Quality of Airbnb guests

Brenda-And-Jim0
Level 2
Fort Lauderdale, FL

Quality of Airbnb guests

Is it just us, or has the quality of Airbnb guests gone way down hill this summer?  Anyone else feeling this way?

 

3 years and 2,000 stays ago when we got into the business, the mentality among guests (as it should be) was that it was a privilege for guests to be staying in someone else's property.  That trend lately has seemed to reverse to where guests think that it is a privilege for us as hosts to be hosting these privileged guests.

 

Over the past couple of months, our inadvertent party count has shot up sky high.  Our review performance went from about 4.9 to 4.8 with some guests leaving comments about never coming back because the sheets were too clean (no joke, first time sheets were used and "smelled like febreeze and were not wrinkled so they must not have been washed, disgusting") or that time when the pool needed to be filtered/skimmed when there was a category 5 hurricane 100 miles away.

 

We had big plans with Airbnb and now sadly are considering distancing ourselves completely and would love some feedback on the direction the platform is going.

28 Replies 28
Lorissa0
Level 7
Denver, CO

I’ve been hosting for 2 years and had no idea you could read reviews written by guests to other hosts!! Please someone tell me how to find this??

Cor3
Level 10
Langerak, South Holland, Netherlands

Hi @Lorissa0,

 

Install the Google Chrome Airreview Plugin on your desktop Computer and use Google Chrome to look up the guest.

This Plugin will automatically reveal all the reviews these guests gave to their previous hosts.

 

May add: The plugin wants access to your account!

@Cor3 Thanks!

Grant21
Level 2
Toronto, Canada

Guests have changed for certain in the last two years,, now people tell me the “ can’t wait to stay in my house” instead of asking to stay, I remind them gently that there requesting to stay by asking some simple questions about themselves before I will accept.

since we are no longer able to look a  profile picture anymore and decide if the person in the picture is somebody we would trust with a pencil let alone my home, I find myself being much more concerned by the words used in there intro, ,, I’m very lucky because in five years I have only had maybe 6 guests that I would have preferred not to have had and two that were total rubbish 

Grant I can appreciate your views...  I'm getting the guest from hell lately and wondering what is going on.

 

Petar16
Level 5
Split, Croatia

@Grant21  the idea of  50 50 was only to be applied until they built up enough apartments to rent, when that quota filled up  why would you treat  us with the same respect as they used to 3 years ago ? .

I wont name the other site for hosting but i can 100 % recall the time where when we entered hosting we were treated as expendables and guests were treated as gods, and then when they filled on 100% of both hosts and guests, then they treated us equally ...bad .

Airbnb is slowly showing signs of declining and even caring, before they even used to reply on these type of threads addressing our complaints we have , now it feels like more or less this is all under a rug and everything is fine and dandy...tho what do we know we are all emotional right now and not capable of rational thinking after this season with what we had to encounter in our apartments and our inbox 

We don't have a lot of experience or lots of guests generally about 10 a year, for the most part they have been good experiences with the exception of two of them. I feel that the problems we experience though are due to air bnb's approach to those of us  who  host, making greater and greater demands of hosts as though they have forgotten we are just average jo's and not boutique hotels..... it sets up unreal expectations such as the latest accessibility adverts and statements such as it doesn't take much expense or time to widen a door to a toilet or bathroom, as a qualified builder I can tell you that's an unreal expectation.

Yadira22
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

Personally, I think it comes down to an increased sense of entitlement and lack of gratitude. Yes, you are providing a service and you are getting paid for this but a « thank you » and « please » goes a long way! Being appreciated usually makes it more pleasurable helping others, at least for me?!

 

When looking for an Airbnb to stay- all I want is a clean + somewhat quiet place, a relatively comfy bed and a sense of privacy/security. If I want hotel amenities, then I stay in one and consider that I need to pay the premium for this. 

 

If I had a back issue, am a very light sleeper etc staying in Airbnb is too high risk for me- as what works for most people maybe not work for the individual and I don’t think people understand this. Just like anything, you should go into it with realistic expectations. £30/night will likely not pay for a palace suite and expecting it is naive to say the least.

 

I wish Airbnb put more emphasis on the need to read an entire listing and see the whole photos, location etc. If you are traveling with excessive luggage and then choose a place on the fifth floor (stairs only) for example- then the problem is not the hosts but the guests if this had been fully disclosed. Then getting angry about this is not the way to find a solution... as (hopefully) a good host my main concern is that my guest(s) have a comfortable stay! But The  lack of personal research is not a good enough excuse anymore and not when every opportunity has been given as to avoid this. 

 

Airbnb does the dis-service by literally going alongside « the customer (guest) is always correct »  and just like in everyday experiences they are correct but not always. Until balance is restored between guests and host importance in airbnb’s eyes (primarily who brings in more money- my opinion) then no one really wins and it’s such a shame as it really could be so much better! 

Sean433
Level 10
Toronto, Canada

@Lorissa0 @Grant21 

 

Lorissa, you can also manually see what review a guest left their previous hosts manually. What you do is click on the profile of the host who left the guest a review and scroll down to see the review the guest left of him or her. Sometimes this may take a while to find but usually just a few minutes. I look at the date the guest stayed with the other host and just scroll down till I find it.

 

Grant, there is a trick to seeing guests photos and it ties into what I explained to Lorissa. If you check out the review the guest left their previous host, you will see their profile picture. You will have to use the browser to zoom in.

 

Just had a guest, a local one mind you, with 2 good reviews and 1 horrible review. I checked to see what review she left all of her hosts. For some reason, when I clicked on the host who left her the bad review, I could not see their profile so something must have happened to that host. Whether it was the result of this guest or not, I don't know. Also, I saw her photo when she reviewed her other hosts and it was just a photo of nothing. So glad I declined. Sometimes as hosts, we get excited when we get an inquiry and see the amount we can make but often times, if there is a big red flag and you decline, a better guest is around the corner. Chasing money blindly can lead to major issues for us.

Mike912
Level 2
Nine Mile Falls, WA

Have others seen a huge difference in the quality of guest?

 

YES!!!!!

Mike912
Level 2
Nine Mile Falls, WA

Hi everyone...  I wish this was a live interactive forum...  Anyway I've had the worse guest stay with us over the past 6 months.  Druggies, Liars, Thieves etc.  I've been hosting for over 3 yrs and something has changed in the community biggley….

 

Shonda16
Level 1
Austin, TX

We have noticed that in the Covid era the quality of guests, and the treatment of us as multi-year Superhosts by ABNB, have diminished.  Thanksgiving we had enough of bad guests and a bad business partner and placed our properties on the market.  2 have sold, 2 remain.  Only 1 remains on ABNB.  The partnership started out great 5 years ago but it went sour.

Sudsrung0
Level 10
Rawai, Thailand

I used to call guest from BDC cheap charlies, Im afraid airbnb is catching up, Maybe we have to start being more selective, if thats possible.