Airbnb’s biggest change in a decade killed 10 years of our work. What about you?

[BenkaandKeith0]

In three weeks we will celebrate 8 years of hosting with Airbnb. While we survived the Covid crisis, Airbnb is now destroying us all with their changes.

We are 30+ consecutive time Superhosts, who believed in Airbnb so much we quit our jobs and dedicated our lives to full time hosting, so it is insulting to read the founder proudly calling the actions causing our demise "the biggest changes in a decade…”

We’ve spent weeks trying to understand why our bookings this spring and summer are so incredibly low, from +80% booked capacity to 0%, and we've found several causes. The first is a malfunctioning pricing tool. Once we offer a discounted rate, if we later try to offer a larger discount, the system is calculating our base rate off of the first discounted rate, rather than our actual base rate. And if we don’t use the larger rate, we don’t qualify for the perks.

Secondly, de-prioritizing the names of the listings and emphasizing their automated titles is misleading. For instance, our Magic Tipi Retreat, which is high-end glamping, is now listed as "Tent in Park Hills", the same as our rustic Famous Home of Hammping, giving potential guests the wrong perception. For years we’ve been nurturing the concept of high end hosting, and they’ve now pigeonholed us as a campsite.

Thirdly, the category "Tipi" has been removed from search & listing options in the Special Stays section. Oddly there is now space for everything like Cycladic homes, kezhans, ryokans, minsus, truli, OMG!, riads and dammusos, but seemingly no room for tipis. They are not listed under camping either. So where do people go to find a tipi? Seems Native Americans are once again getting the short end of the stick.

Fourth is the change listing the number of beds in search results. Our Tipi now shows as having “4-beds” rather than accommodating 6 people. This may seem like a small detail, but you understand the implications. How do guests know if 4 beds hold 4 people or 6? The same problem with our Peaceful Treetop Cottage, where they only show “1-bed”, but we can accommodate 4 guests (we have portable mattresses).

To paint a clear picture of how their “big changes” have degraded our ability to host, here are our statistics for the number of nights booked in June since we started. These show Airbnb’s revisions have dropped us to levels at or lower than our first year of hosting.

Tipi: 2022-6, 2021-16, 2020-26, 2019-28, 2018-23, 2017-24
Cottage: 2022-14, 2021-22, 2020-24, 2019-24, 2018-27, 2017-26, 2016-23, 2015-14
Hammping: 2022-0, 2021-2, 2020-12, 2019-17, 2018-9, 2017-14, 2016-7

To put everything in perspective, and to preempt Airbnb’s claim that our prices are too high, here are some statistics for our listings. In the last year the Value Rating on one of our properties has risen for 9.2%, another for 4.8% and the third for 6.7%. In the same period, our Overall Rating on two listings is 100%, and on the third is 98.7%. And we monitor this ourselves. Our properties also have over 1,200 reviews.

Is anyone actually benefiting from these changes? Well, according to SEC data, in the last three months, while the stock lost nearly ½ its value, Joseph Gebbia (Chairman, Director and Ten Percent Owner) sold over $267,000,000 in Airbnb stock, CTO Aristotle Balogh sold $3,456,000, CFO Dave Stephenson sold $9,485,000, Director Jeffry Jordan sold $2,240,000 and Director Belinda Johnson sold $11,944,000 for a total of about $294,000,000 in stock.

Rats leaving a sinking ship?

Shall we?

[James413]

I agree things have changed and not for the better.  Your places sound wonderful and places I would have fun staying in.  We are small , only two rooms but have hosted since 2012.  Our property is beautiful, we give a full breakfast and still Airbnb wants us to reduce our rates.  

They want us to pay a decent wage to the help.  If I was not the help I would have to double

our rates.  One of our guests was an author.  Had stayed  at 41 Airbnb properties and said in his review we were the best.  You can't give good service,  a lovely facility and charge nothing.  I have stayed at hotels that don't meet the quality of our  rooms and paid over

$300.00 per night.  I just raised our rate to $100.00 per night and if I didn't enjoy having something to do in retirement this would be a looser.  We are 5* Super Hosts but one bad review could change all that.

[Huma0]

@BenkaandKeith0 @James413 

I have been in touch with Airbnb CS re my views, which have plummeted since the Summer Release, and my bookings, which have basically stopped.

The rep I spoke to was responsive and seems to be one of the experienced ones, rather than the outsourced kind who appear to lack anything but the most basic of training. However, there was really nothing he could do. He said that the engineering team were working on fixing the glitches around the Summer Release and, in the meantime, his suggestions were to cut my prices, allow shorter stays and open up dates on the calendar. Personally, I am not prepared to do any of these things and, even if I was, that doesn't solve the problem that my listings are no longer being viewed.

What might be useful to know though is that if you feel your listing is not included in a category where it should be or that it is wrongly categorised, you can now contact Airbnb and ask for this to be reviewed. There is apparently a specialised team now working on this, so it's no longer just down to AI.

I was informed of this yesterday by the CC team, but asked this rep for more detail and he replied:

"You're absolutely right, we have launched a specialized team which is dedicated to helping Hosts who feel like their listings are categorized incorrectly on the Airbnb platform.

I’ve sent your category request that each of your three listings be included under "Shared homes, Iconic cities, and Historical Homes" to our specialized team who’ll review it. The review process may take up to a week. You’ll receive a message from that team in your inbox once the review has been completed.

In the next 48 hours, you might receive an automated email which advises you that your case has been closed—that’s in reference to this specific message thread. Rest assured that your case is still under review and that the specialized team will be reaching out to you through a new message thread.

Please note that submitting a listing does not guarantee inclusion in any category, and a number of factors are used to determine whether a listing qualifies for inclusion in a given Airbnb Category. Categories offered, their eligibility criteria, factors considered, and listings included in them may change at any time without notice.

For Categories based on proximity to a location or activity, listings will only be included if they're sufficiently close to select points of interest, and not all points of interest are currently included. We plan to continue adding new points of interest to our categorization system over time, so, if your listing isn't eligible now, it may be in the future.

Our specialized team will now be taking over your categories request, but please let me know if you have any further questions."

Posting this here in case it's useful to other hosts.

[Rosie196]

Hi @BenkaandKeith0 & @Huma0 

i am in the same horrible situation

ZERO bookings for Summer since the new Summer Release programme. I also

blame it on “split stays” 

how does my 1000sq feet

accommodation compare

with the 250sq feet cottage with zero amenities! 
Guests immediately look at my nightly rate £160-£200 and compare with £71 pn - without delving to see what I offer as standard! Because they expect Airbb to have compared like for like - when they haven't. grrrrh!!!!

Please 🙏 AirBB remove this split option & Summer Release. 

- OR at least give Hosts the option to ‘opt in’ to split stays ! 

This & the “summer release” has killed my business. 

Rosie

Cider Press Barn UK 

[Huma0]

@Rosie196 

I am not sure if Airbnb has ever really compared like for like. From the start, price tips were always telling me to lower my prices when I could see that the listings in my area that were actually comparable were priced much higher than mine. I don't want to be compared with a small box of a room with the bare minimum of cheap furniture in a characterless apartment block. That is not at all what I offer. 

However, the guests that wanted what I offer found me and booked. I never had a problem with that until now. Now my listings feel almost invisible. 

As for split stays, I don't know if that is affecting me or not, but quite possibly as I host long term guests. I think the whole thing is confusing for guests. Split stays is something the guest should be able to select as a filter. They shouldn't automatically show up when there are listings available for the duration of their stay.

[Huma0]

As an update to my post above, it was quick (2-3 days) and completely painless to have my listings added to the relevant categories.

Sadly, I can't say it's made any difference as I've not had any bookings or enquiries since (this was mid-July). In fact, my views actually went down after that compared to the first half of July.

I don't know what the solution is. The whole thing is a mess as far as I am concerned, yet Airbnb is apparently reporting having one of the best quarters ever in terms of bookings...

Where are these guests booking? That is what is still baffling me. I know that what I offer is really competitively priced for what you get. It's not just than I have done my research into the local market, but my guests tell me all the time that my listings stood out because nothing else nearby offered the same within that budget.

[David8879]

"AirBNB understands your concerns"

[Wende2]

@David8879    Copy and paste.

[David8879]

DUPLICATE

[Wende2]

@BenkaandKeith0   Hello, yes I'm in the same boat, for now.  My July was booked all but 4 days months ago.  I had a couple from months ago for Aug., ZIP since the new search chaos home pg.  I looked to see when my bookings for Aug were made, June 27th is the last booking I've gotten.  As of July, I'm now afraid to spend any money that isn't absolutely necessary, that includes things for the apt.  I did a search of my area on VRBO, much to my surprise there aren't as many as I thought.  I'm going to list with them, I started a conversion asking if anyone had been double booked.  A couple hosts mentioned having IB here and request there, that way they're able to check ABnB before accepting VRBO.  I thought that was great advise and that's now my plan.  If I still find ABnB isn't bringing in dollars, I'll just close this account, I'm also going to look into booking com.

It's a true shame what they've done to your properties, they sound wonderful.  The first conversations about the changes, I believe was titled...From stupid to ridiculous...someone on that commented about the categories are the killer.  I told a friend who recently purchased her neighbors house that had been on for yrs, who isn't going to click OMG! first, I honestly do not expect many, sadly if any bookings on this platform.  The best to you and the decisions you choose.

[Kyle325]

Vrbo and Airbnb have the ability to link their calendars together so that you don't have double-bookings....  We have our cabin on both platforms, with linked calendars, and, to date, have not had a double booking.

And, our airbnb bookings have fallen off completely - their new 'release' stinks and is a detriment to hosts....  

appreciate the booking.com option - we'll look into that too.

[Wende2]

@Kyle325...I don't know if things have gotten better over the yrs, but someone back in the day mentioned being double booked.  Just thinking I feel safer keeping an eye on it myself.  Have you synced your calendar.?  Just curious if you're on other platforms, and how that's going.

[Nicoll42]

i would be very careful using BDC.  i find there users even worse than ABB.   cheap and crafty.  

there tool is robust but almost overly so.

just 1 hosts POv

[BössLady0]

It’s the bad side that always comes with any “changes”, I hope AirBnB is looking into it and hopefully will improve the system which would be good for both the guests & the hosts. 

it sure would be awesome to read insights and good things. 

[David8879]

I am just wondering - who is going to click on categories first? People who throw "vacation darts"?

Does it affect certain locations?

My airbnb listing is in one of the Europe's favorite summer destinations and for better or worse - it is booked till the and of the summer even though I have IB off and quite rigid house rules which I am not afraid to list - I need my place to be as much of a good fit for my guests as them to my place. September though, which always fills completely, this time is wide open with a lot of other listings open as well and hosts keep lowering prices.

Was it summer release that affected it? I do not know. I do know that European economy is breaking down (for whatever reason they decided to do that to themselves), but there always are people who will have vacation.

I am really confused why everyone so upset about categories - I probably missing something (And I have NO CLUE what my place category is)