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Well, this is really inexcusable. While I don’t think there are any Experience hosts on this forum, this kind of behavior towards those hosts by Airbnb disgusts me. Chesky should be thoroughly ashamed of himself.
Other hosting forums are full in the past few days of Experience hosts, with hundreds of great reviews and high ratings, having gotten a message from Airbnb that their Experience “doesn’t meet our standards”, when in fact these hosts have had highly successful businesses. Airbnb, without warning, is deleting all their listings and cancelling all their bookings in June, and doesn’t even have the decency to tell them the truth about why this is happening, instead they are outright lying to them to pander to Disney, Pixar, and Marvel- their new “Icons”.
Yep, one day all us individual hosts could get a message saying our listings don’t meet Airbnb “standards” and all our listings will be removed and all our bookings cancelled because Chesky sold his soul to corporate hosts.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he hired Catherine Powell, former Disney marketing exec and president of Disney Parks, as “Global head of hosting” and now Disney, Pixal, and Marvel “experiences” are deemed the new direction Airbnb is following.
Of course he doesn’t care about hosts. He cares about me as much as I care about him and Airbnb as a corporation. I appreciate the start they gave me but now I don’t need them and they don’t need me. Seems fair.
In the past, I have attempted twice and got declined, After spending hours putting it together, who decides what’s acceptable and what’s not? I don’t know, I would say I am more qualified being a local with experience, The number 1 thing that tourist do when they come to this island is to take a speed boat trip to many other islands, their loss,
If Airbnb wanted to discontinue offering Experiences, fine- all businesses make decisions as to directions they want to take. But to simply lie to 5000 hosts, who have hundreds of reviews and high ratings, telling them they suddenly no longer meet Airbnb “standards”, without even explaining in what way they don’t meet standards, and shutting down their Experiences with only a month’s notice, is so so disrepectful.
If Chesky was just honest about only being in this business for the money, that would be one thing. It’s the hypocrisy of his rhetoric, as if he cares about hosts, the constant empty platitudes thanking us for being hosts when we contact CS, that is so obnoxious.
Sure, it sucks but hopefully the experiences hosts don’t rely on Airbnb. I’ve only done one Airbnb experience, a jazz tour of Harlem. Except I didn’t book via Airbnb. I booked via the operator’s website.
Well, of course there are all kinds of ways to market a business, but some venues bring in far more business than others, no matter how aggressively the business owner markets. Just like accommodation hosts may get the bulk of their bookings through one listing platform as opposed to another.
