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Had some interesting changes they are bringing in.
The one that stuck in my mind most was changes to the review process so that if guests leave a retaliatory review because for example you kick out extra guests not on the booking or they damage your property you can then dispute the review.
Will be interesting to see how that actually pans out. We have always been able to dispute any review- “can dispute” is quite different from convincing a CS rep that there is grounds for removal.
Yes I agree but from what they said, there will now be a separate category for this.
We will only know if this works once hosts start trying to use it.
that will be a big change. It will open another can of worms on how to prove a retaliatory review and create more tickets for CS team.
That they allow a guest who has been booted out for partying, or sneaking in extra guests or pets, or smoking inside, when the host has submitted irrefutable evidence of such, to leave a review in the first place, is something that really needs to change. There wouldn’t be the need to dispute a retaliation review at all if they changed that policy. It’s obvious to anyone that a guest who gets booted out isn’t going to leave an accurate review.
But I do hope this new category of reviews that can be removed really works, and isn’t just something else hosts will have to spend hours with CS arguing about.
I missed any notice about the webinar - is it posted somewhere to view? Where did you see it advertised? I would be interested to see it…
I missed it too. I checked my area’s Airbnb sponsored Facebook group, my email, & the Airbnb news & the community forum—nothing was mentioned.
Could this be a limited area roll out?
On 10/19/22 Airbnb posted information on the 10/14/22 calendar functionality changes.
Is there a link for us to see this webinar?
I believe the policy works as designed by Airbnb - it is primarily a PR/marketing move to make sure more hosts keep coming to the platform. It is not in any way designed to help hosts with damages from parties. They have spent hundreds of dollars in marketing and incentives for each guest to sign up. Wall Street wants to know how many people have signed up for Airbnb. Airbnb tries not to boot guests from the platform as that will be bad for the stock price. Booting out a guest leads to that guest telling friends and family how unreasonable Airbnb was that they got banned over having a couple of people over for drinks.
I have no official insider knowledge but I have connected the dots based on the evidence presented in host forums.
No it’s an invite only webinar - mainly Airbnb FB group community leaders and some active on the Airbnb Community. @Terryathome @Annet3176
I’m not sure I agree with your analysis. Booting bad guest and hosts off the forum is good for business as it leads to less complaints about bad guest behaviour ie parties and being anti-social in communities.
It’s the nature of any disrupter business like Airbnb, Uber, Just Eats etc that customers will sign up and then stop using the platform - as will the service providers.
I’ve only had one or two bad guests in six years of hosting and co-hosting and having had hundreds of guests stay. I do think those who list remotely particularly places run by large scale management companies who don’t vet well - that they are more likely to have problem guests because guests don’t have anyone monitoring their behaviour.
Good for business
Kicking out users over a single offense leads to a lot of bad publicity as guests will start a tweetstorm on how Airbnb banned them. Of course, from the perspective of the guest, they did nothing wrong.
Airbnb has to make a call on what is better - more revenue with more complaints or lower revenue with lower complaints. I believe they have chosen the first option as they as a powerful platform so they can simply ignore the complaints from hosts, deny Aircover coverage, and get more hosts using their powerful PR/marketing machine. Most hosts are powerless. Switching to a different platform is not easy. For guests it is simple: if you got banned, use VRBO or booking.com or book using a friend or family member’s account.
Even 1% of scammers can lead to a loss of 10% of the profits (that’s my own calculation from experience last year). Now I have learned a few tricks to handle the scammers, but as a new host, I did not know how to deal with them.
large remote places are particularly vulnerable
Then they deserve to go out of business. A management company has the resources to prepare a rental contract and charge a security deposit on a credit card. If they don’t do that, then it’s their incompetence. I just don’t think it is Airbnb’s responsibility to protect such hosts, and Airbnb’s actions show that they don’t want that responsibility either.
Sorry, I don’t buy that. The type of guest who would ignore a no parties rule, inviting a slew of people over, disturbing all the neighbors with noise and cars parked all over, and possibly trashing the house, are not the kind of people who would be “fine” at other times.
We are talking about people who need to be booted out here, not someone who invites a few friends over for dinner or a backyard barbeque. In that case, the host would likely just ask them to pay for the extra guests or simply leave them an at least partially negative review.
And sure, a guest who gets told that inviting more people over for dinner isn’t okay, can also leave a revenge review, but depending on how the host handles it, may not.
And maybe they just weren’t aware they couldn’t just invite other people over, and may indeed not ever do that again. But a guest who throws a party that entails calling the cops, and/or getting booted out, knows exactly that what they are doing isn’t okay, and doesn’t care.
I received a link via email, and now can’t find it (cos Apple Mail sucks at finding stuff).
So i messaged a forum mod in the CC asking her to re-send it and her response was typically stupid: oh! hope you enjoyed the webinar, wasn’t it awesome blah blah blah.
edit: I ended up finding the email, but the replay was only available yesterday at a specific time. so that’s it, missed out.
Yes I was at the webinar. How I get invited I am not certain, but I learned a lot and found the experience very enjoyable. If you get invited next time maybe give it a try. 1,000 hosts were invited or attended, I’m not sure which it was.
We were on a road trip and I watched it live Zoom on my phone while hubby drove.
Host participants are asked to keep all details in confidence until the official announcement, which is expected in November. I think the motivation for this is so ABB can tweak details.
It was a really happy experience though, we had a few cheers in the car…
Perhaps. But I think it’s so hosts don’t start yelling on the forums about how it isn’t going to work or say it should be done differently, until it’s an implemented policy. In my experience, they don’t present something, even in a webinar, that they haven’t already decided on, without host input.
About 500 attended @SleepingCoyote
About 1000 were invited
And @SleepingCoyote no it’s not about them tweaking details it’s because they want to control the message about the roll out of the changes. I agree with @muddy
Sorry if this has been discussed before, but who got invited and why?
I guess I should count myself lucky to get an invite, that’s the second one I was invited to and unable to attend.