Is guest's review still important under instant book?

[Eddie77]

Recently joined and listed my apartment in Airbnb.

And I found out that the host here is able to leave reviews on guests.

I can tell it's a good idea to increase trust between hosts and guests in share economy.

However, I wonder what's the benefits of these guest's reviews if hosts use instant book.

Not like some of my friends (also Airbnb's host),

they review every single reservation inquiry and decide whether to accept the guest or not.

In their cases, guest's reviews play an important role on their assessment process.

For example, if they see some terrible reviews of guest, they may want to declien the guest.

But today, I heard most of (professional) hosts use instant book.

In this case, is guest's review still important?

Because they won't assess guetst, no matter what they will receive bookings.

It seems like guest's review has no benefits for them at all.

Do you think guest's review still has benefits under instant book?

If not, why do we need to leave reviews on guests?

[Esther124]

Hi @Eddie77 a bad review on a guest can make this guest to be limited on his bookings. For example, as far as I know, a guest with bad reviews can be unable to book the "instant booking" and be forced to book only places with no instant, that resumes in the host seeing the other host reviews and perhaps not wanting him as a guest.

The host evaluation to a guest means a lot to another hosts, as we can see what problems we can have with the guest.

Also the guest review to the host has importance, since we have to guet a % of guest reviewing our property. Also we have to mantain the "score". So we have to work to get 5 stars for each guest (for instant booking or not), those stars mean that we can continue working with Airbnb or be kicked.

[Beulah1]

Even when a guest Instant Books w me, I don’t automatically accept it without reading their reviews, so they do come into play.  Sometimes they make an inquiry.  Recently I had a “bad” guest and decided to talk to the Airbnb team before writing my review and was told to be honest w the Thumbs Up or Down, whether I would want them back again.  Under a new policy If a guest receives 3 thumbs down, they are barred from the system because they cost Airbnb a lot of time and money.  This will spare other hosts a lot of grief too. Just Not leaving a review won’t help Airbnb tighten up on bad guests.  Guests can’t give a revenge review due to the review system set up or if you leave it to the very last hours of the 14 day period.  Sounds like Airbnb is supportive too.

  I noticed that this guest has been in Airbnb for two years w only one review.  As they were leaving I discovered they had stayed in many Airbnb places.  Odd!  When the agent confirmed to me that indeed they had and this caused me to believe that other hosts had not left reviews rather than leaving a bad one which would’ve helped me.  

So I am going to be more honest from now on.

[Drago1]

I have instant booking on but only for guests with positive reviews, so if they ever got one bad review before they cannot book, they can only send a request.