@Jeff
You say...
"Anyone with multiple listings is notan amateur host, your in business, and I think this move is to get hosts to register as business users"
Airbnb's official definition....
Who Can Use Pro-Tools?
These tools are built for hosts with multiple (6+) listings who are managing teams, or anyone interested in growing a hospitality business. This includes individuals, property managers, boutique hotels, b&bs. If that doesn't sound like you, you can still list here (with a link back to the regular portal, where Airbnb will list the Pros right alongside you anyway, but with the Big Boys being favoured with infinitely more beneficial terms and conditions than us minions, of course)
Regardless of my 8 years exemplary and commited service to the Airbnb brand, my thousands of extremely happy Airbnb guests, my hundreds of 5* reviews, my extensive, proven Airbnb hosting skills and experience, or the fact that I am indeed already a registered business, and have been for years.... by their own admission, Airbnb makes it crystal clear that it most certainly does not consider me - with my paltry offering of just two entire home listings - as being worthy of either access to its glittering Suite of Pro-Tools, or of being classed as a "Professional" (as defined by Airbnb) So whilst I, personally, would definitely not class myself as an amateur either, Airbnb undeniably does. And treats me accordingly, like I'm some sort of sescond-class citizen in comparison to the Pros.
Paradoxically - and it would be funny, If it weren't so goddam* tragic - my government, tax man and local council see me (and want to regulate me) as being exactly the same as the "Professionals" on the Airbnb platform, such as the international speculator with $22 million in recent funding and 400 properties in a number of cities worldwide behind him, who joined in June and has doubled his inventory of Dublin Airbnb listings in the past month, or the "property manager" with 48 listings, 4* average rating, and a slew of dodgy reviews, renting his place for less than it costs me to do my cleaning and laundry, whose calendar is always nicely full.
Consequently, because our diminutive city unequivocally is being stripped bare of long term-housing stock by all the foreign investors, speculators, estate agents, vultures and developers who are now very much in the majority on Airbnb, (and because local residents are pig-sick of the constant anti-social behaviour of the Pros' unmonitored guests), the local authorities have decided to shut us all down. So I'm looking at the little business I've spent years working my arse off to build up - and poured my heart, soul, blood, sweat and tears into - going t*t's up, through no fault of my own, but because of the sheer greed and negligence of others, and because of the duplicity and dishonesty of Airbnb itself. Fact.
For months now, the *only crumbs I've been thrown from the table (4 two night bookings across 2 listings in the past 2.5 months) have all been last-minute bookings for large groups (8-12 guests), who have all been cancelled on by their hosts - without explanation or apology - less than 24hrs before arrival (one at 11pm). All these bookings have been cancelled by "professional" operators, and without exception, each group has been delighted to end up at mine because they much preferred it to the places they originally booked, and each group was adamant (and pretty disgusted) that neither of my listings had been shown in the searches when they were booking previously. Yet Mr $22 Million and Mr 48 Listings with Dodgy Reviews - and many more big players like them - are flying high in every search and hoovering up all the bookings, while I - and many more little fish like me - are suppressed, and only offered to searchers when the Pro's have had their lion's share. That sound fair or equitable to you, Jeff?
Many small, traditional hosts (both private room and entire home), who are reading this will think "Ah that's just Dublin - doesn't affect me. I'm still doing just tickety-boo on Airbnb, why should I care?" Well you should care, and you should care very much, because whether or not you all choose to turn a blind eye to Airbnb systematically pushing your fellow hosts out of business in favour of lucrative commercial operators, this will ultimately affect every last one of us, in more ways than you understand. Nobody is immune, and even if you're fortunate enough not to have been negatively impacted yet, believe me, it's coming to your door very soon too.
The "professionalisation" of Airbnb - and more specifically, Airbnb's obsession with trying to hide their colossal professional operations from regulators and policymakers, behind a rapidly crumbling "all about the little guy using his Airbnb income to pay his bills and stay in his home" facade - is slowly but surely killing every small traditional host out there. You, me, and just about every other host who posts in this forum.
This ain't no chatter Jeff. This is the reality that tens - if not hundreds -of thousands of hosts worldwide are living right now - many of whom genuinely do rely on their Airbnb income to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads. So yeah, I can assure you, it's very much doom and gloom for every "non-professional" Airbnb host out there. Open your eyes, people. There is no "global community" - it's all a cleverly constructed illusion. Airbnb is, quite simply, the Emperors New Clothes tale of the new millenium. We're all being used - and abused - by a mammoth $38 billion multi-national corporation, whose bottom line is its sole concern... but nobody wants to see or hear it. Cover your arses, before it's too late.
