URGENT: Critical Product Failure - Removal of "Host Notes" is Destroying Peak Season Operations & Alienating Loyal Hosts
Dear Airbnb Product Team & Executive Support,
I am writing to you as the managing director of one of the largest and fastest-growing short-term rental operations in Albania. We currently manage 160-170 active listings on Airbnb, and we are in the process of scaling up to 250 units across the Riviera for this summer season. Until recently, we relied heavily on Airbnb not just as a booking channel, but as a core operational tool for our daily logistics.
The recent unannounced removal of the "Host Notes" feature from the calendar is, quite frankly, a disastrous and illogical product decision.
From a practical standpoint, this update provides absolutely zero benefits to anyone. Instead, it severely damages the core of what Airbnb claims to value most: the guest experience.
We used these specific notes directly on reservations to track critical, guest-specific requests that require team coordination:
Baby cribs and extra beds
Early check-ins and late check-outs
Airport taxi assistance and transfer coordination
Specific housekeeping instructions and extra guest requests
By removing our ability to leave these notes directly on the reservation dates, you have essentially blinded our operations team right in the middle of the peak summer season. If an interface change of this magnitude was deemed necessary, basic business logic dictates it should have been rolled out during the off-season to give professional hosts time to adapt—not in June, when our volume is at its absolute peak.
It is crucial for you to understand the market dynamics here and what you are risking. In our market, Booking.com is your primary competitor. They dominate with significantly higher overall traffic and slightly lower commissions. However, we intentionally chose to make Airbnb our primary platform and pushed our main inventory to you. Why? Purely because of Airbnb’s superior, practical features. Your multi-calendar, the seamless ability to add host notes, easily block dates, and add co-hosts who could sync in real time gave you a massive operational advantage over Booking.com.
By removing the multi-calendar notes, you are actively destroying your own competitive advantage. Without these practical tools, there is no logical reason for a major host like us to keep Airbnb as our primary focus. We could easily redirect our efforts entirely toward Booking.com—where the traffic is larger, our focus on reviews would yield an even greater return, and the commissions are lower. We chose loyalty to Airbnb because your operational features worked for us; this update completely breaks that system.
This is not just an isolated complaint. I represent a network of professional operators. I have at least 15 colleagues and friends managing between 30 and 80 listings each. Every single one of them is currently in "panic mode" and incredibly disappointed by this change. While standard operators in our market use Booking.com as their main platform and treat Airbnb as a secondary afterthought, we built our businesses around you. Your most loyal, high-volume professional hosts are the ones being punished by this update.
This decision feels entirely disconnected from the reality of on-the-ground hospitality. It creates massive operational friction where none existed, and it directly penalizes hosts who go out of their way to provide personalized, high-quality stays.
We strongly urge the product team to immediately revert this change, or at the very least, provide a functional, immediate alternative within the calendar view. Please do not ignore the professional hosts who bring significant volume and quality to your platform. We need tools to serve our guests, not obstacles.
Sincerely,
Alex
Managing Director
