Is it possible to ask to the guests about their experiences with their hosts?

[Emilio153]

I think it is not possible to ask to guests about their experiences, we can only see their comments. 

It would be a great option. It would be much helpful to be able to contact those persons that posted a comment after their visit, than just reading a comment in which we usually don´t describe all aspects of an accommodation, and even if we liked the host we don´t really say all the wrong things that we found.

I think that by contacting directly a guest after their visit we would be much better and real information about the accomodation than only asking to the host. It would increase the trust to Airbnb accommodations and the quality of our stays. It is quite unpleasant when we arrive to a place and it is not exactly what was said in the comments or by the host.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

Great idea @Emilio153  😄 .... and now imagine you took a tour through Croatia this summer, visited 5 cities and ever since you wrote a first review you keep getting Airbnb messages from random people who want to book the same accommodations. All of them have numerous questions about your hosts, rooms, beds, parking, A/C, view, location... Then the next year you will take a tour through Australia and the next year through America.... and a few years later people will still message you about some room where you spent one night this summer in Dubrovnik.

Do you REALLY want to go through this? For free? :))))

[Emilio153]

You went to an extreme...in most cases people just make normal trips visiting one or few cities.

And you would free to reply or not.

Many people wouldnt mind to spend 5 seconds answering and helping some persons.

What is clear is that being able to contact guests could give you the opportunity to get an additional information that would help you to choose a better place. It is really bad to get surprises..and in airbnb this happens a lot, you just need to read comments of people, in many cases what hosts said is not 100% what you find.

[Emilio153]

Airbnb could make an extra inbox that you visit if you want only..so you do not need to reply nobody if you do not want to. But many people will be fine in replying and this could help travellers

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Emilio153 

...in most cases people just make normal trips visiting one or a few cities...

this is how it used to be decades ago, people came to the coast, took a hotel room and relax for a month. Now there is a new trend,  people take a few shorter holidays through the year and spend them on the tour. Our guest's average stay is just 1,5 nights. They usually land in Zagreb, stay here for a day or two then proceed to the Plitvice lakes, Zadar, Split, Dubrovnik and fly home from there. But, that's another topic 🙂

We have more than 300 reviews, why do you think you will know more about us if you contact some of our guests?

And which one would you contact? That 98 % who gave us good or those 2% who gave us bad reviews?

As @Sarah977  said, we also got a few bad reviews from guests who didn't read our listings and assumed we offer something that we don't. Or they were unreachable on the day of arrival, were late on check-in or were angry when they arrived because they had a domestic fight during the trip or their teenage kids were driving them crazy. We also had guests who were angry because we didn't let them use A/C while the outside temperature was 21C or less  .... All of them blamed us for not fulfilling their unreasonable demands or for their own mistakes and miserable life in general. Would you believe them or would you believe 95%  of our other, good guests?

Airbnb has many serious downsides, glitches, unjust rules and practice and things which need major improvements, but this is not one of them 🙂

[Emilio153]

Again, this +300 reviews is not the normal thing..

You could ignore your 'guest messaging inbox'....and all fine

I am using airbnb as guest...and I am checking places with not more than 10 reviews. I would love to contact some of them and ask specific questions, instead asking the host, who always would say that the place is very clean and quiet, if course..but frequently it is not the reality..that is a fact.

It would help many people..

It would be easy to make it...

Extra information always is welcome.

Why so against it? 🙂

[Sarah977]

@Emilio153  It sounds like you've had the misfortune to book with maybe quite a few hosts who don't give accurate information?  Because it simply isn't true that a host would always say the place was very quiet, or something else that it isn't true. Hosts who do this are foolish- if the place is on a busy street, it's in the host's self-interest to make this known to guests- if they say it's quiet when there is traffic going by all day, that just leads to bad reviews from the guests.

Hosts advise each other on this forum, all the time, to disclose everything that might be an issue for guests- if it's in a rough-looking, but still safe, neighborhood, if the host has a dog that barks, if there's no place to park near the listing, if the Wifi where they live is slow. No place is perfect for everyone- some guests might not mind traffic noise and sleep through anything, other people might be really bothered by it. Some guests need to work online, others want a break from the digital world. So it's much smarter of a host to just be honest about everything so they get guests who will be a good "fit" for their place.

I can assure you that all hosts don't misrepresent, just to get bookings, maybe you've just had the bad luck to get a lot who do.

[Emilio153]

Exactly, not all hosts do such thing, but some do.

Do you think that some host would say to a guest: yes, come, but the flat is not clean...of course not...and indeed many flats are not clean.

Again, bad luck or not, being able to write to the guests would give an extra information, always positive..

I hope that some guests give also their opinion to this respect, it seems like hosts are not interested in introducing such thing....hm 🙂

[Sarah977]

@Emilio153  So say you could contact other guests. You message another guest to ask about the place and they say, Oh, man, it was terrible, totally dirty, the host was rude and crazy, the stove didn't work properly, the sheets were stained and the towels all had holes in them, it should be banned from Airbnb.

Then you contact the host to ask them about that guest (you said earlier you would do this and then decide) and they say that that guest was caught sneaking 3 more people into the unit, they damaged a bunch of furniture and left a big disgusting mess behind them. That the host charged them for the extra people and the damages and that's why the guest left a bad review full of lies- as retaliation.

Both of these people are complete strangers to you. How would you decide who to believe?

[Emilio153]

Well, should we believe the reviews then? they are strangers..

Of course I wouldnt go to that place after hearing that..I dont believe that a person can lie so much about a place that was perfect..it is not normal.

I have already asked to many people and all agree that it would be a good idea, many of them saying that they never wrote all they saw, afraid of receiving a bad answer. This need to be avoided.

It is a fact that it would help guests to get an extra information about the place. And of course, certain hosts maybe dont want that guests get such information, but this is really unfair. 

[Sandra856]

@Emilio153 You don't believe that a guest can lie that much??? We have hosts in here all the time having problems with guests bringing extra guests, smoking in non-smoking homes and when they ask the guest to please don't bring strangers into the home or ask the guest to not smoke when it is not allowed then what do you think happens when the guest pissed of has to write the review? 

[Emilio153]

In that case they could lie saying that the hosts is annoying, controlling...i dont´know... but are the gonna say that the bed was broken, the toilet smells, the stove was broken, internet was not working???? if it was not the case? really? thats sound too childish...Never heard about such things.

What is clear so far is that everyone who is replying to my question are hosts and seem like they don´t want that guest get information about their places....Sorry, but it doesn´t sound nice and fair for me...guests should know the reality of the houses that they visit. The same idea is applied for hosts: they could contact previous hosts of the guests who want to book their places and ask about them...

With the way that I proposed, an evident problem would be reduced with few messages: I don´t go to places that don´t totally suit me and hosts don´t book their places to wrong guests....this is the way to make airbnb more trustable for everyone.

I can only understand that hosts and guests who have things to hide won´t like the idea...

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Emilio153 

you wrote:

...In that case they could lie saying that the hosts is annoying, controlling...i dont´know... but are the gonna say that the bed was broken, the toilet smells, the stove was broken, internet was not working???? if it was not the case? really? thats sound too childish...Never heard about such things.,,,

Such retaliation false reviews happen all the time. This forum is full of such stories, just browse and you will get 271 result:

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/message?filter=location&q=retaliation%20re...

[Sandra856]

@Emilio153  If you search for revenge reviews :

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/message?filter=location&q=revenge%20review...

[Sandra856]

@Emilio153 That’s exactly how you can see that the guest is pissed about something ; if they complain about everything. Wouldn't it be weird if all those things were broken? You don't really seem to understand what we are trying to explain to you. 

And also a host can easily write to another host asking about a guest.