@James207 I see no practical problem in implementing what you suggest, and I agree that it would help Airbnb retain listings that otherwise might be lost to cancellations.
The reluctance of Airbnb to implement this would be purely technical.
The front end (i.e. the user interface) would be a breeze - a button to issue a command to transfer all bookings from one host to another.
The back end, however, would be more complicated.
There are a lot of data references that are stored when a booking is made, and in a good database design, this data is not all in one place. Data from one table references data in other tables. Airbnb have it sorted out to remove all the references, create all the event log entries, update the user interface, etc. when a booking is cancelled, but not when a booking is transferred. That’s a whole ‘nuther animal.
If Airbnb were to decide to implement the transfer of bookings host-to-host, all of the above would have to be implemented, along with how to reflect the new implementation in an version upgrade, handle all the cleanup if something fails part way through the transfer, handle unwind all the changes if the wrong target host is chosen, all the testing, documentation, etc. That takes time and money, and would have to be prioritized along with other (much needed) functionality and bug fixes.
In summary, Airbnb hasn’t implemented a “Transfer bookings” function yet not because they can’t, but because it is a big project that has been deemed low priority. Much easier, although certainly not ideal, to just have the selling hosts and their guests use existing functionality to cancel and rebook.
By the way, I’m just an engineer who is not affiliated with Airbnb except as a host and guest. @Quincy maybe you can get the ability to transfer bookings added to a list of potential new features, if it isn’t already there.