Experimenting with the Summer Release

[Ann72]

Scrolling through my listings yesterday, I found that one of three suddenly gave me the option to add "design highlights" under Listing Details:

My listing description has always read, "Private getaway cottage is a favorite of honeymooners & lovers of modern design."  The word "design" appears 20 times in reviews.  I use review excerpts as photo captions and the word "design" appears several times there as well.

Clicking through "design highlights" above I was able to add the architect's name, and that now appears under the listing in search under "Design":

However, his name doesn't appear under the listing under an "All Homes" search, and the highlighted photo is different:

One of my three listings is a cabin, so I looked for it under the "Cabins" category in Maine.  You may have heard there are a lot of cabins in Maine, so no surprise, I had to scroll forever and finally zoom in on the map to find it.  Here's what it looks like under the "Cabins" category:

And here's how it appears under the "All Homes" category:

As with the cottage, different photos, different dates, different prices.  Which I don't mind at all!  I think it's cool to appear in different ways in different searches, which conceivably means slightly different demographics are seeing these.

Some conclusions? 

* Since listing the cottage in 2015, I've marketed it to people who love design.  It looks like the machine picked up enough cues from keywords, captions, and possibly photos to move the cottage into the design category.

* Even though all three of my listings were designed by the same architect, I haven't leaned on design in the other two, and was not given the option to add design details to either of them.

* Interestingly, although virtually every single guest at each of the three listings mentions Acadia National Park as part of their trip plans, and the name "Acadia" (usually by itself, without "National Park") appears many times in reviews, none of my listings appear under the "National Park" category.

* I think the machine is going to keep working to refine categories, so I'll spend some time working on keywords, which is also a good way to refine your marketing to the demographic most likely to book.

* I found the search on the app very simple to use.  Above the categories, the box says "Where to? Anywhere * Any week * Add guests."  I believe this is what's called a "call to action."  Tap on the box and put in some info.  Narrow things down from there. 

Overall I find the whole thing rather interesting.  And that brings me to a horrifying thought:  Am I, in fact, a 64-year-old millennial?!?

[Emilia42]

Two sleuths at work even when on vacation!

@Ann72 @Debra300 

[Sybe]

@Ann72 thank you for this detailed post. It looks like you got some pretty valuable finds and who knows, maybe you really are a millennial born at the wrong time! 😜

I also want to say thank you to everyone here for sharing your thoughts and feedback on the new changes. We OCMs are making sure we're capturing all the questions and concerns that are being discussed, and having detailed and constructive threads like this one are incredibly helpful.

[Elaine328]

@Sybe , thanks for taking specific concerns. I use Airbnb to make lists of properties in villages in Spain that I can travel to and do day-walks from. This means I want to be able to see every property available in a given location. I then pick my favorite property and look for dates it is available, often booking 3-4 nights during the week. I can no longer do this sort of search under the new rules because under a flexible search I am limited to weekend stays or a week-long stay as search parameters. Please bring back the 'all properties' geographical search.

[Ann72]

@Elaine328  If I wanted to go to a certain village in Spain for 4 or 5 days in the month of August, I would choose I'm flexible->Month->August and the name of the place.  Then zoom in on the map and look at what's left.  Click through the ones I want and choose different dates.  What you get from searching by month doesn't show only properties that require you to stay a month.  You'll get properties that have approximately a month's worth of days open in a row.

[Elaine328]

Thanks, @Ann72 . I appreciate the reply. Sadly, while that is true in terms of the search results that it returns, it doesn't help me. What I want is to see ALL of the Airbnb's in a particular village, no matter when they have or don't have availability. Suppose, for example, I wanted to stay in village x for 3 or 4 days in a row during any month of the year. If I searched "I'm flexible->Month->August and the name of the place" as you  mentioned above, and if the property I would have liked  best is not available for a significant number of days in August (or whatever arbitrary month I chose), it would not show up in the search, and I would not even be aware of its existence. The host would not get my business and I would not get to have a stay in what would have been my top choice property.

If I could search geographically and see all the results in one search (the way I could before the latest update), I could then look at the calendar for the property I liked best, choose a set of dates that suited me, and make a booking.

[Ann72]

I see what you mean @Elaine328.  You don't have to put in any dates at all though.  You'll get suggested dates in the results, but that doesn't mean those are those listing's only available dates.  And since you haven't chosen any dates, any weekend, any week, or any month, presumably you'll get all the listings in the area eventually.

[Elaine328]

Thanks for the help, @Ann72 . I see what you mean. When I don't put in any dates at all, the search engine chooses 'any week' as the default. I don't need a full week, but I can check the individual listings that do show up for a shorter date span. However, it's tedious to do search after search to see if there are more possible choices that haven't shown up yet (ie, as people have reported above, their place doesn't show up on an "All Homes" search). For a person on a walking trip, missing out on even one potential listing could be the difference between it being feasible or not to plan a walk from village A to village C via village B.

It seems like it should be easy for Airbnb to restore the option to do a geographic search, since that used to be the default option. I presume they want to maximize a guest's ability to find the place he wants to stay, and surely there are a significant number of us who want a specific location but are flexible on the dates - more so, than vice versa, I would guess. I hope  @Sybe will let the team know that geographic searches are essential for some travelers.

[Mark-and-Gabriela0]

The layout of my listing doesn’t includes DESIGNER

[Mark-and-Gabriela0]

Design highlights