the very first question asked of the guest in the review is...

[Lawrene0]

Hello, fellow hosts!

Last week I was a guest for three nights. Not keen on travel right now, but I had to for work. 

It was interesting to see, though, what guests are asked these days.

So, first of all, the stay went very well. The host sent daily messages asking whether everything was okay, and I replied as soon as I could every day that, yes, everything was fine. Lots of thanking each other on both sides. The usual. 🙂

I opened the review link at the end of the stay. The first question was,

"Did you feel unsafe during this stay? We would like to know what happened."

Good lord. Shouldn't I have notified someone immediately if I had felt unsafe? Why would I leave it to the review? Do they want me to be that sort of guest? 

Anyway, the second question was all about whether the host was misleading or I had any issues.

Screenshots of both are below. I took them because I was appalled that the accent is on the negative. "Unsafe", "misleading" -- what's that all about? 

In my own case, I am waiting for a review from my own guest a week ago, a local who thought I should have notified her that she might hear rumbles of thunder in the distance during her stay. Oh goody. Now she can report that she felt unsafe because she didn't think to check her weather app.

I feel like this is a trap. I feel like there are enough traps with the reviews that we don't need another one. 

The rest of the questions were about whether the amenities were provided, etc., but I have seen those before. It was just the first two questions that were different from last time I was a guest. Just to be clear, this was not the "survey" at the end. This was the start of the review, before the stars, before the written portion.  Here are the screenshots:

[Huma0]

PS This was right at the beginning of the global pandemic.

Can anyone explain to me why a hotel would be safer for the guest than an entire listing, given the situation? It's not actually ethical to force the guest to stay in a hotel when they wanted to book a whole home.

Later, after they received a lot of questions and criticism about this (not to mention it being leaked to the press), they changed the wording to say it was not because of COVID-19.

[Huma0]

In addition, at the start of the pandemic, Airbnb was sending unsolicited messages to guests warning them about recdent 'incidents' in the area of the listing, even when there were often no cases of COVID-19 in those locations.

[Anonymous]

@Denice0  I think leading with any question about whether a guest "feels safe," out of context, is a terrible idea. 

I wouldn't be bothered about specific questions about whether the property met the advertised standards and safety-oriented features were functioning properly. "Did the locks work?" Fine. But shifting the emphasis to Feelings is a shortcut to tapping into the very subconscious biases that Airbnb's hippie-dippie marketing lingo claims to be opposed to. Here's an invitation to filter your whole memory of the experience through the prism of safety, even though leaving one's comfort zone is the very essence of travel. Naturally, this prism is going to enhance the bias toward affluent and non-diverse neighborhoods, toward experiences that don't feel "foreign" to the guest, toward generic environments that pander to the paranoid and privileged. I don't know what's worse - the possibility that this is the actual goal, or the possibility that all the folks in charge of Airbnb were too dumb to see the implications.

The last time I checked, it was still up to travelers to research their destinations and make their own decisions about how much risk to their sense of security they're willing to endure. A host is obliged to provide the safest experience inside the property that is rationally possible, but one can't possibly account for all the things that might make a complex individual feel unsafe - like  seeing a spider, getting catcalled on the street, not understanding the local language, or being obsessed about virus exposure despite voluntarily accepting to leave their home turf during a freaking pandemic.

For what it's worth, I decline anyone who asks about whether my neighborhood is "safe"  -  only because I don't trust anyone that stupid with my keys.

[Cathie19]

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼✅

[Dave52]

@Anonymous Beautiful summation!  Airbnb should have you design their review algorithm.

[Huma0]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I don't know what's worse - the possibility that this is the actual goal, or the possibility that all the folks in charge of Airbnb were too dumb to see the implications.

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@Anonymous 

Well the folks in charge of Airbnb didn't see the implications of the whole asking guests to donate to hosts fiasco, even though we all warned them...

[Huma0]

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@Anonymous wrote:

For what it's worth, I decline anyone who asks about whether my neighborhood is "safe"  -  only because I don't trust anyone that stupid with my keys.

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@Anonymous 

Interesting. I might give that a try.

[Kenneth12]

It's a very,   very standard question and I'm sure the brilliant middle-managers at ABB paid some PhD psychologists a few hundred $K to offer the obvious.

But it a fine question.    Too many lazy hosts don't want to work for their money.

[Ann72]

@Lawrene0  I'm losing my mind over this!

"Yes, I felt unsafe the day we went bungee jumping during this stay."

"I felt unsafe when we went to that bar where no one work a mask during this stay."

"Remember that crazy taxi driver we had during this stay?  He made me feel unsafe."

@Airbnb  -  Bi(o)t(e)ch please.  You really can't use language like this without opening yourself up to a world of lawsuits.  

[Helen350]

EXACTLY @Ann72 ! 

I once had a female guest, early 20s tell me she "felt unsafe", because my other guest, middle aged male, different race, was "staring at my chest." I have no way of knowing what actually went on.... Upshot: BOTH of them felt uncomfortable, and BOTH left , separately, each not wanting to spend the night under the same roof!  Thankfully, neither complained to Airbnb, I got paid, & all 3 of us wrote good reviews! - But it could have been the end of my hosting career over a "perception" that might have had no truth in it, and was something I had no control over.....

(I felt rather sorry for the guy...)

[Kenneth12]

@Ann72 :  I'm pretty sure you're in no position to litigate against ABB,   nor to judge whether ABB is open to litigation.

Yet @Quincy and @Lizzie  do nothing to curtail false information such as what you have posted.

Why is that?

[Mark116]

I have never seen a business be openly hostile to one of its key stakeholders.  Never.  

[Sarah977]

@Mark116  They pretty obviously do not view hosts as stakeholders. They view us as expendable nuisances, our sole purpose to give them something to offer to their guests. Whether their guests appreciate those offers and treat those places or the hosts with respect is completely unimportant.

[Kenneth12]

@Mark116 :

who's a "key stakeholder?"  

Since when are replaceable workers "key stakeholders?"

Oh,  whoops,   @Quincy ,   ich meinte >>meine Kollegen<<!  

[Helen427]

Perhaps it's the way of the world Behavioural Psychologists are taught these days through education institutes and all the You must do, You can't do that.

Look at the negative slogans & statements shared with Coronavirus in general terms lead by Susan MICHIE..a fine academic in her own right, Not.

 There's very few universities in the world that teach & encourage Positive Psychology & until that changes we are faced with the negative drilling..

We all need positivity.

Thanks @Lawrene0  for starting this topic.

@Laura2592love your description, will share that as it sums up many things going on in the world & we need positive humor.