Airbnb. Stop insulting hosts. How about you try this!

David6
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

Airbnb. Stop insulting hosts. How about you try this!

Are the wheels finally falling of Airbnb?  In 6 years of hosting, I’ve never, ever had ‘available’ nights in August.

 

Latest tourist figures show an increase in numbers of visitors coming to London. Yet, I’m just not getting the booking like previous years.

 

What I am getting from Airbnb,  is very, very insulting price tips and email alerts,  to reduce my listings to £17! Are you actually serious Airbnb. Do you know how much most hosts are paying for their Mortgage in london? I pay my cleaner £38 to clean the apartment. How is it possible to offer it at £17! 

 

Airbnb, how about an email to us hard working, under paid hosts:

‘hi hosts, Airbnb are reducing guest  fees to secure you more bookings!’ Imagine that? Imagine actually supporting your hosts, instead of eroding the London nightly rate and insulting us time after time with your advice and tips! 

47 Replies 47
Alice595
Level 10
Concord, CA

@David6  Airbnb price tips in our areas are about 10-20% below the lowest I see in the area. How about in your area? Is it far off?

David6
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

Massively. @Alice595 

 

The hostel near me in a 8 bed shared dorm are listed on Airbnb & all the other platforms, and Airbnb links me to them as a comparison to see what my competitors (‘other hosts in your area’) are charging !

 

Honestly, you could not make it up. Who is actually endorsing sending out these ‘communications?’ 

Dimitar27
Level 10
Sofia, Bulgaria

Is there any possibility that this is due to Brexit?

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@David6  A shared hostel room (4 guests) at my friend's quite nice hostel in my town, where they share a bathroom and a tiny kitchen, is $25/night in high season. Airbnb's price tips to me are $19/night for a private room with private bath, balcony, and full use of my well-equipped kitchen. Insulting for sure. And I tell them exactly that on the feedback form every time I get one of those emails.

Helen427
Level 10
Auckland, New Zealand

@David6 @Dimitar27 @Alice595 @Sarah977 

 

There's been many IT Glitches that have impacted adversely on all far & wide.

not all of them have been ABB's fault they are 3rd party platform connection issues, it impacts on others ability to do things like booking & conducting transactions.

@Helen427  I'd say 3rd party platform connection issues are very much Airbnb's fault- if they are using 3rd party platforms that are full of glitches, it's their responsibility to either change the platforms or software that they are using or ensure that it is fixed. Other booking platforms aren't so fraught with constant IT glitches, as far as I'm aware.

Helen427
Level 10
Auckland, New Zealand

@Sarah977they are all as bad as each other.

 

The Google outage went on for several months & knocked out Major news media websites in the world including BBC!

Dimitar27
Level 10
Sofia, Bulgaria

Situation in Great Britain is very specific right now. They prepare to leave EU at October. And no one knows what will happen. This act will have a huge impact on the local economy.

@Dimitar27 

I had a conversation with a guest about this recently. There are influencing factors. Europeans think we oppose them (only a percentage of 52% may be that way) so they are not inclined to visit here fearing disruption and a hostile reception.

 

Conversely, noted by the guest there is an abundance of Asian visitors in our area. For these groups, often families travel together in a large group so would not necessarily utilise Airbnb type accommodation, or in fact only use the larger listings.

 

This last couple of years our International guests have declined dramatically, which might be indicative of your point.

The unknown is frightening. Always.

Jeff158
Level 10
Caernarfon, United Kingdom

@David6  over a 1,000 listings added in the last 3 months.

It looks like Islington is reaching saturation point on the map.

 

https://bnbvestor.com/#search/lev3/150856/islington-england-gb/idProt=782113825

David6
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

For sure @Jeff158 . I started hosting 6 years ago. Rates have been seriously eroded and I down by £25 per night per room as there is just so much competition. I don’t know how Airbnb imagine all these thousands of rooms per night are ever going to be booked. But I suppose as long as they get the $$$$ it doesn’t matter where it comes from. 

David6
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Sarah977  @Helen427 

Airbnb are reportedly worth’  $38 billion. Surely they should be employing the most super hi tech IT professionals. It’s no excuse to have such an inadequate, antiquated platform. Bugs have been reported by hosts for years and just ignored. Airbnb don’t need to fix stuff though because they are maker leader, there is no actual competition for them. So basically they will do as they like! 

@David6  Yes, it's just unmitigated corporate greed. Smart business people put a healthy amount of profits back into the business. That means adequate, well-trained customer service and technical staff, not just adding more fluffy categories and slicking up the website.