Location Star-Ratings

Nancy67
Level 10
Charleston, SC

Location Star-Ratings

A year ago, last October I wrote a scathing diatribe on the ills of allowing guests to rate  Location in a review. At the risk of another crush of emails that hosts in agreement, filled my in-box for, for months, (and another just the other day) I am still frustrated that this rating point, continues to plague, we hosts.
 
As I have stated the exact location of my property in the description a minimum of 4 times, including the subtitle of the property, I cannot make it any clearer where I am. As I  cannot "improve" my description or location of my property, and am at a disadvantage, as the guest chooses me and not the other way around-- I am reaching out once again to beg the Powers-that-Be to reconsider this as a review point. Whereas, when I have received less than 5-stars, (it's usually 4) it is inevitably from the dreaded, 1st time newbie guest, writing his/her first review,  who feels the vast weight of adnausium details, to illuminate potential, future  guests, ignoring the review of the 460 thus far, who came before them. Ironincally, I dont receive lass than 5-stars, ever for accuracy-- so explain that rationale, Airbnb...
 
Please-- I'm begging you, answer this simple question Airbnb-- WHAT are guests rating "My Location" to? Help me understand.

Afterall, It's their itinerary, and they are, choosing ME with a map of my location in front of them before booking-- This entire catagory is grossly unfair, (because there is no way to improve)  and makes the hosting experience unnecessarily stressful.

 

If hosts "5-star Location Rating" is so damned important, perhaps you,  <Airbnb> should start vetting hosts, properties and locations before allowing a listing to go live,  to make sure the new hosts are holding your high "Location" standard?

47 Replies 47

I totally agree! My country home house was given a 4 star because we were not near the town they wanted to go to but it is clear that i live in a diff town and I Even gave them directions to where they would be going and amount of time needed ahead od their stay. Then i get a review saying it was far away from things... I guess whose perspective —-we are 2 mins from major bike trails, 9 mins from highway  8 mins to Publix etc LOL 

Fred13
Level 10
Placencia, Belize

  Hi Nancy. If its any consolation, 2% of the time I get 4 stars on location, and my place is in one of the finest pristine atolls you can find anywhere in the Western Hemisphere.  There are two slightly better in Belize, and they are National Parks and you are allowed to visit but certainly not stay overnight.

 

  I dismiss it as the occassional guest being just that stupid.

  

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

I posted this in another thread on Location recently, but cut and pasted it below in case some of you missed it. It's one way to deal with this "Location" problem, which I realize some hosts might not be comfortable doing. It all depends on your rapport with the guest.

 

I do now bring this up with guests, if they are the kind of guests who I sit and share a cup of tea or a glass of wine with, which are most of them, in my case.

Guests are actually shocked when I tell them how it works for hosts re Location ratings and the star ratings in general. They say airbnb should tell them these things, and that they would feel terrible to know that an accomodation and host who they otherwise loved would get marked down and "warned", or even lose their Superhost status, when given a 4 star rating for Location, simply because they, as a guest, didn't realize that giving it 4 stars because it was, say, a 15 walk to the beach, actually reflected on the host. And all the guests have expressed disbelief that airbnb would consider 4 stars in ANYTHING to be "needing improvement". Don't forget, some of these guests may be considering hosting themselves at some point.

 

I always make a point of saying that I totally believe in honest reviews, and that if any guest wasn't happy with my communications, accuracy of listing, or cleanliness factor, I would expect to be given less than 5 stars, that it would be valuable to me to know what I could improve on (which is all true). But that since the host can't do anything about the location except be accurate in their listing description, which we hope that guests actually read, that we can get hurt by a bad Location rating when it really has nothing to do with us.

And that if they want to talk about the location, they can always do that in the written review without negatively impacting the host.

 

 

Helen0
Level 10
Manchester, United Kingdom

This is food for thought Sarah, and I'm now wondering whether to include something about this in the guest handbook that I leave in the bedroom containing transport information, local attractions etc. I've just had a review commenting peevishly that my house isn't in the city centre, which is of course obvious from the most cursory reading of the listing and the fact that I charge less than half of a city centre listing. I am quite sure most guests don't know how the reviews affect us, particularly where we appear in the rankings which brings in business or not! 

The other thing that I have tried to get across to Airbnb many times (never had any response) is that it's a particularly American cultural thing to expect 5 stars out of 5 for anything ever! In the UK and Europe, a 4-star review or rating of anything, a restaurant, a film, customer service etc would be considered excellent and people don't hesitate to give three stars/three-out-of-five etc for things that are perfectly acceptable. It doesn't indicate that there is anything wrong.

Five stars is a 100% rating and implies that whatever it is is completely flawless, exceptional and, therefore, *rare* - you wouldn't expect to come across a 5-star anything very often!

I've previously been sent 'warnings' for a run of 4-star reviews when I was feeling pretty happy with how well I've been rated and confident that's exactly what the guests were trying to convey! 

As a guest in other people's properties I've also been aware that the way the review is requested from guests specifically invites them to think of things to criticise that they would probably not even have noticed or remembered and I find this pretty infuriating too. I have had reviews mentioning completely nonsensical things (e.g the bedlinen could be cleaner - how exactly, when it's not only freshly laundered but in fact happened to be new?!) - and sometimes I wonder whether instead of being actively dishonest, the guest was just struggling to find something, anything, to fill the boxes asking for suggestions for improvements and have no idea at all that these ratings actually affect our livelihoods!

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Helen0

Helen you are right, guests in general need to be educated to understand that with Airbnb, 5 stars is the default star rating and anything less than 5 stars means something was wrong and needs to be improved.

There is debate on whether location and value ratings are taken into account for performance stats. Personally I think they are. You will notice two different perfomance percentages in various sections of your stats. One is your review overall rating percentage, and the other is your accumulated total star rating averaged to give a different percentage. One will say ie: 92% and the other will say 90%. Each is correct but they refer to two different sets of calculations.

Somebody may have given you a 5 star overall but marked you a 4 star in a couple of categories, or the other way round....given you 5 stars in all categories but a 4 star overall!

So, I do believe that all category ratings are applied, even location and value. I tried to find out once but did not get a difinitive answer so this is just my assumption.

 

Helen, on a slightly different note. I know you have the runs on the board as a Superhost with the best part of 370+ reviews, but, so am I and the only difference between me and you is, 3 years....I only have 108 reviews, but time will take care of that diference!

Reading your reviews I would worry a bit staying with you!

Your guests love you but god help them if they criticise you in any way, no matter how minor.

The only time you ever offer a review response it will be a defensive one for some tiny perception the guest may have had. I don't know that that is a good strategy Helen. I would be worried all the time if I put a foot out of line, no matter how minor I would get a verbal wrap over the knuckles....and if I did find some niggling little thing I would probably keep it to myself for fear of being criticised in the review response!

You have a great record Helen but maybe sometimes it is just wise to let the tiny little things wash over you and move on.....

Just my personal observation!

 

Cheers.....Rob

@Helen0By your excellent reasoning and good diction I could tell in a nano-second where you are coming from. Noticing Robin's observation above about being hesitant about staying in your place, I did notice two things. You make a comment ~only~ when you have a criticism to give, and the fact they include 'small' things is what perhaps makes come across as 'defensive'. Perhaps leaving something for each guest that leaves a review camouflages those that are not complimentary, and when leaving criticism stay more at a conceptual level not so specifically about really 'small' things. 

@Sarah977You know, your really make a good point. No, I am not subjected to the 'tyranny of reviews' as others here, but can sure identify with others how capricious and frustrading they can be, especially this whole nebulous state of the 'Location' category. Educating the guest on the Airbnb's 5 -star system may indeed be in order, since Airbnb have not bothered to do so. That is what I would do. 'If you leave a review folks, this is how Airbnb's system works, ....". Definitely mentioning Private Feedback, where particular suggestions belong.  All brought up with a light air and with some humor of course.

 

 

Jeremy100
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

Maybe the question should be - Is the location as described ?

Boom, Jeremy-- you win the Airbnb internet lottery today!!

Now there is a heck of an idea!

Jeremy100
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

Its not that difficult ! 🙂

Oftentimes 'giants' have the toughest time taking the smallest of steps.

Kay203
Level 4
Lima South, Australia

@Jeremy100 wrote:

Maybe the question should be - Is the location as described ?



And what's your grand suggestion if the answer to that is a very clear and concise YES???

@Kay203   You missed Jeremy's point altogether. Instead of just having the location rating say "Location" , he's saying it should say "Is the location as described?" That might help immensely.

Kay203
Level 4
Lima South, Australia

Hmm yes, I  took that completely out of context.
In that case, excellent suggestion!