This forum is dedicated to connecting hosts with other hosts. Sign up to get the latest updates and news just for AirBnb hosts! Note that we are not affiliated with Airbnb - we are just passionate hosts!
Maybe I’m wrong but I can’t find information about where a guest lives anymore. It used to say Jane Joe from Worcester and now I can’t find the persons location. Often when I don’t have any info about someone I will do a quick Google search or Facebook search just to get an inkling of who’s coming. But now I can’t find the geographical info, which makes it hard to identify the person. Not a big deal I guess but I was wondering if anyone else noticed it.
I also just noticed that Airbnb is sending me a suggested door code for each person. What’s that all about? I want to choose my own door code. And will continue to do so. Thanks, everyone!
I don’t even have self-check-in, I check guests in in person and they get a physical key, and I see that “suggested door code” as well. I don’t think it means you can’t choose your own door code just because it’s “suggested”.
As I haven’t had an Airbnb guest for about a month, I can’t check the location visibility, but I know I have had some profiles in the past that didn’t show the guest’s location, so maybe it’s just something guests can choose to show on their profile or not?
I’ve just gone through the last handful of messages and checked for my guests’ locations: 5 give their home town, a couple just say ‘Guest’, and others say their country - but none are blank. Sorry, probably doesn’t help you much.
I did look up a guest once for some reason but generally I greet all our guests personally and show them to the door, using that short walk to elicit any info about them that Susie wants to know. I get debriefed by her as soon as I go back in the house and have an outstanding record of not asking the right questions.
You might just be in the vanguard of another change that’ll come to us all. I’ve given up wondering where all the familiar and helpful stuff has gone.
Some of it I put down to my complete lack of enthusiasm to explore but other elements on the site that were once prominent and familiar have just vaporised. I’ve noticed guest’s phone numbers fade over time or don’t come through at all, my photos occasionally rearrange themselves and I don’t seem to be able to change my nightly rate anymore.
It might be ABB but, in their defence, I’ve paid a lot of money in the past to get like this and so try to accept the way it is without out too much enquiry.
Yes, I agree. And sometimes, when it does show the location, they have long since moved. I love knowing where guests are from! The other issue I have is not knowing the full name of the guest’s guest, although I do ask in message.
I just saw that also. Can not see reviews or any information about an incoming guest. They also do not show the same payouts of what they paid airbnb and what they pay the host. They are going very opaque and it is concerning.
Yes, it has changed. And even the phone numbers are hidden, only the last 4-digits are real. I guess Airbnb does this to prevent hosts and guests from contacting each other directly.
Unrelated topic since you mentioned you haven’t had guest for about a month. Muddy, or everyone here, have you noticed that the bookings are way low this year? This is our high season, but the occupancy rates are much lower than previous years. Vrbo is totally dead, I had couple of reservations from last year, but almost half of them been cancelled last minutes by the guests.
Your vote counts! Thanks to the party in power, we are suffering a war, an economic crisis, a party who makes it a scary thing to visit the USA, etc. The damage being done reaches all of us.
My bookings were the best this season that I’ve ever had since I started in 2016.
Bookings being down is never universal. Depends on the location, what you offer, and how much competition there is.
I’m in a popular touristy little Mexican beach town and while there are tons of Airbnbs here, not a lot in my category of private room/private bath, shared kitchen homeshare for one guest. I’m also a kilometer out of the noisy downtown area. Which the non-partiers like.
The reason I have no Airbnb bookings now is that I had a direct booking and also a friend visiting, so calendar was blocked, and I have blocked a wéek coming up because I need to get the outside staircase to the guest room repainted ; also I seldom get bookings this time of year. Tourist season here is basically end of Oct.- end of April, then it gets hot and humid. All my bookings are crammed into that period.
Further to Rolf’s response, I’ve read a lot of posts on the Airbnb CC from hosts in places in the US where FIFA events are happening, who seem to think bookings are going to be great, asking how much other hosts in those areas are raising their prices by. But I just read an article talking about how anticipated bookings for hotels and strs are not manifesting as expected.
Which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone aware of the plummet in tourism to the US since the last election. Just because it’s a major world sporting event doesn’t negate the factors that have led to that US tourism tank.
I just got a new booking, and the guest’s location does appear on his profile.
But there is a new bug- on the desktop version, while on the messsage page, where the reservation details appear in the right side bar, the vertical scroll bar is missing, so can’t scroll down to see more than the guest’s name and dates. I contacted CS, they said it’s a known programming bug. There are other places to see that reservation info, but it was so easy to see it there before.
Gotta love how the techies have oodles of time to rearrange our hosting pages so that information gets moved around, resulting in consuming hosts’ time trying to find where they’ve moved things to, yet somehow have no time to fix known platform bugs.
Yeah, location plays a big role. I only had one booking that mentioned FIFA. Still have many days of vacancy during the FIFA period, with even fewer bookings than the previous year. I used to get a lot of international guests, but not this year.
Maybe guests don’t have to provide that info when signing up - if it is optional then that could explain why some guests still show up with locations whilst others don’t. It is however definitely much harder to find any details about the booker or the indeed the reservation now. The app gets less host friendly by the day.