Currently, Airbnb is showing a 30 second ad on TV in Britain, showing a family COMPLETELY wrecking a beautiful Airbnb property, supposedly treating it "as their own"... Mum is throwing flour all over the countertops while kids help with making a "fun" meal, the carpet is strewn with either food or pillow feathers, toys and junk all over the place. We run an absolutely immaculate Airbnb property, and have found that the 70 or so families who have been through it respect it enough to leave it as they find it, with almost 100% of guests really making a good effort. While we obviously encourage our guests to have a good time and not be too precious about staying here, we think this particular ad sends out ENTIRELY THE WRONG MESSAGE!
If we had guests as portrayed in the ad doing that to our place, we would shortly be out of business, disheartened and disappointed. Who thought up this storyline, and was there any consideration given to the poor hosts who have to clean up, rather than the "cool" guests who relish in this display of reckless disregard for another's home? I'm amazed no-one at Airbnb picked up on this at an early stage of production, since it's totally inappropriate to show this sort of thing to the public. Carte Blanche for the less-caring part of society who think it's just a bit of fun... Trust me, from our perspective, it's not.
Please rethink this!
Jules & Sarah **
