Airbnb Service Fees post Pandemic

[Colin478]

Why are the service fees that the guests have to pay so high? 14% of the booking total is a lot. 

Now with most people working remotely in their homes, large campuses with offices are no longer needed, I feel these costs could drop. 

Now after a big hit from the pandemic, why charge guests so much when they are once again feeling safe and comfortable to travel. I understand advertising costs, but seriously most people I know use Airbnb, the company has been around a long time now.  I bet there would be more bookings if you dropped the guest fee to 3% too. This company would still make billions in profits. 

Thoughts?

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Colin478 Airbnb manage to lose money whilst charging the current fee structure. They would definitely go under if they reduced this significantly.

When you look at the alternatives their rates are not criminally high.

[Ute42]

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@Colin478 

If airbnb would reduce their service fee I believe they'd have to cut costs somewhere, most likely in their customer service departement.

We would then not get the great service we are all used to right now.

[Anonymous]

@Colin478  https://www.vox.com/2020/2/12/21134477/airbnb-loss-profit-ipo-safety-tech-marketing

"In the first nine months of 2019, the home-sharing company posted a loss of $322 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. In the same period a year earlier it had a profit of $200 million. The company did manage to post a profit in the third quarter of 2019, but it was lower than Q3 2018, as rising expenses outpaced rising revenue."

Note the dates:  Airbnb was already struggling to turn a profit before the pandemic crushed the global travel industry. Now, it's operating at a considerable loss.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/16/technology/airbnb-revenue-prospectus-ipo.html

The company has a huge amount of capital at its disposal, but it's definitely not making billions in actual profit.

As a guest, I find that in most places I've visited, Airbnb rates are still very competitive with other accommodations after the fees are added. But when I've seen that a particular property is on multiple platforms or has a direct booking option, Airbnb is always the most expensive channel to book it through. So in those cases, it's only been worthwhile if I needed to use up a voucher. 

I can definitely understand how the "service fee" would feel like a ripoff to people who actually have to call customer service at the moment. Airbnb keeps its hosts in constant fear of a non-5-star rating, but it is not providing 5-star service to the customers shelling out lots of money on its fees.