This is not a request for help but I have to share my amusement at some of these "tips" Airbnb gives me sometimes.
I've seen lately they've started informing hosts, something along the lines of, "the base price of the average of listings in areas near your listing is X% lower than your base price."
And I got confused, and thought about what they're telling me, then looked at the competition and concluded it's hilarious, 'cos they're telling me nothing of value!
They follow with, "maybe you could consider lowering your base price to match the others around you." And I'm wondering, name one other industry or market where the price is just set by assuming everything that everyone offers is exactly the same, and therefore they should all share the same price!
I mean - what are they even saying? The tip doesn't seem to take into account anything at all about what I actually offer. So by their logic, there could be a hotel Sofitel with king size ensuite rooms on the beach, and in the slums not far away lots of run down motels, so Airbnb's marketing algorithm deems the Sofitel to be too expensive and it should match the price of the stained-bedspread motel.
And I know I know, these tips aren't forcing you. I mostly ignore them except for when they give me a guide to what dates people are searching for. But some of them can be funny so I thought others might share the view.
P.S.
You should really take this stuff with a grain of salt. At the end of the day I see Airbnb as being like real estate agents: they don't really care what price you're getting - they just want a sale, to match buyer and seller, so they get the commission locked in. (Oh yeah, they may argue they really really do care. But conveniently the satisfaction of you and customer also happens to coincide with them making more money. Maybe I'm cynical.)
