Dear Hosts, Im from Cracov, Poland. Im 2 years old host and my topic is how to press airbnb to be a real partner og us? After many posts o blocked accounts with no or stupid reason I do AFRAID to do the business in airbnb. Do we try to have a representation and any power of host straik?
Airbnb will only be a real “partner” when they feel they really need their hosts. Right now they have so many and that’s why they are treating many so poorly.
Sure we could all go on strike and snooze our listings. That would change everything immediately. But the issue is that most hosts would never work together to accomplish this. So Airbnb will go on their merry little way and keep “strangling” hosts with stricter policies, only until Airbnb sees that their changes are affecting their bottom line in a bad way.
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I really wish there was more competition in this area. The door is wide open for someone to come in with a similar platform but take more of a back seat and allow hosts more control.
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Sadly, the minute one disgruntled host leaves, it creates a vacuum for 200 to take their place. I would love to see Krakow. I would probably stay in a hotel though since they are so cheap!
When I went in 2009 I found an apartment via an internet search. I loved it and would take it over a hotel any day.
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There are some similar smaller sites available to property managers, but I think what makes part of this issue difficult is that every property manager is looking for something different in their ideal “partner” - similar to dating. Even in regards to control there’s varying levels of perfection depending on the property manager (e.g. restrictions on guests, breadth of account information, etc.).
Considering there are too many hosts, that will never stick together, and therefor AirBnB will never change… I see only one solution: A new cooperative website owned by hosts, totally similar to AirBnB. Every new host has to pay lets say $US 250,00 for 1 share in the cooperative. There is a 1 share maximum per host. Gains get invested again, or divided at the the end of the year between the hosts.
The price of the 1 share always remains the same. If hosts close their listing(s) or drop below a minimum 10 hosting per year, they lose their share and get their money back.
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That’d be great–I’d sign up for that in a heartbeat!
I know there’s a sports/outdoors store called REI in the US that’s a co-op. It’s always like Christmas when they tell me I have $75 or so dividends. And it’s smart for them because invariably I just use it to buy more stuff there.
I wish co-ops as a business model were more widely practiced.