Guest cancellation due to Corona Virus

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Guest cancellation due to Corona Virus

Hi fellow hosts, 

 

I just wanted to pick your brains on the following. I host my villa in Bali while I am away. I use the strict cancellation policy. I was expecting a Chinese guest in 2 days time. This morning they told me they were cancelling because they wanted to go back to China because of the Corona virus.  I  replied that my strict cancellation policy applies. A few hours later I found out Airbnb China gave them a full refund because of special circumstances. What I do not understand is, why a virus in China is a good reason to cancel your reservation in Bali, when there are no family members directly involved. There is also no confirmed case in Bali of the Corona virus. This would  mean that all Chinese in the world can cancel their bookings and get a full refund.  Maybe I am missing something, or just not well enough informed ? Please let me know your experiences with similar situations. Thanks in advance. 

 

1 Best Answer
Norman9
Level 3
Honolulu, HI

I had guests cancelling 3 reservations from me yesterday, not happy about it! but forgo the money for your own community's sake; as Airbnb isn't doing any good-will gestures or public announcements.

 

See my repost from https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/Guest-from-China-and-Corona-virus/td-p/1221279/page/3

 

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Airbnb's internal policy regarding the Novel Coronavirus Outbreak as of yesterday (1/28/2020) is now allowing host to cancel without penalty, and for guests to cancel and get full refund from China (entire Mainland China, not just Wuhan Region). The specific dates in their Extenuating Circumstances policy covers up to April 1st. (airbnb customer service is so secretive about it and won't point me to an official airbnb press release, possibly because it would trigger mass cancellation hurting their quarterly earnings while they are planning to take the company public this year.. hmmm... Profits over People??)  If you work at airbnb and reading this, let your boss know that  https://news.airbnb.com/ is doing a terrible piss poor job at communicating with the public.

 

In my opinion, the sensible thing for airbnb to do would be to publicly announce their policy of "voluntary" cancellations:  and offer both host and guests a mix of 1. partial refund and 2. credit for future travel rather than allowing this mass panic of cancellations on both sides.  Host would get some of the money to pay bills while trying to fill the newly formed vacancies, guests can use the credit for travel at a future date, airbnb gets their 12%-15% cut of revenue upfront (credit losses later for tax write-offs and for the good-will on the PR front) without clogging up their phone lines with pissed off customers.

 

So if you are a host, due to this current un-announced policy,  there are many preventable "last minute cancellations" by the guests. If you have reservations from China I would suggest cancelling them early for the sake of preventing possible risk near your home, and give yourself time to fill the vacancy with guests from elsewhere.  It's a loss for everyone, until airbnb does announce something sensible.

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Belinda152
Level 2
Cirencester, GB

At the main computer now and my Superhost status seems to still be there!  Maybe my ipad was having a funny moment (if so I wasn't amused!!!). Panic hopefully over!!