Another thought about IB

No I wouldn’t. I normally have some questions before I make a booking.

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Looks to be temperatures mostly above freezing so snow doubtful. :smile:

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Hi EllenN. So glad you brought this up. We have a small dog who barks when he sees people walk by, doorbell rings, or the UPS or mail truck. I was planning to call a local dog trainer who is said to do well with positive training in our home to help with these behaviors. I’d never agree to any type of training that would hurt our dog. I’m concerned though that guests will leave me a bad review if they hear him barking. It’s never long term barking. Have you ever had a bad review because of your dog barking?

No, we have never had a bad review because of our dogs barking. The dogs are usually peoples’ favorite thing about our house. We had one guest who was scared of the barking. He was from Saudi Arabia which being a Muslim country doesn’t provide exposure to dogs. I explained that barking is a greeting and a notice to me that someone is home. I told him that the signs of aggression are growling and ears back. Unless your dog is a climber; you might be able to obstruct his view which will curtail the barking. Here is a link to our listing. As you can see; guests love our dogs.

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Most Arabs are scared of dogs.

The neighbors have a dog, during the day it likes to take a sunbath in the middle of out parkinglot.
And when guest come she trudges over to greet them.

At one time I had some Arab guest that arived and stayed in the car for more than an hour.
I did not understand why, until I saw the dog layin next to the car… :joy:

I’ve used Airbnb as a guest a couple of times now and have to agree that trying to book with non-IB hosts is “hit and miss”…which is a pain in the @ss. I’ve been cancelled on and have had my messages either go unanswered or the host is so late in responding that I had already moved on. I’m in the middle of booking another road trip that I have coming up and have basically given up and decided to go with hotels. From a guests perspective, I think making IB mandatory is good idea. I understand the reluctance of some hosts here, but if Airbnb keeps losing guests due to the frustrations they face when booking, there won’t BE any guests.

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Sure, that’s part of it. But the real reason is because IB converts a “looker” into a “booker.” All the listing sites will go on and on and on about the traveler experience blah blah blah. But it really comes down to what makes the sites the most money and how it benefits their bottom line.

VRBO is a great example. For years, owners did all transactions directly, took payment directly, etc. Then after it was bought by Homeaway, gradually they implemented changes under the guise of trying to “improve the traveler experience.”

Owners were rewarded higher placement if they began to use HA’s credit card system. They enticed owners by purposely making the credit card cost 2.5%…then waited till owners became dependent on the system before they jacked up the rates. They told owners that travelers won’t pay by check anymore, etc because they insist on doing everything online. Some owners gobbled this up, and gave in to be rewarded the better search placement.

Next, HA introduced “online booking” saying guests don’t want the back and forth messaging, and insist on being able to have their request accepted within 24 hrs. HA then placed the properties that used online booking and their payment processor in higher search results.

Still not enough owners signed up. Then HA “pretended” to work with the owners…saying they understood why some do not want to accept credit card. So they created “alternative payments” where the owner can enter their choice of payment methods and still enroll in online booking.

Fast forward. The guest service fee rolls out and is implemented only on properties that signed up for online booking. For years HA would say “our surveys show that 92% of travelers prefer blah blah blah.” But the real reason to get owners signed up was to eventually be able to add this service fee. None of it is was about enhancing the traveler experience. If a guest books a property that has “alternative payments” then they have to enter in their credit card to pay the guest service fee, and then possibly still have to write a check to the owner. But I thought HA was about making the booking process simple?? Two payment transactions now?

Fast forward to today. HA manipulates the search results. Gone are the days when your property stayed booked due to your great reviews, photos, etc. Now you are competing with properties an hour away, that may be showing up pages and pages before you. In my area there were only 13 listings actually located within the city limits. Not sure how many there really are. But depending on which day you search, it may show there are 150 listings, and sometimes it will show there are over 500 listings. I scrolled through and I show up around after 250 or so. Is this what the traveler wants? Wouldn’t they want to be shown my listing that is in the city they entered? Of course. But HA makes more money by spreading the bookings around. All properties that use online booking are ordered first because HA makes more money that way.

So now owners are outraged because a listing an hour away with crappy photos, poor reviews, etc. will often times be at the top of their search area. HA realized the “great” owners were hogging all of the bookings. When you let the market dictate, it doesn’t allow the listing sites to maximize their revenue. Properties with “emptier” calendars are pushed in front of the traveler and those that have “healthy” bookings already, are pushed down in the searches. HA has to justify their annual subscription fee - so they have to feed just enough bookings to everyone in order to get them to renew.

Owners feel duped and are crying saying “but we signed up for everything you told us. It’s not fair our listings have the service fee and other’s don’t. HA we beg you to relook at your search algorithms, etc.” People went from having completely booked calendars for years, to all of a sudden hardly receiving an inquiry.

For years it was suspected that HA wasn’t delivering inquiries to all owners. Many owners said they couldn’t understand why so many other owners did not respond in a timely manner, or they never received a reply at all. Well, other owners have gotten together and done their testing with each other - and they revealed that inquiries are not being delivered! This does not surprise me at all.

The traveler experience on there sucks now. But as a guest I will say that I would love the option of being able to instant book. But making IB mandatory is not going to eliminate the “unprofessional” hosts. If those types of hosts would typically ignore a regular inquiry, then now turn on IB, they will continue to be “unprofessional” in other aspects of hosting.

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One of the many things I’ve learned about other cultures since becoming and Airbnb host is the Muslim belief that dogs are dirty. We had a Muslim guest who insisted on us keeping the dogs away from him. I called a Muslim Cultural Center the next day to get a better understanding. We’ve had several Muslim guests since. I’ve found that the Muslim guests who live in Western countries are fine with the dogs. Here’s an interesting column on the subject.

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EllenN, your information is priceless. Lack of information and wrong expectations is cause of fear and bad experiences. I worked in Travel Industry as I mentioned once, and that was my biggest plus in taking time to qualify travelers expectations and matching it with the right product.

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I know, that is why I wrote “Arab”, not “Muslim”.

The response rate is quoted on the host profile page.

You can’t filter for the response rate; so you would have to scroll to the bottom of the profile of each listing you are interested in. You can filter for Instant Book.

True, but it is an option before writing to the host.

And filtering for the response rate would be a good idea. Someone suggest it to Airbnb.

“nearly instantaneous” is not viewable in any way. “Within an hour” is as good as it gets. “Within a few hours” is what my non-instant book on my upcoming trip had and she approved in about 2 hours.