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Lol, no merde, Matlock. I don’t want to get in a pissing contest with you. I worded my statement nicely, succinctly and honestly. Let me add some context.
I’ve been doing this 5 years and have hosted about 700 guests. I’ve fielded about 1000 inquiries, bookings, message threads etc. I have over 550 reviews, 4.97 star rating. I’m currently running 86% booked on available days. I travel several times a year so have about 6 weeks a year where the room isn’t available. I’ve hosted 135 stays/174 nights on Airbnb this year alone and a few more that were direct bookings from previous guests. So I’m busy and I know what I’m doing. I know what I’m talking about, for my rental.
Anything is possible. But it’s really not looking like it at this point.
Again, different models for different hosts. I made a career of encouraging and supporting folks that someone else thought were worthless; I’m a retired teacher. It worked very well for 28 years there and it’s working well here.
You may also be a highly experienced and accomplished host, I don’t know. I know nothing about your rental or market. It is quite possible that you are not in a position to do things the way I do. Someone with 50 rentals of entire apartments has to run things differently than a host like myself. And I didn’t say one negative thing about how you run your business. I said the way you run your business helps hosts like me. Simple fact.
There will be winners and losers but they will be determined in the market, not on internet forums.
Also, aside from whatever we individual hosts do, Airbnb is taking more control from us all the time. The whole point of my OP was asking if others had noticed the town disappearing. Pictures at booking stage are optional. Instant book is being pushed more and more. No one should be shocked if they remove all screening of guests completely in the future.
I don’t think these are the only reasons for someone not wanting to upload a photo to Airbnb. Have you considered that it may just be a privacy thing for these guests?
You are welcome to your own opinion of course, but I do not consider a guest that does not have a profile photo to be a guest who “shouldn’t even be using Airbnb”.
I have no problem with guests not having a photo. There are tons of hosts just in my little town that do not have a photo of themselves on their listing!
That’s quite a statement. I have found that sometimes people don’t like to upload photographs of themselves because of scars, skin problems or some sort of facial irregularity. Maybe you class that as ‘something to hide’ but if so, I’m surprised.
How do we all lose? And who shouldn’t be using Airbnb in the first place? Aren’t you aware of their policies when it comes to inclusion?
You would really discriminate and assume that guests who don’t want to use a photograph are lazy and disrespectful?
You seem to be an interesting bunch with some interesting ideas. I think I’ve already worked out the average age and country of origin of most of you based on this one thread
This is not rocket science, so let’s see if I can rephrase to address the implication that I might be discriminatory or non-inclusive … if you want to stay at my place, I would like to know certain things about you, all of them part of a standard Airbnb profile. If you provide them you can stay … if you don’t then you can’t. I won’t lose anything if you don’t stay, there’s always another booking just around the corner, from someone that either has a complete profile, or is happy to fix it when I ask.
Those that don’t meet my criteria … well I guess they can always stay with hosts that don’t have the same standards as me, but that’s why I say we all end up losing.
There are some things that you can compel the guest to fill-out if you want them. Technically they are “required” to have certain things completed to book (including the intro message surprisingly because I rarely see it), it’s just that the software doesn’t prevent them from booking without it. I’d include a link to this page to the guest as an explanation if I were wanting more information.
It’s okay that some hosts don’t care about information and it’s okay that some do. Everyone is in a unique situation. I, on occasion, want some information but not always. It is at our discretion though as it is actually a requirement for some information to book but no one has time to educate every guest to fill out their information and a lot of hosts don’t care for it so they don’t uphold it so guests may be surprised when/if a host asks them to complete these things.
Send me your heaving unwashed masses!
I ask guests for very little information and have around 650 reviews. I’ve had over a 1000 guests easy and only 1 or 2 total sewer rats so I’m fine with it.
