to laboriously sort through to find what I was looking for.
I would have liked an opportunity to have been able to sort the results by Superhost status, quality of review, numbers of reviews, price. What should have taken me a relatively short period of time, and given me access to the listings most suited to my needs, instead resulted in an hours long search as I waded through mediocre listings to find the pearls.
It was not a very satisfying experience, and I can understand the frustrations of excellent hosts who are not appearing high in the rankings. It is those excellent hosts that I wanted to find! I don't want to wade through pages and pages of mediocre listings from less than committed hosts to find the hosts and the properties that I know will meet my expectations.
Although I was looking forward to an Airbnb experience, it would have been way easier to have used a conventional booking platform to have found accommodations for my upcoming trips. Perhaps not as fun, but definitely more user friendly and efficient.
I watched the live presentation today from the LA Open about upcoming additions to the Airbnb platform. I wish the creators would spend more time improving what they already have, rather than coming up with new innovations.
I definitely had a less than positive experience trying to book as a guest, which impacts all of us as hosts.
Jude
PS Although this isn't a hosting issue - ultimately it is - since the inability of guests to easily find the property that best suits their needs affects every host. I might have been looking for some of YOU, but couldn't find you because you were buried many pages back and it just wasn't feasable for me to continue searching after a certain period of time. Had I been able to sort my results your listing may have moved up to a place where I could easily find it.
Since the search function affects hosts, I am also posting this on Host Voice. If you think the search function needs to be improved, please add your voice and thumbprint. 🙂