Airbnb Hosting Data - Can I opt-out?

Ryan63
Level 9
Packwood, WA

Airbnb Hosting Data - Can I opt-out?

Airbnb is evidently sharing data with analytics sites like AirDNA.co, which charge for access to said data.  For a few reasons, I'd rather not have my occupancy and revenue posted on this or other sites.  Is there some way to keep my hosting data private?  

11 Replies 11
Pete28
Level 10
Seattle, WA

Airdna data is not accurate anyway, they simply pull from Xml which Airbnb uses to build its pages. However, Airbnb doesn't provide any way of externally knowing if a night is booked or blocked by the host. So the data is likely to be way off - indeed if you,look yourself up on their site you will be amazed at how much they mare earning,

 

One we problem with this is that companies such as Host Compliance use the same source of data for enforcement of city tax....

Cor3
Level 10
Langerak, South Holland, Netherlands

Hi @Ryan63@Pete28,

 

I think that Airdna is both using the Airbnb API(s) but mostly Webcrawling techniques to gather information on listings across the globe (And they are certainly not the only ones, whom are doing this).

 

So the only opt-out available to you @Ryan63, is getting off Airbnb 😞

 

Airdna claims to be pretty accurate, but I do have my doubts too. I've looked at them as well. And my conclusion is, that their data is refreshed only every 2-3 weeks or so. They most likely work out the price for each 'booking' based on your previous nightprice for a now blocked night. So they have no knowledge of intermediate price changes, or special offers, etc.

I've even seen accommodations with only 1 or 2 reviews, and an Airdna total assesment analysis of 4.8 stars?

Which is not possible to obtain neither via the API nor via Webcrawling HTML Analysis. Maybe they process the review text for particular words. Who knows.

Susan10
Level 9
Elkton, MD

Interesting.  Never heard of this site until now.  To me, it looks like Airbnb owns Airdna.  The disturbing part, in my opinion is that Airbnb fights local and state government asking for information on who is using the ABB platform yet they are mining it themselves.  A bit hypocritical.  Airbnb doesn't want to share information with local governments because they don't want to be burdened by cooperating with local governments taxing platform users - they say it's an invasion of privacy yet they are using data mining sites themselves or actually sharing this information with other data mining sites?

 

And yet another twist:  Airbnb has begun pestering all Maryland hosts (by email and phone contact) to make our objections to MD HB 1604 known to our congressmen; yet they are already doing the very thing they are urging hosts to object to. 

Cor3
Level 10
Langerak, South Holland, Netherlands

Hi @Susan10,

 

Airbnb does definitely NOT own Airdna! What gave you that impression?

Airdna is an independent company living and 'feeding themselves' on the data to be found all across the Airbnb site. Airdna is indeed mining data on the Airbnb site and put associated reporting up for sale to interested persons and parties. Although the information is most definitely not 100% accurate. It is at least more than Airbnb does provide themselves to others. It would be very strange, when Airbnb would need Webcrawling and that sort of techniques to obtain their own data 🙂

You sound upset.  

 

They are only mining Airbnb data so it was natural to assume....

 

Which points out another aspect.  Apparently ABB is technically not sharing the info with Airdna, Airdna is simply taking it and then charging others...

Yes - Airdna is just crawling, spoofing etc to get data and is not part of Airbnb in anyway.

 

The more interesting point is that Airbnb itself doesn't provide an accurate way to get the data on bookings, blocked days, payout etc. this means that cities have to then pay other companies to glean this data (with inherent inaccuracy) to do tax and enforcement. We then pay over the odds for this data in fee and tax to the city / state.

 

Many companies pride themselves on open API and encourage others to build on them. For instance a better iOS app that shows prices on the calendar with editing each date 🙂  

 

It's another example of the duplicity of Airbnb - all about sharing, but not really.

 

 

Cor3
Level 10
Langerak, South Holland, Netherlands

Hi @Pete28,

 

Airbnb does provide API's, but Airbnb is in control - over to who!

These API's are mainly intended to provide functionality to Channel Managers.

Cor3
Level 10
Langerak, South Holland, Netherlands

Hi @Susan10,

 

I'm not upset 🙂 I was just wondering what made you think they were owned by Airbnb.
But as you explained, I now understand your reasoning 🙂

 

As it would be very strange for a company to go through the hassle of really cumbersome extraction of data from it's own website. In order to get the data, they already have nicely formatted underneath their fingertips 🙂
Airbnb does however have systems in place that analyze trends and that sort of things - on basis of their operational data. Smart pricing for instance is a result of this. They even gave it a name, but I've forgotten it. I can find it, but it might take me some time.

 

An example: As you may have noticed yourself, Airbnb is no longer displaying the individual nightprices in the calendar of a listing + all the latest introduced discount facilities.
Even these relative 'small' changes are causing companies such as Airdna, really big headaches and extremely big technical challenges!
As they will have to change their software drastically, in order to produce the same results - as before (and they will not even be able to achieve the same)!

 

They might want to analyze other companies as well (Booking.Com/VRBO/TripAdvisor/Etc). But this is a tremendous and huge amount of work!
So they concentrated on Airbnb. That's why they are called: Air...
And yes, they are living like a parasite on the success of Airbnb.

 

So no hard feelings. I'm just simply a direct Dutch guy 🙂

Yeah - I wouldn't want to try and get all the Airbnb prices for all properties per night. Even the price filter slider doesn't work - it won't actually list all of the properties available no matter what you do with it.

 

i have a feeling the other Api are private ?

Cor3
Level 10
Langerak, South Holland, Netherlands

Hi @Pete28,

 

A glitch here and there seems to be almost normal in the Airbnb Software.

The other day, I was testing this new feature family collection in our area.

So I did find something like 54 homes.

Then I increased the search area. And guess what: The number of homes that would fit this filter went down?

 

With regards to the API(s): I think you have to ask for a userid at Airbnb (or something similar).

So it is up to them, to grant you access. And from what I've seen from it, it will not give you much information - on the listing itself. You can manage the listing with these. I.e. Exactly the stuff a Channel Manager typically wants to maintain.

Hii @Pete28 , I also have been using AirDna for a while now, was in my budget, but the data seemed off on many parameters, I didn't found it to be accurate, After some trial and error i settled on Airbtics which seems like a far better alternative than I have been using since January this year, they seem to be providing real-time dynamic pricing data, not sure how they are able to do it if they have an exclusive partnership with Airbnb or something else, you can use my referral code "Shivam15", you'll get 15% off using this code and ill also get 15% off on my next month's subscription, just mail this discount code to jae@airbtics,com and they'll send you a signup link. Hope it helps