I’ve always thought hosts who accept bookings for guests with children, and live in the same home, should have a Working With Children card (or non Aussie equivalent).
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Just got a booking with a picture. And bonus, the guy owns his own company and was wearing the company logo shirt. Gotta love full disclosure guests. 
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“Implementing in the months to come” means we will see photos for awhile yet.
I rent rooms. Why am I liking this? Personally I don’t care if they’re pink with purple polka dots. We assess them on fit, and that’s it.
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Once again Airbnb, in my opinion, is heading to a hotel type operation. Luxury end is the Plus, medium is the Super Ho’s and bottom end is the non Super Ho’s. I feel they are moving away from the happy home sharers, end those whose listing are not maintaining high reviews. No photos is the first step.
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Interesting perspective. I just had a conversation with an Airbnb host who is very adamant about no IB because of difficulty syncing calendars. I’ve not had any problems but I guess she has.
I have IB and only allow guests with prior positive Airbnb reviews to book. If that option disappears, as long as I can decline IB from a guest with whom I am uncomfortable, I can work with it. My guess is 1/3 of all listings in my area would disappear if forced to do IB.
It appears Airbnb is dedicated to changing the world of STR and moving to change certain behaviors. We can either get on this train; or get off of it.
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Love this…I’m prone to say “I don’t care if they are purple with green hair…”. Of course I started saying that before green, blue, fuchsia, or marbleized hair was possible. Times have changed. (I think I would like it—funny though none of the pics of marbelized hair show 59 year old women… ;-(. )
Well, they certainly won’t do booking.com then and not sure if they get photos from potential guests on Homeaway …
They’ll miss the money …so they’ll decide to go with the flow.
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I suspect you are right. And for those that leave new hosts will take their place so I’ll still have lots of competition.
I really only look at the photo 5 minutes before they arrive, and really, I’m looking at the profile/photo so I get their name right. I don’t get it. (Maybe it’s different for hosts that are not on premise.)
I’ve just got off the phone with AIR CS. I asked about this new non-photo thing. She said for now it will only be applied to 10% of hosts (they already got emails, in early October) and if all goes well with the experiment, for the rest of the hosts. It took a while for CS to find the email from SF with the details of this change. The email didn’t specify how they selected the 10%.
CS has made an interesting comment. Recently they started getting flood of emails from SF with upcoming changes that it became impossible to keep up with… I asked how many. She said 25-30 a day!
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Thanks that’s really helpful.
I didn’t get the email so hopefully this won’t apply to me.
Part of my IB conditions is that all guests need to provide a clear photo of themselves. If they don’t I can ask Airbnb to cancel the booking.
That being the case I don’t think much will change for me, even if this policy is implemented across the platform.
I think there is a difference between hosts who share a home who may want the reassurance that the person who books is the person who turns up and those hosting in a whole listing who may not see this as such a concern.
I know of course people can upload a false image on their profile, but to date everyone who has arrived looks like their image.
The only one who didn’t was someone who uploaded an image of their adult mixed race son rather than themselves. When I asked him why when he arrived he said that he found when he tried to book as himself he wasn’t getting accepted (he is much darker than his son).
What a sad world we live in 
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It’s being rolled out slowly. Maybe it will be like that other policy (what was it, I can’t recall) that they rolled out this past spring and then almost immediately said they were going to delay?
And this policy won’t change that. Photos simply won’t be provided for people who are just shopping. As long as they have a penalty free cancellation available with a couple of clicks for guests who don’t have a photo and won’t provide one, nothing really changes.
I know you don’t discriminate but it’s clear that many hosts do and not having a photo prior to booking seems like a good, inexpensive and viable tool to fight the problem.
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It’s also an excellent promo move for Airbnb that will more than likely get into the news and into blogs. And promotion for Airbnb, especially when it’s regarding anti-discriminatory measures, is good for all of us.
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One thought, I wonder if they will do the same for hosts, so guests who discriminate won’t be able to see their hosts image until they book 
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I don’t know but I can tell you I have seen plenty of listings with no host picture and it doesn’t affect my inclination to book unless it’s a corporate logo.
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Whoa - I went into my listing to look for this change and noticed that many restrictions I had checked (no children under 12/no infants, no pets, no smoking) had been unchecked so it appeared all those things were acceptable. What the heck?
I’d immediately log out and check my listing as a guest using Chrome incognito. If it showed I allowed smoking dogs with kids I’d get on the phone to Airbnb right away and make sure I could get penalty free cancellations if anyone booked under those conditions while Airbnb fixes the glitch.
Here’s the thread. It appears to be happening all over.
All over except on the listing page the guest sees? It doesn’t matter if the rules are still there when the guest books unless you are literally trying to change your rules today and it’s not setting.