An Important Message To Hosts All Over The World

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Dear Fellow Hosts,

This is my first post on this forum and I believe I have an important message to you:

Never, ever, forget that we, hosts, are the ones, that are providing the real value, that drives airbnb business.
Not airbnb, not guests, WE.

Today I would like to give you my deepest respect, for dealing with so many disrespectful, selfish guests AND dealing with airbnb, that, has no clue (in my opinion) what respectful behaviour is.

Sure, we all like the traffic and ‘easy’ business that airbnb brings us. But what VALUE do they really bring to the table? They just operate a badly functioning website and parasite on the TRUE VALUE that you bring: the dedicated hosts from all over the world.

If we decide tomorrow, to un-list our beloved properties, airbnb goes out of business - and they don’t seem to realise this, with their unfair treatment of hosts and putting guests FIRST.

We all have our stories, and sometimes they do the right thing. But overall, they have no clue, what respectful behaviour is themselves and choose the side of guests, who do not deserve this special treatment.

You, dear host, buying fresh flowers, provide nice bed linen, lit candles, provide free this, free that, value, value ,value, and most of the time it is not appreciated or even seen by most people who lack very basic ‘good manners’ skills.

HOUSE-RULES - their new ‘important’ section, is a joke and another example of their incompetence, to manage the enterprise, that is run now as a ‘cheap alternative for a hotel room’ nothing more. People don’t follow house-rules for the most part, because there is no benefit in these rules for them - Most guests only care about themselves and don’t give a damn about you, your home or your heart.

But I do, and once again: Respect for you, dedicated hosts from all over the world. You guys freakin’ rock. And if this respect is not coming from airbnb or guests, let it come from me, a host like yourself, always trying the best that we can to take care of our guests.

THANK YOU

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What value Airbnb bring? Let’s see…

  1. They gave us jobs… for a start
  2. They created a unique platform where we as hosts have ability to screen and reject guests
  3. House rules are not a joke. If guests break them we can cancel then and keep the money
  4. They pay us for damages

Let’s not bite the hand that feeds us.

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The ‘clueless, heartless’ Airbnb does it markedly better than anyone that came before them, that in itself is a major achievement. The world doesn’t change/improve in major leaps, but smaller increments, except in the realm of fantasy, which most that can’t (nor ever have done) love to live in.

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What VALUE does Air bring to the table?

Why don’t you just quit listing here? Then you can do (and pay for) all your own international marketing and advertising that might get you a handful of guests a year, at an inordinate cost. A VALUE of thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars that virtually none of us could afford. You can also go to all the trouble of collecting and filing the paperwork and legal hassles of registering your business locally/regionally and make your own arrangements to pay the appropriate taxes and fees to two or three agencies.

None of the other companies like AirBnb seems to be doing anywhere near the quality and efficient job of providing all those values to hosts.

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Hi @KenH,

I don’t know if advertising ones listing would necessarily be so expensive. Some people seem to manage to do it without spending large quantities of money. But certainly Airbnb’s model makes it easy. I think the value of Airbnb is in large part in the review system. Otherwise guests and hosts have no idea what to pick. And also, to a lesser extent, in the protections that the platform affords guests and hosts.

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The reviews are one element, mostly critical when you are in an area of intense competition. We have had good bookings, 4 of them for a month, through Airbnb and VRBO, without any reviews because we were new to the platforms, having rented by the year before. So we were lucky, or we have a good location. Time will tell.

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Dear yana,

When guests break your house rules, you can’t keep the money.
You won’t get a penalty - thats it.

Have you ever had damages? I don’t think so.

You seem an inexperienced host. thats ok. You will learn about the true nature of airbnb soon enough.

You give jobs to people at airbnb - not the other way around.

Let airbnb not bite the hand that feeds them. Hosts.

maybe you realise one day…

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Hi Mearns,

maybe they do better then anyone before them. the don’t do good enough to sustain their business, because they went astray from the original idea. Their Trust system is not working like it should. They provide disrespectful guests, because they don’t educate guests enough. They don’t know what respectful behaviour means themselves. Welcome to the real world, where anything is possible, including major leaps. Believe.

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I am hosting for 17 months,and hosted over 200 guests. I kept money on 7 occasions when guests brought more people than allowed, smoked in a house, brought pets, etc.
Twice i had damages. Once i was paid 90% of what i asked, another time i was only paid 30% but the damage was hard to prove and it was not that much.

Its a question of what came first: Airbnb or us hosts. ANd the answer is: Airbnb. If it was not for them we would never let strangers in our home, at least most of us.And make money on it

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Ken, I’m a internet marketeer myself and know quite a bit about advertising. Airbnb does not register your business and you are responsible for your taxes. Sure, they bring business - mostly low value guests, who are not educated by airbnb to be respectful guests in our homes. As it is know, most listings are just cheap alternatives for hotel rooms - and airbnb is run in this mindset. YOU bring the real value. Without you, no business for airbnb.

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O yeah, have you experienced guests from booking.com, expedia.com, VRBO? If not try, and you will see what bad guest is all about:)

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you are a lucky bird then. Their house rule policy is: no penalty for canceling the reservation. not keep money.

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It gives me a bit of sad feeling, that I’m being ‘attacked’ while my intention was just to give RESPECT for you hosts.
I’m pretty sure, I’m not the only host, who tries to do the right thing, being fair and honest and still draws the short end of the stick, when guest screw up.

I’m not delisting, I’m trying to communicate to airbnb, that they should value their hosts a bit more. Because the balance is not right at the moment - based on my personal experience and that of others. If you are still in the honeymoon phase with airbnb, even with 200 guests your blessed. Wait until real problems start and experience who’s side is favored by airbnb. Not hosts. Guests are more important to them. Consider yourself lucky, if you had positive experiences, because for many these are not.

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I agree, Airbnb could improve their customer service for hosts. I’ve waited on the phone on hold for sometimes up to 45 minutes, and to make it particularly annoying they play the very same song over and over, endlessly. What, they can’t afford a playlist? And what’s with the long phone waits anyway?

My other big beef is that they hold on to my money for days after saying they’ve released it. C’mon, why in this day and age of instant transfers would it take “up to five business days” for a deposit to post? Because they want to earn a few more dollars in interest.

Otherwise, I think the site is well done and supports a business model I wouldn’t otherwise be able to engage in.

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I understood where you were going with this post. My take away was that you were trying to be supportive to those who may not have had a stellar hosting experience with Airbnb. Clearly you inspired some interesting lines of thought as a result. Isn’t freedom of speech a wonderful thing? Don’t be discouraged by the banter - it’s good to have many points of view expressed here!

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Thank you for understanding, I appreciate it so much. I wrote ‘attack’ because I realise, it’s not really attacking. Just people stepping up for airbnb - there is good people working there, who do understand - but it seems that it all gets to big to handle with so many ‘customer support representatives’ ‘case managers’ The ‘trip’ department - There is so many people working there, Who all have their own interpretation of airbnb policies that it has become unclear, what Policy, means what.
The airbnb ship is drifting and individual support employees, low in airbnb hierachy, are making their own decisions - that I believe, are not always fair and wise and favor guests over hosts, when it’s not appropriate to do so.

I have too many personal experiences with contacting air HQ that are so Kafka-esque, that it is hard to believe, that there is clear leader ship and a shared vision, that steers all in the same direction. This is, I believe, not healthy for a business and a bad sign …

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I don’t think you are 100% aware of all the rules. I could be lucky once twice but not so many times. If you don’t believe me ask Air abound refunds when guests brake rules

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Please. Yana is anything but inexperienced and naive. She’s dealt with more guest crap than you could ever know yet maintains a positive attitude and a successful business. In addition, she is one of our most valuable and savvy forum members. I don’t understand your intention at all Sir N. Coming here with this negativity and then picking on long time forum members who definitely know what they are doing.

Air may not be perfect but NO OTHER short term rental platform out there supports their hosts the way Air does. Period. So if you think they are taking advantage of you, just Unlist.

(PS? I would say YOU seem like the naive one.)

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Hi @SirNightingale,

For the record, I think you have made some good points. Though it’s hard to come by hard data (statistics, really) about how Airbnb treats hosts. Since the only person in possessions of that data is Airbnb, and they are not sharing. But you’re certainly not the only one to expound this point of view on this forum, just perhaps a little more forthrightly than most. And you’re certainly not the first to comment that Airbnb is guest-centric. See how cancellation is handled for example. It’s Ok for guests to cancel. For a host to cancel it’s a terrible thing. Now, granted, it’s worse for a guest to be cancelled on than for a host to be cancelled on, but I still think the handling is rather lopsided.

But @Yana_Agapova certainly has a point too. From all reports, Airbnb’s competitors are a sucky lot. Let’s hope Airbnb gets some serious competition at some point. That would be the best way of getting them to improve.

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One way to look at it is to see Airbnb simply as an advertising platform. It’s not there to look after us. It just gives us somewhere to advertise (free) and only charges us when it processes a booking.

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