3 years as superhost and I feel really let down by Airbnb

[Tania-and-Andrew0]

(Excuse the long post)

I would like to share a bit of my story and how I am feeling more and more let down by Airbnb, I don't know if this is happening to other hosts around the world and would like to reach out and would also appreciate your feedback.
I have been an Airbnb host for over 3 years now and most of that time, like now, I have been a Superhost.
This year in particular I have been feeling that Airbnb is less supportive of hosts and care less of the people that make hosting and traveling a great experience and more about just making money like any other company.
Of course I know that Airbnb is a business and it’s meant as a profit for the brand; but, that doesn’t mean they need to take out the heart out of the business.
It all started when they allowed hostels and boutique hotels to enter when it was intended as a home sharing platform, wasn’t it?
More and more people started traveling with Airbnb and more and more hosts appeared, hosts that didn’t understand how Airbnb really worked and provided lousy service which in turn ended with Airbnb punishing bad hosts and good hosts and also guests that didn’t really understand the difference of staying in a home or a hotel.
2018 came and it’s been a real overall disappointment… Airbnb is pushing and pushing and pushing hosts to lower their prices when we barely break a profit. At some point I caved to Airbnb’s “suggestions” and went as low as to 19 USD per night on a private room with private bathroom in a lovely home that has a pool and even breakfast included. Our home is located in downtown Cancun near the bus station and the entrance of the hotel zone (beach access).
While having 19 USD per night Airbnb kept insisting on me lowering my price, it keeps suggesting to go as low as to 16 USD a night. We don’t charge cleaning fee and have the minimum set for security deposit.
Guests have been worst every stay, we don’t turn down first-time guests as, apparently, they are the only guests that get paired with our home. We would have had virtually no guests in 2018 if we had turned down all this new accounts.
A couple of months ago we had a guest that utterly disregarded all of our house’s rules to the point that we had to call Airbnb and complain as when we tried to reach out to the guest they just turned us down and made wild accusations. Airbnb only offered us the option of kicking the guest out, it was 11 PM and a holyday weekend so all other hotels/Airbnb’s in the area were booked. Seeing as we would have left our guests homeless we decided against it and just asked Airbnb to mediate and explain the guests that they needed to follow our house’s rules and that’s why they are on display before you book. This, of course, turned into a 3* review from the guest as punishment for standing up to their bad behavior. The written review is perfect, every aspect was given 5* but the overall experience was rated a 3*. We reached out to Airbnb saying that this was not a fair review and they turned us down.
We know how important it is for fair reviews on both sides and that guests should feel free to express their opinion, but specific situations like these should have more support for the host. Or what should we have done? Shut up and just wait to leave a nasty review so the guest doesn’t lash out?
Another event this year where Airbnb’s lack of support for the host happened around January. A guest that was already staying at another Airbnb and most-likely bonded with the other host. Since we have strict cancellation policy the guest probably felt safer to invent a story about how the moment she arrived she felt “unwelcome” and “mistreated” so (after 5 minutes of being in our home) wanted to cancel the reservation and stay somewhere else. We reached out to Airbnb and offered our security footage to prove that this was not the case but still offered a full refund for the guest. While on the phone with Airbnb I asked the agent if the guest would be able to leave a review and they said NO. Imagine our surprise when the guest (who didn’t even stay in our home) managed to leave a review (1*).
We have raised our prices a bit (23 USD a night) and gone against Airbnb’s advices and now we have 0 bookings or inquiries for the next months. We only have guests this month and nothing more.
We are still superhosts and we have very detailed description of our home, we offer a lot more than other hosts/places in the area and our prices are quite fair…
After all of our experience this year and the lack of Airbnb’s support when it really mattered we are considering on closing our account…
How has your hosting been this 2018? Have you noticed any differences in previous years? So you have any advice or suggestions?

EDITED: Also, I have turned-off for about  year now the requirement of a legal ID validation as I have read in guests forums the concern for their privacy as a

lot of company were selling personal information. Do you have it as a requirement? 

[Ava30]

Hi Tania & Andrew: Your place is beautiful and your price is extremely fair. It could be your bed size that is causing issue. When I first started I had all single beds in the rooms. My bookings were so so. I upgraded one room to a double bed, moved the extra single into another room, thereby also increasing the number of guests my home could accomodate, and my bookings increased almost immediatly.  Just a thought. 

On a side note, I did a quick search in Cancun and your listing comes up in the top 5 

Have a Great Day!

[Tania-and-Andrew0]

Thank you, Ava! We've considered making it a fullsize bed but hadn't really done as (before now) we've been booked solid for the last 3 years. We've had a lot of bookings by family memeber (sisters, brothers, siblings, mother-daughter) and friends traveling together that would not feel comfortable sharing a bed. That's what really kept us from changing, we have a second bedroom with a fullsize bed but since it's on the 2nd floor (next to our room) we mostly have it hidden from searches and just offer it to guests asking for a different bed.

[Emiel1]

Hello @Tania-and-Andrew0 ,

I think the problems you mentioned with few guests are simply "part of the business". It happens, and Airbnb will not support you enough (read other complaints from hosts in this community). I also don't think the decrease in your reservations is related to these problems  (BTW one of your listing show NO dates available at all, so nobody can book). Your listings and reviews look OK. But there is a lot of competition when searching for "Cancún" . But when filtering on low budget pricelevel your listing "private room" shows up on first page of search results. Did you have a look in "progress" section to check amount of views ?

Best regards, Emiel

[Tania-and-Andrew0]

Hello Emiel, thank you for your reply. The 2nd listing has no dates available as it is our backup bedroom and it's the one we use for friends and family, we have it listed in case guests traveling have "last minute changes or additions". A party of 2 suddenly becomes 3 or 4, we unblock the dates and invite their other friend (s) to book our secondary room. 🙂

Regarding your question, yes, we have been monitoring our progress and views have been decreasing steadily. 

You mentoned that "low buget pricelevel" that's when we appear, that worries me and would explain the reason of our decrease on "guest quality". This year we've even had guests that had stole from us, and that could be why. This is one more reason for us to avoid Airbnb's bullying to lower our price and increase prices.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Tania-and-Andrew0forget ABB pricing tips, our regular price is 50€ but we had one day listed for 10˘€ and then we were constantly getting tips to lower our price to 8 € which is impossible as 10€ is the lowest price you can set 😄

and yes, low prices attract low people

until now our guests are not worse then last year or year before, but we do get less bookings since Airbnb introduced Family and bussines collections. 

[Tania-and-Andrew0]

We have deffinitely seen a decline on guest quality and bookings. It's unreal that they suggest you lower to 8 EUR when the minium is 10... it just proves how dumb this policy is. I have just tried to follow a suggestion to "meet my goals" and the first was to lower from 25 to 23, I didn and then the next suggestion is to lower from 21 to 19... really?!

[Helen56]

If you raise your prices you will get better people.

Require government ID, you need to know they are real people and not using fake names.

Some of my nicest guests have been first time users, everyone has to start from the beginning.  I always chat to my guests via the message system before they book and never use 'instant book'.

Ignore 'smart pricing'.  It is not smart - look at the hotel prices in your area, and  charge less.  The algorithm hasn't visited your place!

[Tania-and-Andrew0]

Thank you, Helen. I acutally have instant booking on because if you don't Airbnb puts you lower in the results and with the competition so high in Cancun is a losing battle. Also, I stopped requiring ID as there were many concerns from travelers about sharing their personal information or ID as most data is not guarded as safely (or at least that's the concern).

[Fred13]

@Tania-and-Andrew0 Perhaps best to not follow what Airbnb suggests and follow your own instincts, or requirements.

   Btw, when I first started (4 years ago) there were 3 Airbnb listings in my area, now there are 400.

  Yes, things have changed. 

[Steven65]

Raise your minimum price and ignore the suggestions. You are worth it and so is your listing! Also, ensure guests have ID verification and previous good reviews. It is better to have no guests than bad, non profit ones.

[Alex939]

@Tania-and-Andrew0 sorry about your experience, I think this could happen to every host here. I hope your case will be resolved and your negative results will be cancelled! Regarding the situation in 2018 I could just repeat what @Fred13 said:competition is booming; even in the places where 1-2 years ago Airbnb was an unknown word now there are many properties listed with low prices and we couldn't  do much about it. When I go to see my progress, I've achieved family collection, work collection, basics, supehost and nevertheless I have now less bookings than in July 2017 when I was just starting the activity. So we hosts need to figure out how to behave in this environment.

[Tania-and-Andrew0]

Thank you, Alex! 

[Paul154]

Tania & Andrew

Sorry the competition is Cancun is so fierce. 

You will have to consider other options . Like either raising your rates or advertising elsewhere. Or getting a roommate. 

If you're not getting business anyway, try putting up your rate way high as an experiment.

Get rid of the free breakfast, unless the competition is offering it.

Sorry, that I am now going to scold you. NEVER go to a guest website and get advice!  I have found the hard way that that is the road to dissappointment and poverty.

Follow the "standard".

Most all hosts demand government ID. You should too. Not because it's right (which it is), but because it is the "standard". It is the easy and safe course.

Best of luck

[Tania-and-Andrew0]

Thank you, Paul! I have now restored the ID requierement for my listing. If people are too suspicious to upload their ID they are probably not the guests we're looking for.  🙂