Why are they removing the "find a co-host feature?

[Jeff110]

I just got the email below.  Does anyone know why they're doing this? It is pretty much the ONLY way I have found co-hosting gigs...  if they remove it, I will get no more.  I don't believe they are being fully honest...  if it wasn't connecting enough people, they'd expand or improve it, not remove it.

Anyone got any ideas?

Email message:  

Hi Jeff,

Since you are a member of the co-hosting community, we wanted to let you know that we’ve decided to remove the marketplace feature that helps connect local hosts and co-hosts. As of June 27th, 2018 you will no longer be able to post to or receive notifications from the marketplace.

We are continuing to refine the co-hosting program, but this particular feature was not effective at connecting enough hosts with co-hosts. Moving forward, we’ll focus on developing better ways to support the co-hosting program.

You’ll remain as a co-host on any listings you’ve already been added to. And any host can still add you as a co-host directly to their listing on the co-host tab.

Thanks for being a part of the Airbnb co-hosting program,
The Airbnb team

[Ian211]

I agree. It's the only way I found hosts wanting help and I'm very surprised Airbnb has stopped this marketplace. I can't work out a motive but I'm sure that it's not what they say it is

[Lisa723]

Legal/liability risk?

[Jeff-and-Melany0]

I'm not even clear on what they're removing?  My co-hosting has come from requests from new hosts.  What is the marketplace that they're referring to?

[Jill96]

I saw this this morning too.  think it's because they don't make any money from it themselves.  It's not providing revenue to the company and it's costing them to maintain it.  Also they probably have a lot of cohosts or hosts contacting them if they aren't happy with the relationships they have made through this wanting help in mediation etc.

[Linda108]

I think you are correct.  Any business that supports expensive aspects without a gain is not going to be successful.  Here is the problem:  if you want to let other host know you are available to be a co-host, you cannot post that on the host forum as that is a commercial posting and it will be deleted.

I was invited by AirBNB to be part of the Co-Host Market Place in my city and thought it was a good idea.  My city requires a local contact for short term rentals and many of the STR are hosted remotely.  There is a big need for Co-Hosts.  The local property managers will not manage STR.

What I liked about the Air BNB Market Place is that there was a certain amount of vetting.  I have seen low rated hosts "advertising" themselves as Co-Hosts.

There needs to be another system to connect hosts.  Perhaps someone can come up with another idea :P...

[Michalis11]

You are not alone. Please give your feedback at https://www.airbnb.com/help/feedback and tweet @Airbnb2 and @bchesky.

[Britta35]

I am glad I finally saw these posts because I thought I was going insane not being able to locate the feature "Find a loca host" anymore I had seen  a couple of months ago. I am not insane after all. However, I still don't know how to find a local co-host as our management agency does not want to do it. Has anybody tried going on Craig's List?

[Jill96]

And I called it! Airbnb now have their own managing agent in Australia anyway, I don’t know about elsewhere. There are called Hometime!..... they weren’t making money out of cohosting so now have their own agents. This is why finding a cohost in local area have finished.!

[Linda108]

Interesting development, Jill.  Thanks for posting.  According to the website, this company is not affilliated with Air BNB but I bet Air BNB is kicking themselves for not thinking of it!  This is what I found:

Hometime is an independent property management company and is not endorsed by Airbnb or its affiliates.

[Susan17]

@Linda0

That exact wording is included on the websites of every single one of Airbnb's "official property management partners" - even the ones Airbnb itself has publicly recommended. 

[Susan17]

@Jill0 

You're correct. Airbnb has been very quietly building up a network of these "Professional Property Management Partners" in cities across the globe since at least late 2015/early 2016. The first "official" Airbnb-recommended partners surfaced in London about a year ago, with many more recently popping up worldwide. (All with similar branding, similar websites, similar marketing strategies etc)

The reality Is, Airbnb cleverly used regular hosts to establish and build up the co-hosting concept in the first instance, as they desperately wanted/needed to maintain the illusion in regulatory battles with local governments, that Airbnb is still primarily about traditional hosting and personal host-guest interactions, and locals using their hosting income to pay their bills and stay in their homes, rather than about commercial entities and foreign speculators on their site stripping city after city of long-term housing stock and driving up local rents.

Once the demand for co-hosts had been created and the co-hosting marketplace firmly established, it had always been the (long-intended) strategic plan to pull the rug out from under the regular co-hosts, without warning or explanation, and channel all that lovely co-hosting business in the direction of their own "property management partners" that they've been grooming and preparing for glory for the past 2-3 years. (An added bonus was that the addition of co-hosts on the site muddied the waters and made it much more difficult for lawmakers and policymakers to get a true breakdown of traditional versus commercial "hosting" figures in their respective jurisdictions)

Meanwhile, the regular co-hosts who did all the hard work in growing the marketplace - many of whom gave up other jobs to do so - have now outgrown their usefulness, and have been cast aside like worthless trash. Welcome to the wonderful world of Airbnb... 

[Jonathan774]

Hi all! 

And another thread talking about the same thing. I will post the same as I did on other thread, but I the observations above are the most valid I have seen in all threads so far. 

I have been looking for a cohost for a while and from what I understand, Airbnb had a co-hosting program which they retired in 2018 due to not being viable for them. I have been googling around for a while now and finally found an alternative site (https://www.findcohost.com/) which seems to be doing the job. I have signed up as a host for now, hoping to find a co-host in my area. 

Hope this helps.

Jon