Profile Photo No Longer Required To Book

[Susan17]

Latest news on profile photos. 

"Today, we’re announcing some changes we will be making to the way we display guest profile photos.

Moving forward, rather than displaying a potential guest’s profile photo before the booking is accepted, hosts will receive a guest’s photo in the booking process only after they’ve accepted the booking request. Airbnb does not require all guests to provide a photo. Instead, we’ll be giving hosts the option to ask their guests to provide a profile photo, which will only be presented to hosts after they accept the booking" 

https://press.airbnb.com/update-on-profile-photos/

[Christopher187]

Here is how you can bypass Airbnb's stupid police and view hidden profile photos: https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/How-to-View-Hidden-Profile-Photos/m-p/919440#M228298

[Verena71]

After receiving my first inquiriy without a pic i was bit suprised... For me personally the picture allows me to make a discission if I feel the person could be a nice house mate or rather not. Opening my personal space, sharing a 2 room flat, I feel I need to have the right feeling to acept a  booking. For me its not about hosting as many peeps as possible but to meet people and build some sort of connection. I dont like the development of airbnb at all, being pushed to accept booking, getting blocked if I deny too often. It is my personal space and I need to decide if I feel I want to share with somebody or not. This is not a business, nor a hotel or professional guesthouse. Im thinking to stop using airbnb and use other platforms where I am free and dont get punished for not accepting requests. My descission is never based on the color of the skin but to see  a persons face is essential for me to decide if I want to live with someone!

[Andrew1124]

Mine must have just been updated because I just received my first request for the profile picture have been notice that I will not be able to view it until i accept them. This is total BS as just a few weeks ago I had to turn down to requests by local women who by their profile pictures where obviously prostitutes who lived in the same town and wanted to know if they could rent the room for the afternoon. Had I not seen the profile pictures I would have accepted it not knowing any better then I would have had illegal activity happening in my house. This is just nuts that they would block pictures

[Jillian100]

I totally agree!  I guess we have to cancel dubious ones AFTER booking which of course only hurts us.  They are creating a mess with these ridiculous policies!

[Vicki37]

Today a young man requested to stay. The profile photo was a grainy photo of him firing a semi automatic weapon.  This didnt give me a warm fuzzy feeling and I couldnt believe he could be so nieve as to try to impress with a photo like that. Weather you are pro or con on guns isn't the point, it's a stupid profile photo.

 I put in feedback to Airbnb and asked that this be a good example of why we need to see a profile photo.

Hopefully hosts are not discrimination on race or looks or whatever but I want to see a profile photo because I can get a little idea of character and the mindset of the potential guest. We have so little to go on when we need to decide who to let into our homes. 

 2 weeks ago I had a young man use a profile photo of a creepy violent zombie cartoon. I just shake my head and wonder how they are going to make it in this world.

 All the best to my fellow hosts, Vicki

[Marius-And-Rochelle0]

We rent out a private room in our house. Our guests share our home with us and our children.

It is therefore extremely important that our kids feel comfortable with strangers who are going to be living with us and a picture tells a thousands. We used to show our kids the profile pictures of potential guests and if they felt uncomfortable just from viewing the profile picture of the potential guest we would not accept the booking. AirBnB has now removed this option.

This is not discrimination. This is called human intuition. Whether their intuition was correct or not is irrelevant. We don't want anyone in our house (living with us in our direct living space) that our children feel uncomfortable with. And children have great internal intuition!

Having spent over a decade counselling individuals myself, one can read a lot just from a person's eyes, body language, etc - even in a picture. 

In the same vein, guests should also be able to see our pics (as they will be living directly in our space with us) and they too are free to choose whether or not they feel that we look like people they would want to live with. Who is to say that we have not lost bookings because a potential guest loved the pics of our place but didn't think they would get along with us by looking at our profile photos. This could be called discrimination too!

I can understand not having profile pics when booking an entire place (which is like booking a hotel where you never have to show a profile pic) but when living WITH each other, it is imperative that you can judge to some degree as to whether or not you will get along with strangers. You can't do that with just the first name of a person and no picture.

We can even take it a step further and not include pictures of our homes. We can just say "private room in a house living with a family" and then potential guests can take a hit and miss on what they get.  That's ludicrous isn't it? Guests choose the place they want to stay at through the pictures they see. We come with the house, so guests should be able to see us and we should be able to see them.

The main thing that made AirBnB so appealing was the "community" basis on which the platform was built with reviews, pictures and the like. That is slowly being removed. Not being able to see potential guests profile pictures anymore on AirBnB will unfortunately eliminate us from booking any further guests through AirBnB.  

[Rebecca0]

@Marius-And-Rochelle0  I have to disagree with many of the things you describe in your post.  Firstly, I must say that it is disturbing to me that you teach your children to judge people from their photographs.  The most dangerous people are often very charismatic and physically attractive.  That is how they convince people, children, to believe them.   You think a child molester can't look like a cute Justin Bieber?  Or a thief can't be pretty with a nice smile?

I agree that children are often very astute and have a finely tuned intuition but I do not believe that can be applied to a single photograph.  

Personally, I have yet to read one valid reason for people to see a photograph before accepting a booking.   I know it's nice to see one and I understand the 'sense of community' argument.  But the vast majority of host objections seem to say that they judge potential guests on their photos.  That is what Airbnb is trying to circumvent.  If you want to host, you don't get to judge what a person looks like.

[Marius-And-Rochelle0]

@Rebecca0 Hi Rebecca. Thank you for voicing your opinion.

You have been permitted to voice your opinion (or judgement) on this forum based on what I had to say and how you personally feel about the issue. I could have said, "no-one needs to see profile pictures" and your opinion (or judgement) of me and what I had to say would have been completely the opposite. You have not discriminated against me, but you have judged an formed an opinion of me (having never met me but basing your judgement purely on some lines of text I wrote - even going so far as to say that "it is disturbing to you"). 

And this is where the lines get confused. Having an opinion or "judging" if you will of someone is not discrimination. 

Here are their definitions for your interest:

Judge - "form an opinion or conclusion about"

Discrimination - "the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex"

We do not teach our children to judge people from photographs but we do teach our children to use their intuition and when things "feel" bad they usually are. Whether you care to admit it or not, every person on the planet forms an immediate opinion of someone based on first impressions. 

Sometimes our immediate impression of a person may be incorrect. As you correctly state, sometimes dangerous people resemble the average person on the street and they elude our intution. But for the most part our intuition is what keeps us safe.

Our "opinion" of potential guests goes further than that in that we sell an "experience" that is tailored mostly towards younger travelers who want to have fun WITH us. Yes, we also accommodate others but our main purpose for inviting AirBnB guests into our home is to make friends from differrent countries, have fun with them,  take them out to local places  and for our guests to experience and enjoy living with a South African family. That may be different to what your objective is.

Having said that, let's us all not forget... we are NOT a hotel. These are OUR HOMES. We decide who comes through them and cannot be dictated to and forced to accommodate people we do not wish to have in our home - especially when they are living WITH us.

Our intentions are not to have a conveyer belt of strangers coming in and out of our doors. Maybe that is yours, but it is not ours. AirBnB are not doing us a favour. We are doing them a favour and making them very rich in the process!

Personally, I find it disturbing that you allow so many people into your house with your son and his girlfriend there and you seem to have no interest at all as to who your potential guests may be. On the other hand, my "opinion" about this is formed without knowing how old your son and girlfriend may be. Your son could be 13 or he may be 40 and 6ft 5".  

[Rebecca0]

@Marius-And-Rochelle0  Touché!  You are right that I should have chosen my words more carefully and I apologise for that.   You are also correct that we have different hosting styles.  Although I don't really like your wording of "conveyor belt of strangers", I suppose it is fairly accurate!   I am not interested in offering an 'experience', just a comfortable place to stay for budget travellers.  There have been several guests over the years with whom I have hit it off and we spent a lot of time together (one even became a firm friend of the whole family) but they are definitely the minority.   However, I think you can tell by my reviews that I am a friendly and helpful host and make my guests feel comfortable. 

I do have an interest in my potential guests, I don't understand why you would think otherwise?  I simply don't place any value on what they look like in their profile photo.  Nearly all my most unpleasant guests had nice smiley photos and many of my favourite guests either had no photo at all or a weird/unflattering one.  I suppose after hosting hundreds of guests, any intuition I might have had over profile photos has been eroded.

I agree when you say "every person on the planet forms an immediate opinion of someone based on first impressions".  But that only happens when you meet them in person, right?  Not from a thumbnail photograph.  And, as you say, these first impressions often change when you get to know the person a bit better and/or take into account cultural differences in social interaction.

My son recently turned 25,  I think that's written in the profile?  Anyway, he is over 6ft and built like the proverbial brick ****house.  In some ways it's nice to know that I have this back-up if anything goes seriously wrong with a guest.  But honestly, I have never had to ask a guest to leave, not once.   I'm not easily pushed around and can fend for myself!  

I apologise again for my judgemental words.  

[Marius-And-Rochelle0]

@Rebecca0 All good Rebecca. Our requirements regarding our guests and what we both offer differ, but that doesn't make either of us right or wrong. 

With regards to first impressions from a picture, "Tinder" created a business based entirely on exactly this. In just one or two seconds, a person can forge an opinion about another individual purely by viewing their profile pic. 

"Judging" by your reviews, you are obviously an exceptional host and doing very well using AirBnB as a platform. We wish you the very best with your future AirBnB guests. For us however, despite our good reviews and 5 star and previous Superhost status, we have blocked out all our bookings and will only return to this platform if and when profile pics in advance of bookings are reinstated. Take care 🙂  

PS. If profile pics aren't important at all, why is AirBnB willing to reveal profile pics of guests after their booking is confirmed, but not before. (SUPRISE! LOOK WHO'S COMING TO STAY WITH YOU!) Surely AirBnB would just say they are no longer providing profile pics AT ALL.

And why do hosts need to provide profile pictures that potential guests can see before they book. Seems like everything is structured in favour of the guests when it is our homes that AirBnB is making money from. Guests get to see our homes, our environment, our profiles and our pictures. Yet as hosts we only get a first name, perhaps a text profile, and now no pictures of our guests.

I don't have Instabook (despite the numerous shoves from AirBnB to get it) for the exact same reason.  I like to attempt as much as possible to determine what experience our guests are looking for before they make an official booking with us and whether or not we can provide it and will all get along. This is just as advantagous for our guests as it is for us.   

[Jason763]

I understand that the original purpose of this action is to curb booking denials from racist homeowners.  I think that is a good thing but not this way.

It really is hypocritical IMO for Air bnb to do this in such a manor and falls short of achieving the goal.

The hypocrisy in this idea/action is that Air bnb wants to prevent racism but in doing so this way clearly demonstrates that this company is more than willing to accept "dirty" racist money from racist home owners by forcing or pushing forward rentals from home owners that are would discriminate against renters of colour.

If air bnb truly wanted to fight racism would it make more sense to collect evidence on individual home owners and if they are found to be racial profiling renters, have remove them from their platform?  

I cant speak for others but I know myself that if someone did not want me in their home for whatever reason I would not want to be there.  I’m ok with it because I respect that it is there HOME.

Anyway, this protocol is a slippery slope for air bnb and it's very telling to me that on one hand they want to curb racism but on the other "racist" money is totally fine to accept in their business model.

I think they have to rethink this.

[Sammy35]

the proper thing to do is require photos and handle this on the back end
require sex (including non binary) and race notation of ALL users.  not viewable by any users.  and qualified to be used for demographic and diversity/inclusion compliance reporting purposes only.  like an employment application.
write code and algos that flag hosts who consistently decline minorities.  review those declinations systemically with pre-established critera.  take action from that

this is a lame and perfunctory excuse for diversity and inclusion.  and wholly ineffective and superfluous

[Sammy35]

and ps.  just so you all know, if i were a criminal psychopath with a brain in my body i would take a really nice photo and add more of animals and kids and beautiful landscapes.  and then i would come in and create a ruckus that you would be helpless to control.

BUT IM NOT.  i'm an SWF HR EEO expert who knows how illegal it is to attach gender, race, ethnicity and appearance to any selection criteria.  in the US we have civil rights and title vii as well as an antiquated fair housing act.

all this is is a risk and liability mitigation issue for airbnb and yet another nuiscance for the hosts.  that said the platform is geared toward REVENUE and PROFITS/MARGINS, not host contentness with the platform.  the guest is the real customer not us

this string is funny.  you may THINK you can tell about the person you are looking at.  just wait for that false positive to hit

you can get a nice clean face and be a horible, filthy guest
you can get a dirty, mean face and be an fantastic spotless guest

that gut feeling means nothing and isn't legally supportable.  all this is is a CYA tactic, not promotion of diversity inclusion or affirmative action

[Penny193]

Just discovered today that we are no longer able to see a photo, know that government IDs have been verified or see reviews of previous hosts.  I need to know that airbnb have verified the ID as it is a condition of my house insurance that this is done.  I also do not accept people who do not have any reviews.  Im afraid I don't write a review if the guest was not particularly nice as I would rather do that than say something unpleasant (a problem with being English  and older - its how we are).  Apparently we can cancel a guest if when we have access to their profile they do not have ID or reviews or a photo without penalty.    I doubt it but I may put it to the test. 

[Nancy26]

This is a safety issue.  Yes, I do judge potential renters on their photo, not regarding race ( I have rented to everyone), but rather instinct.  Someone can call it BS but I have only had positive rental situations and avoided problems with my "instinct". 

My home, my rules. Guess no more airbnb.