Dear Catherine,
First of all , congratulation for your new challenging position. I wish you all the the best!
I listened with interest your approach.
As a matter of fact, I started to be an host in Milan , Italy, on March two years ago. Business were going well as I got the Superhost immediately. As the COVID 19 started business fallen to zero immediately.
Being Milan one of the town with the highest number of contagious I can by with that. But Now, as you said is time for re-building the business. I always keep an eye on the visualization board that help you understand if guests are interested in your place. Unfortunately the visualization are still zero (0). No matter if you change the rate discount etc.......
I have a friend living nearby me , host as well, who observed exactly the same ......
Indeed , although the situation if far better now, Milan is still considered a "red zone"
I think for hosts like us the re-building the business post Covid is a must. I participate to the meetings about cleaning , cleaning procedure etc which of course are important but yet I have not see the boost to re-start.
How to do it is tough , but if I can contribute , for how much a young host can do, In my mind the direction to go is to make the guest feeling safe not only for the cleaning only but in a more global approach. In this perspective, an idea could be to introduce a monitor button or window or speckles, you can call as you like, where the guest can red the status of the contagious in that place, day by day. Implementing that in the AirB&B platform should not be expensive , especially if one think on the return business.
Last but not least, I like to bring to your attention an issue very important for the hosts. How the host can protect himself , or is place from a potentially infected guest arriving?
I tried to rise the question to AirB&B assistance Italy , but it seem there is no way to get a direct single answer. For example it seem that you cannot measure the temperature to the guest....I think this is a wrong information because the the stores do that.....
In my opinion this issue must be absolutely solved.....
Thanks for your time to read my message.
Best regards,
Francesco