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Hi Violetta,
I have been thinking many of the things that you are saying - the website started with the ideal of a person sharing their home and then it turns into a big business and the people sharing their homes get squeezed out.
Many years ago, around 1998, I got into eBay right before it became super popular. It was like the world’s largest garage sale. There was so much cool stuff!. I had a couple of amazing buys and sells during this time. And then it got big and famous, and suddenly it was just one more place to buy the same crap you can buy anywhere. There is still cool stuff, but it’s lost in the mix. Obviously eBay is still around and lots of stuff sells, but it feels like professional sellers rather than the ad hoc garage sale it used to be.
There are people who can make a living on eBay - or Amazon - but it’s not the same people. I stopped years ago because the feeling of the place changed, and it also got completely over saturated.
I like Airbnb. It has opened my eyes to a way to make some extra money from my house. So far it’s been going well. But if Airbnb turns into just one more hotel website (aren’t there enough of those already?) then I suppose I will look for another way to do this. Something new will come fill the void if Airbnb changes too much.
Jaquo, again you re right, and I am forced to do something.
I used to be in Travel Business for forty years, and had heated arguments about the Deregulation and what it will do to Travel Agencies, Airlines and consumers, and unfortunately I was right.
Artemis, yes I love Airbnb myself, since it gave me the opportunity to do what I love and also earn income and pay my bills. Beside having been in Travel business for so long I always saw a huge need that was never met and that Airbnb made it available.
It may be that I wanted to remain naive. I am very much old fashioned and believe in a hand shake. I have to move with the time and I can see that, but I will keep some of my old fashioned ways, since that is who I am.
I also love and enjoy hosting thourgh Airbnb. When I started hosting on Airbnb. I feel that their interests were a close match to mine. So if I was making good money, they were too. I’m not sure when it happened but they switched their mind and now their vision is mostly associated to the guest’s needs than to the hosts. So it doesn’t matter if this isn’'t a good business for you, we have plenty of hosts willing to host that guest for a few pennies. I’m not so wrong in thinking that is kind of dumping policy. Flooding the platform with a huge number of hosts that compete aggressively each other to serve the best quality place for the cheapest price possible.
This might work during 1, 2 or 3 years more but there will be a time when hosts will not have that extra money to gave the proper maintenance to their rentals neither to continue giving the same level of service so, the global persuasion of the company will be that Airbnb is a place for the budget traveller that doesn’t care about quality or having a good experience, just 4 walls, a roof and a bed for bunch of coins.
One thing I take comfort in is a relative first mover advantage. Although late compared to you I got into home dog boarding and ABB in 2014, just about the time it was “blowing up” (in a good way). Out of the 109 rentals in El Paso for “2 people, private room” I only recognize 5 listings from when I started. Then there about 10-20 more that have been around a while. The newbies will never be able to catch up in reviews and frankly the knowledge we have gained in what it takes to be successful. Can you tell I’ve spent some time trying to make myself feel better about my $15,000 investment? LOL.
Note: Also included in those 109 are quite a few rentals in Juarez, Mexico. Those are not my competition. No one passing through for the night could reasonably stay in Juarez. You have to have a passport to come back and at times the lines to go in and out are insane. It drives me nuts that they are even returned in the search results but I don’t know if ABB could even filter them out as I assume the map is just tied geographically to Google Maps.
You can relax. 109 listings in your city shouldn’t be a concern to you. There might be probably above 5K listings on where I’m. It’s hard to measure because you only see the first 300 on any search but if you filter out by neighborhood and use the price filter you can reach an close estimated number. Just in my neighborhood, there are almost 1300 “Entire Apartment” listings. With this numbers you highly depend on the search algorithm because guests get lost with so many options to choose.
After over two weeks of calling about search issues, especially mobile, and usually being told that the associate had no trouble searching, even though they searched on their PC rather than mobile, I did an internet search and found that it is A KNOWN ISSUE. I HAVE A SUGGESTION: PLEASE PUT A NOTICE ON THE SEARCH PAGE stating that there are mobile issues and to only search on PCs or Laptops until notification on this page that the problem has been resolved. Otherwise, potential guests will just think a place is unavailable. There is no other interim solution (if you care about your hosts) since putting the notice on your listing, as I have, is obviously useless for those who never seem to get there. ALSO please put a notice up that the map on PCs often does not include everything and that they must zoom out to see all available listings. (This is unlike Zillow, VRBO, others where everything is shown and you have to zoom in. I have been told that this is also a known issue but whether it is or is not, it results in my listing often not coming up since it is on the edge of a small town.) Also, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make your associates aware of these problems so hosts don’t have to call every day for weeks (and have to send emails further elaborating the problem) only to be told I will be called when a case manager is assigned and instead are told that Airbnb is aware of this problem. Thanks, S*
They don’t care if your listing gets views as long as someone’s listing gets views. It doesn’t matter to them if anyone books with any particular host, or so it seems to me.
I just created a FB page for my Air listing that is linked and managed by my FB profile. It was very easy. I want it to be separate from my main page so that I can share it with guests and let them check-in and follow me there.
Sarah, I assume you had to sign in to your account first.
Where did you go next? Sorry as I said I am so left handed
when it comes to Internet. Thank you!
