Location rating

Roberta2
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

Location rating

Hi,

 

I really wish Airbnb would drop the "LOCATION" rating.

We, as hosts, clarely state where the property is. There is a map on thelisting.

It is up to the guest to do some research.

 

My property is NOT in central London.

This is clearly state on the listing. I name the neighbrohood.

 

But then people mark me down for location!

 

This is super unfair! 

 

**[Post made into a new topic - title updated]

 

 

141 Replies 141
Rachel0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

 @Lizzi0e

This is so true!  I have explained in great detail that I am in Ealing, how long it takes to get into town etc and yet STILL people expect to look out of the window and see Big Ben or St Paul's.  However, I have noticed that a lot of hosts in London are a little economical with their accuracy maintaining that they are 10mins from major tourist spots when the only way they could get there in 10mins would be by helicopter.  That sort of inaccuracy should be penalised.

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Rachel0 @Roberta

 

Yes, this is super frustrating. My place is very, very convenient for getting to the centre, but I sometimes feel that guests are expecting the area to look like something out of a Merchant Ivory film or Downton Abbey. Actually, the guest who left yesterday said he was surprised at how modern London was because he had thought all the buildings would be 18th Century!

 

However, I believe that location is the one star rating that is NOT taken into account for Superhost status, so in the context of this thread, it's irrelevant. 

I also find the location rating absurd. My airbnb is a 3 minute drive to the centre of my large provincial town, in an adjacent suburb. All very clearly described and quite obvious on the booking map. Yet periodically I lose a start due to location. It is the one thing a cannot change unless I decide to move house!. Most frustrating. What is the actual reasoning behind the location rating?

When I'm looking for a place to rent, in a city like London, I don't really care what other guests say about location, because it is such a subjective subject. I look at local transportation to determine if the location will work for me. I believe that any seasoned traveler knows that the further from the center you are the better the price, and if transportation is reasonably close to the property, it's a great trade off. One can spend more time in the Tube (and see nothing), than on a bus or train from the suburbs.  I wouldn't worry about this , especially since you all describe your location accurately. We have visited London at least 15 times and find that we keep moving further away from the center in our explorations, to get a better sense of the city.

Location is counted for Superhost status and is the one area that caused me to lose my status. The rest I average 5 stars. Sigh...

@Michelle857 -  Location is NOT counted in Superhost status.  Only the Overall Experience score is taken into account. Staring in April, you must have a 4.8 or higher Overall Experience.  Prior to that it was measured based on the percentage of Overall 5-star scores.  Overall rating is not based on the combined scores but the actual star rating given for Overall.  

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/829/how-do-i-become-a-superhost

@Alice-and-Jeff0 Thank you for clarifying the formula. I guess my guests count location since it’s asked about. In my listing, I’m very clear that I’m far from most tourist areas yet that is often for what I’m penalized in the minds of my guests. Sigh... if only they would read....

Since location is factored into the overall score, it does effect the rating. We are having this issue now- the guests tell us they couldn’t find anything closer to tourist areas and still give us a lower rating overall even though we clearly state the time it takes to get to the touristy areas. 

Location is NOT counted for Superhost status as it's subjective.

Oh my goodness your place is wonderful!  Certainly a 5 star.  

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

I think there are two issues here, in my situation at least.

 

1. People DO NOT READ. So, a host can go out of their way to accurately describe the location and distances, but that won't stop many guests showing up with unrealistic expectations. The most common questions I get from prospective guests (aside from 'Can I check in/drop off bags early?') are related to location, and the information they ask is almost always already there plain as day on the listing.

 

2. People are often quite clueless about the place they are travelling to or have a pre-conceived but totally inaccurate idea of what it will be like. In London, for example, they think central means walking out of the door and bumping into Big Ben. They don't realise that London is vast and if you are in Zone 1 or 2 (not 6 or 7!), you are very central indeed.

 

They also often have some fantasy image from film and literature, as mentioned above. Even non-period films like Notting Hill present a completely inaccurate and white-washed version of London. Some guests expect it to be all vicars on bicycles, cream teas and croquet, which is obviously absurd given that it's one of the biggest, fastest and most multi-cultural cities in the world. 

 

This week I had a guest give three stars for location and mark me down on accuracy because, although the location was 'interesting' and very convenient, she thought it 'looked really bad' as did the exterior of my house. I was a bit surprised by this given that it's a conservation area due to the number of architecturally important Georgian, Regency and early Victorian houses like mine. I guess that she wasn't expecting social housing alongside this, but anyone who knows London also knows that this mix is typical of most neighbourhoods. The majority of London is not Knightsbridge and Belgravia!!

@Huma0 re: vicars on bicycles, cream teas and croquet: you have to go to Gloucestershire for that, don't you? 🙂

 

I've gotten downgraded on location a few times, specifically because I'm not closer to Niagara Falls. I keep asking them to move it, but no luck so far.

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Alexandra316

 

Lol. Well you can get cream teas quite easily in London if you're willing to pay the 5 star hotel prices for them, but I've never seen a vicar on a bicycle on my street (I have seen a priest/Hell's Angel - not sure what that was about) and the last time I played croquet was indeed on a weekend away in the countryside.

 

However, many guests do expect London to be totally 'oldy worldy', with Sherlock Holmes and Jane Austen (and throw in non-oldy worldy Hugh Grant for good measure) lunching beside them.

 

Good luck with moving Niagra Falls. Where there's a will, there's a way 🙂

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

And here's the offensive exterior of my house (verified photo by Airbnb). So, it's not perfection (the path is a bit rustic), but does it look so 'very bad'? This photo was taken in the Autumn. Obviously in the depths of Winter, there isn't a lot flowering, but I didn't realise it looked that bleak...

 

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