In the attached screenshots, you will see a huge contradiction. In one of them, there is the false statement, "Pre-booking message: require guests to read and respond to a message BEFORE they confirm their reservation". In the other screenshot, where a friend is going through the steps of booking my listing, you will see that my pre-booking message does not appear anywhere.
What we discovered is that AFTER the property is booked and paid for, the pre-booking message will be automatically sent as a conversation starter.
This is a pretty huge design oversight. I've contact AirBnB customer service many times about it, and either the service rep is somehow incapable of understanding the issue OR it gets passed over the the backend personnel, who then give me a canned blame-the-user response that totally misses the point, "the guest should be reading the rules before booking so you shouldn't need to remind them about the rules in the pre-booking message".
OMFG it doesn't matter what the host wants to put in the content of pre-booking message. Don't call it a freaking pre-booking message if it's actually a pose-booking message. Ridiculous.
@Anita1001 Airbnb’s wording underneath the text box is very confusing and should be deleted. I can confirm that guests will see your pre-booking message on the same page that they are asked to confirm. Here is a screen shot of the process to book your listing.
