Laura’s Letter: What I learned staying with private-room hosts

[Laura_C]

May 20, 2019

Hi everyone,

Congratulations to all of you who achieved or maintained your Superhost status in the April assessment! The longer I’ve worked at Airbnb, the more I realize what an incredible accomplishment being a Superhost is. Thanks to all of you for providing wonderful experiences for guests around the world, and for setting the standard for hospitality for Airbnb.

As many of you know, my role at Airbnb is to look after the team that builds products, community, and resources for home hosts like you. When I joined Airbnb last July, one of my top priorities was to quickly immerse myself in the world of hosts and hosting—in particular, to learn more from some of our amazing hosts (and Superhosts!), gather some great tips from them, and bring those back to our host community (and our teams here at Airbnb). There’s nothing quite like firsthand experience, so as part of my journey, I decided to stay in a private room once a week. I have three small children at home, so it was a pretty big commitment, but it ended up being such a delightful experience in some fun and unexpected ways. I’m excited to tell you about what I’ve learned over the past few months.

Getting to meet Superhosts like you was one of the highlights of my recent adventures staying in private rooms. There are more than 161,000 Superhosts who share private rooms on Airbnb— that’s 29% of all Superhosts. And private-room listings are popular with guests, too. In 2018, tens of millions of bookings were in private rooms, which was a significant share of all bookings on Airbnb. Private-room hosts and listings are a really important part of our community.

I had 3 goals for my private-room stays

1. Experience variety (staying at listings with different price points, and different types of hosts: new, Plus, Superhosts, etc.)
2. Have personal interactions (I reached out to hosts ahead of time and invited them to chat with me more about their experiences, and share thoughts on how we can help them more)
3. Gather learnings (What was my experience as a guest? How can we support hosts more? What is the host doing brilliantly that other hosts can learn from?)

So, what did I learn? Well, the first big takeaway was that we need to do more to help you better set guest expectations (which can help with better reviews). This is something that’s really important for all hosts but absolutely crucial for private-room hosts, many of whom share a bathroom or kitchen with their guests. On our end, I think that starts with categorization. How can we better differentiate different types of listings on Airbnb (need a room in a castle, anyone?), especially as we begin to welcome more bed-and-breakfasts and boutique hotels alongside homes and rooms? How can we help you make it clear to guests that there are cats in the listing? (I am much more of a dog person than a cat person, but I have to admit that I made friends with many cats during my stays!)

Next, I learned many things about what can make a stay great from a guest’s perspective. I appreciated a lot of different things—clarity on where I could go and what I could use (shampoo? fridge space? through that random unmarked door?) was a big deal. Having some information from the host on who else was going to be in the house was also hugely reassuring. Knowing the hours of the other people in the household was also great so that I could be a respectful guest (I get up early, and always wanted to be thoughtful of not waking up everyone else in the house!).

In fact, many of you have already shared some wonderful tips for hosting a private-room listing here in the Community Center. (This thread really impressed me, and I enjoyed the comments on this article, too). I’d love to continue to hear from you on this subject, and I’d love to learn more about what we can do to help you as private-room hosts succeed. Please tell me your suggestions in the comments, below.

And finally, and perhaps most importantly, I was reminded again of what an incredible community of hosts we have. I met one host who started hosting so that she could have more flexibility to support her children with special needs, and another who took a big pay cut to follow their heart and work in the non-profit sector … hosting helped them have the financial flexibility they needed to make that move. I met one host who has developed extraordinary relationships with her guests (many of whom come back often to visit) and another who started hosting so that she could afford to keep her family’s home while her children went to college. I love that Airbnb is helping people around the world build wonderful connections and support their goals and passions in life.

Congratulations again to those of you who are Superhosts, whether you’re sharing the spare wing of a castle, an entire home, or an extra bedroom in your apartment. I hope to meet you on my next outing. Until then…

… Happy hosting!
Laura

[Cherie60]

Hi Laura, awesome to hear of your experiences with Airbnb hosts. Yes there are many different reasons why we host and each host have their own stories. Would be great to meet you one day, come to New Zealand!! Come stay at Ohourere Lodge! Maybe we'll meet one day, Best Regards Cherie & Terry

[Laura_C]

Hey Cherie! Your lodge looks gorgeous, I'd love to visit (I stop by NZ pretty often on my way back to Aus to visit my family). I once spent a few months working in Whakatane so I know the area around you a little, such a beautiful part of the wold 🙂

[Mandi-S-Just-Business-Ro0]

Thank you Laura. I also stay in SH rooms along with being one. It's an interesting exercise. I learned a great deal. I also found myself feeling some of the fears and concerns that a guest might feel making a reservation in someone's home, even if they were SH. 

One thing that must be corrected is the punitive review. I was at 4.9/5 stars after over 80 visits. A man with disgusting bathroom habits ranked me one star right across the board. Case Management was fully aware of this, but let the review stay as his authentic. What part of   25 previous 5 stars is authentic, compared to his WORST PLACE EVER review??? He had only had one prior review. 

Worse, Mr. NONFLUSH is still on platform, whereas Air has warned me that my listing is now at risk of being deleted. 

And what happened to the once a year removal of a punitive review? Gosh darn, that was LAST month.

[Laura1803]

Hi Mandy,

This is Laura in Winnipeg with a similar experience. I suspect my guest may have been part of a large hotel chain trying to discredit us against what the media is promoting as AirBnB moguls - large corporations capitalizing on AirBnb - because why else would someone give such an absurd and out of character review from the others? I also contacted AirBnb (for example, she said the heat and smell were unbearable) who claim that even lies by guests are not a violation of any policy. I, too, am at risk. It's really a shame to be and feel so violated and so alone. 

[Mag8]

My goodness! I had a similar experience with guests from India, has never had a worse experience. Against my house rules they came with 4 suitcases full of food and pots, cooked all day long till 10pm, my house smelled like Indian diner, and gave me unfavorable review. I even drove them to Costco a day before their departure to help them with gift shopping! 

[Gerda-and-Hans0]

Hello Meg,

I had guests taking over my house like this once...never forget. In my case it was extreme Vegans that didn't trust me when I offered them vegan food. They too took over my whole kitchen for a week, also arrived with suitcases full of cooking utensils and food. The only thing we could do was leave them to it and eat out for the week. To then have no review from them is probably better then a bad one you got.

Take care and good luck to you.

Gerda Bader, South Australia

[Lorraine124]

It hurts so much to read these things that unreasonable, disgusting, nasty, untidy guests would do to your home and they seem to be protected by Airbnb, I hope that I DO NOT get any of these unscrupulous people, who would wreck someones home and think nothing of it, after we put so much love in our space.

[Gerda-and-Hans0]

Hi Mandi, I'm so sorry for what you have experienced and still are not getting help from Airbnb. An injustice like this would be very hard to swollow. I myself a (super)host with a private room feel for you. Take care and good luck to you,

Gerda Bader, South Australia

[Glenda4]

I have found that many people never give perfect marks/reviews! It seems the ones that I have ended up doing the most for are the ones who give "lower" reviews! You need to be as hard on the guests as you are on us!! If they give more than one bad review- BLOCK them and don't let these people give us Super Hosts/Hosts bad names!

[Valerie138]

I agree with you..we are not a hotel..we share our home with guests.

[Deborah176]

Airbnb needs to get guests who give 3 star or lower ratings to offer photographic evidence that they encountered these problems on their stay.  Otherwise anyone can say anything its so unfair to hosts that are upfront and hontest.   It most be so disconcerting for you to have this happen to you when you are obviously a great host.  Really feel for you.

[Helen477]

I actually have a completely separate unit that I use for Airbnb but wish to comment on the photographic evidence - why is there no platform for a host to upload photos after a visitor has departed and left the unit in a mess?

[Michael1981]

Helen,

My name is Michael.  I am a SuperHost in El Paso, Texas.  One remedy for guests leaving your listing a mess is go to the Request Money option, choose Request, then it will give you the option between 3 different choices.  When you make your selection, such as "Report Damages, or Additional Services", it will give you a text box to type what happened, then under that box will be a place to upload photos of the damages/mess/Etc.  Finally, it gives you the place to put the amount of money you are requesting.  Once you type in the dollar amount, and submit the request, the guest will then receive that money request.  If they accept the request, AirBnB will send you that amount to your account.  If they refuse your request, AirBnB then gets involved after 72 hours, where they will reach out to you to get more info and make their final determination.  I hope this helps.

[Lucy170]

VERY good idea!

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@Helen477 wrote:

I actually have a completely separate unit that I use for Airbnb but wish to comment on the photographic evidence - why is there no platform for a host to upload photos after a visitor has departed and left the unit in a mess?

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