Personal Branding while avoiding being banned by Airbnb

[Michael326]

Hi all,

I have been a host on Airbnb for about 3 years now, currently I have around 15 listings spread amongst several cities. 95% of our revenue comes from Airbnb. I am considering building out my own brand (website where I can bill/book on my own) to increase our occupancy rate. Of course any inquiries that come in through Airbnb would get booked on Airbnb (e.g. we wouldn't try to sneak a personal email / website through their filtering system). However..... I have heard reports of reputable hosts being banned and I'm curious if anyone knows why? My thinking was to add our own branding to the booking confirmation emails (e.g. more info can be found by calling us at XX or visiting YY.com) or to try and capture their individual (non @Airbnb3.com) emails somehow. Has anyone had experience/success with this or are there any Airbnb voilations I should be aware of? I don't want to break any rules. 

[Gerry-And-Rashid0]

One area that AirBnB and to be fair other accommodation sites are not keen on is another company or brand using their site to advertise their product. So you say a personal brand, others see a small business effectively using the AirBnB name and platform - there is nothing in black and white that I can find but you are certainly treading on fairly dodgy territority by branding your replies to AirBnB queries and trying to capture personal email addresses via their site, etc. I would think very carefully if that is really worth the risk given the success you have with bookings from the site. The issue of 'reputable host' being delisted seems to stem from local regulations regarding types of properties being listed (ie effectely turning homes in to hotels via the back door). However, it's all a bit shrouded in mist - hence why you can't find a straight answer to this.

[Sandra126]

The way I see it, is that a guest who has found you on Airbnb needs to book via Airbnb. It is like a spotter's fee. Diverting them elsewhere to avoid the fee is a really bad idea!

Some hosts are listed with more than one platform, and whoever finds the bookings for you needs to get the fee. If we all stopped paying Airbnb for their services it would stop existing, and where would you be then?

How accommodation used to work in the dark ages was that we placed an ad in a classified section in the newspapers or specialist magazines and hoped. Visitor information centres, physical booking agencies. That all cost money too, quite a lot for some of them, impossible for a small operator.