Airbnb changed the pricing system. In the main page where all the apartments appear at a first search, now airbnb shows the big price (room price/night + cleaning fee + airbnb’s service fee, all in one big price). Basically what they do is they add their fee in the price of our rooms, inflating this way our prices and scaring potential guests. My room is 55/night. Adding their fee in the price of the room it raised the price to 75-80/night which basically killed my business.
It was much more fair before, when Airbnb was showing the real price of the room in the general search results, and then showed the price breakdown when one entered on the property’s page. Adding their service fee to my room price it raised the price of my room so high that nobody books us anymore.
In my area, other hosts scared of this so much that they lowered their prices with 20 euros less. Now they all rent beautiful 2-3 rooms apartments with 25-35 euros/night, to still be able to be competitive on the main general search list. It’s insane.
Airbnb claims they did this to be fair towards guests and protect them from hidden costs, but i don’t see how the initial pricing system was unfair towards our guests. No guest could have been surprised by the price in the end, because they all could see the price breakdown BEFORE completing their booking, and everything was clear and transparent. Hidden costs means than one makes a booking and after he completes the booking he realises he payed more than he thought he will. This was not the case. People didn’t discover extra costs AFTER the booking was done. Everything was told to them BEFORE. And anyway that extra cost is mainly the Airbnb service fee. That’s why i don’t see why airbnb thinks it’s ok to inflate the costs of our rooms by adding their huge fee in the price of our room.
Why i think airbnb did this new system it’s because it is in their direct interest that we rent our homes as cheap as possible. In time, Airbnb took measures after measures (see smart pricing too) until they made sure we sell our homes as cheap as we can. Cheaper our places are, more people will wanna rent them (more traffic on the airbnb platform); more people will rent them, more commissions for airbnb.
It’s not fair to add THEIR Airbnb service fee to OUR room price. Their service fee is their service fee and our price it’s our price. These should be two separate things, properly shown in the price breakdown as it has always been.
It’s true that when guests click on our listing and enter on our listing's page they will see on the top the price we have set, like in my case €55/nigh but that doesn’t help us much. That’s too late!!! THEY DON’T GET TO CLICK ON OUR LISTING ANYMORE TO SEE OUR REAL PRICE OF 55/NIGHT BECAUSE THEY GET SCARED BY THE HUGE PRICE OF 75-80/NIGHT INFLATED BY THEIR AIRBNB FEE.
If airbnb did this move to “protect” guests from hidden costs than they did it very badly without thinking at all at their prime partners - the hosts. First of all there were no hidden costs. Everything was very transparent and clearly presented in the price breakdown: room price + cleaning fee (if it was any) + airbnb service fee. Simple and fair!
I told airbnb this: “Imagine you produce something and you partner with me to sell it for you, but i start adding up my high fees and end up selling your product so expensive that nobody buys it anymore. This way i’m pushing you to lower your price so much till it’s not worth to you anymore. How would you find that? Would you consider that a fair partnership? That’s exactly what Airbnb is doing right now.” They didn’t reply back.
Adding 20 euros service fee to the price of my room it makes it 75 which IS NOT the price of my room, ‘cause the price of my room is 55. You know what i mean? It’s outrageous, honestly.
I never had hidden costs. Everything was very clear. The price of the room + cleaning fee + service fee. Very simple! I don’t understand why airbnb had to add all these in the price of the room..
It’s not fair to constantly push us to lower the price. Airbnb doesn’t give a **bleep** about our businesses and our revenues, all that matter to them is pushing us to sell cheap ‘cause that means more rooms sold, which means volumes for Airbnb. In the end it’s all about them. hell of a “partner”. Literally.
I would like to know what other hosts think about this.
Thank you.
