Hello Fellow Hosts!
Given there must be thousands of us dealing with intense smoke from the wildfires raging in the west, and am guessing not a few of us are dealing with cancellations as a result, am wondering if a discussion around how hosts are handling these cancellations would be useful?
I have a beach house and it is not an inexpensive rental. People come to our rental to enjoy the beach and nature (we are sited within 4000 acres of parklands and dunes)so I feel queasy about enforcing cancellation policies when the experience people are paying for would be severely compromised at no fault of either guest or host. Because of this, I've offered full refunds to guests that wanted to cancel due to degraded air quality, or re-booking at a later date, depending on what the guest wanted.
We are pretty new, so wanting to build a business through a reputation for being considerate hosts. Figured in the long run people will appreciate the consideration and come back (and recommend our rental to friends), but am curious how other hosts are faring and handling the situation. Anyone have a discussion with Airbnb about recommended policy? Feels like when a guest cancels for personal reasons, a cancellation policy would be apt, but in a circumstance where there is significant degradation of environmental quality (if not force majeure), feels a bit harsh???
Looking forward to hearing about other's experiences and thoughts!