Hello. I would like to draw your attention to Airbnb current rating system. There is a great article in Forbes and I think Airbnb should take these suggestions into an account. It is not a new issue but maybe if more hosts ask for a change, they will look into it.
I agree with the Forbes article (see below) and particularly the observation about a rating system and I quote "a star rating is no longer useful if some guests are leaving reviews with a luxury hotel as an anchor, while others are doing it based on what they expected and paid for". I think another issue is a challenge when one little item is off. For example I just had a guest who decided that the water in my hot tub looked dirty even though he specified he does not have much experience in that area (my hot tub is green, so that is how the water looks). As a result he gave 4 stars for cleanness, but gave 5 stars for all other categories. However at the end the guest is asked for the final total rate, and if the smallest item is not to perfection, guest will choose 4 stars. Let's think about it, we are rated on 6 categories and 5 out of 6 are rated as 5 star. Why is it that we are stuck with 4 star final rating? The system should NOT ask our guests for a final mark, it should calculate an average rate based on the six listed categories and post it as a final score. So in my example, it would be 4.83 and not 4 which will bring the total property average for the owner a lot more down. The current system is unfair and does not provide a true reflection of the guest's experience.
Here is the article:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sethporges/2016/06/29/the-one-issue-with-airbnb-reviews-that-causes-hos...
What many guests don't understand is that anything less than a five-star review can cause serious issues for a host. The Airbnb platform actually delivers stress-inducing warnings if we get four-star ratings. And anything less than five stars can have a serious and detrimental impact on a host's placement in the all-important search rankings—causing damage to a host's financial well-being that a guest may not be aware of. And Airbnb's "Super Host" program—which offers perks such as higher search placement and better customer service to extraordinary hosts—requires us to get five-star reviews in at least 80 percent of bookings: A very high (and very stressful) bar to climb if even the occasional guest who had a great stay is leaving four stars.
To an Airbnb host, this creates an extraordinary level of anxiety, and a somewhat antagonistic relationship with guests. As hosts, we find ourselves sussing out and picking guests almost entirely based on how we predict their final review will stand. Everything from the potential guest's profile photo, to their initial message, to the reviews they've left for past stays is looked at to try to determine how many stars we think they'll give at the end of their stay. If a guest has left a trail of poor reviews for other hosts, we're likely to pass on their patronage. It's simply too risky. It also makes us less likely to turn on the "Instant Book" feature, since a particularly needy or demanding guest could book, only to leave us a poor review.
A lot of this antagonism could be sorted if sharing economy sites such as Airbnb did a better job of presenting reviews and ratings as reflections of what a guest expected and paid for. The current "star"-based rating system is simply too similar to what is commonly seen in hotels—a similarity that encourages guests to view it with the same grammar. Adding language that frames ratings and reviews as a reflection of what was expected and paid for will also make it easier for potential guests to better compare properties (a star rating is no longer useful if some guests are leaving reviews with a luxury hotel as an anchor, while others are doing it based on what they expected and paid for), while also encouraging hosts to offer a great experience at whatever price they happen to offer.
Being an Airbnb host is a lot of fun, but it can also be emotionally exhausting when you feel you've done everything you can to cater to an ungrateful guest. Including language that clears up this little issue with the way hosts and guests see reviews and ratings would go a long way towards fighting host burnout, and encouraging us to open our doors for years to come.
