A problem I had years ago was that results would show listings in Las Cruces NM, 50 miles from my home but only 30 miles from parts of El Paso or in Juarez Mexico. Listings there might only be 2 miles from “El Paso” but no guest passing through town wants to stay in Juarez.
I would love to see some data on how many guests who input the name of the town where they wanted to stay ended up booking at a place 50 miles away that was shown to them in search.
I could see someone who just wanted a quiet remote cabin getaway not being that fussy about it being within a 50 mile radius of their search filter, or resigning themselves to having to drive further to the wedding or graduation they are attending, because everything closer is booked up or too expensive, but most guests have a reason to want to be in a particular place, and aren’t going to want to book something that’s even 20 or 30 miles away, just because it has pretty pictures or is $30 cheaper.
Guests should only be shown places in the town or city they input, and then there could be a button that says “Show listings within a 50 mile radius”.
Another thing that’s off about the algorithms is that on the home page, it shows you the supposed distance from you of various listings. It is reading the IP address to determine that, I assume. But my internet gets funneled through a server in Guadalajara, which is a five hour drive from me, so the distances shown are always incorrect, often by hundreds of miles.
I’ve only had it happen once that I know of. Those guests booked then shortly after cancelled saying they were trying to stay in Las Cruces.
I actually meant whether they ended up booking a listing outside of their filter place by choice, rather than by mistake. In other words, if Airbnb is trying to spread bookings out over wider areas, by showing guests places 50 miles away, is that working as they intended it to?
My take on that would be a big no for the area I’m in. I’m located on a barrier island and I can’t tell you how many people have messaged they’re looking forward to staying with me to attend a wedding at the next beach over. As the crow flies it’s only 2-4 miles to several surrounding beaches however to drive there it can take an hour or more based on leaving one island, heading inland, and traveling out to the other island. Not to mention summer visitors and major road construction.
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