Obama Chesky Voyager Scholarship

41

I saw several other hosts in your area that had “Free Parking” so thought maybe it was a thing there. There are only a couple of places in my area that have Free Parking highlighted (even though everyone has free parking here). The thing is that you, the Free Parking hosts in your area and the free parking hosts in my area also also don’t have Fast Wifi, recent guests, Self-Check-In, Superhost or Dedicated Workspace so that’s why they have Free Parking highlighted.

There’s a list of stuff that Airbnb highlights in that spot and that’s why listing one thing will replace another. If you have fast wifi, you should do the speedtest because that will get rid of the Free Parking. And once you have recent guests and get superhost again then those things will go in that spot instead of Free Parking.

Compliments were done away with in early 2020, they haven’t been there in a long time. When I looked at your listing sometime over a year ago, you had Free Parking highlighted. I remember it because it stuck out because I remember you saying that your guests don’t usually bring a car. And so I thought, well that’s not very useful. Try the wifi speedtest if you want to get rid of the free parking highlight.

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42

Thanks for the advice, I know you are trying to help, but I would never post Wifi speed. Up until recently, my internet was cell-based, metered, expensive, and quite slow. While I now have decent internet, you have to understand that I live where there is 3rd world infrastructure, and the Wifi can go out without warning at any time. So I would never want guests who are dependent on completely reliable Wifi to book with me.

I had no idea that the fact that I lost Superhost status due to being closed for 2 years due to Covid affected what appears at the top of my listing, so thanks for that insight.

But you seem to be missing my point about what is featured- their algorithm is programmed to pick out the amenities that it thinks are most attractive to perhaps the majority of guests, but does not take into account that not all listings get guests to whom those things are important. Hosts know best which guests are a good fit for their listings, and are aware of what things are most important to them. An algorithm can’t do that and hinders rather than helps if it highlights things that don’t matter to one’s guests.
The things that would be most important to my guests are private bathroom, quiet area, jungle view, full use of kitchen. I should be able to highlight those features, not AI that doesn’t know me, my listing, nor my guests.

On a different note, here is a guest post from the CC, just one of many, that shows how normal, not free to go anywhere, anytime, guests are feeling about the new interface;

“I don’t want to book a split stay. I want to book a stay in one place. There is no option to turn this “feature” off. It is not a feature to me, it is a bug that needs to be removed. If I want to book multiple consecutive stays, i can just do that on my own. This so called “feature” is making the site impossible to properly use and navigate.”

The moderator’s response was that it isn’t possible to opt out of the split stay feature.

43

But it’s always been that way. I remember years ago trying to affect the highlights at the top of my listing. It blends into the background for me at this point, I don’t understand how it’s become an issue all of a sudden. It hasn’t changed, other than the Compliments coming and then going about a year later. It’s Airbnb’s little advertisement section on the listing. And they do have the statistics so it can’t be entirely irrelevant either. They actually make sense for the most part.

The other 99% of the listing is 100% under your control. It makes more sense to worry about it, the part that you do dictate and not the highlights that Airbnb puts on. You could even add a paragraph about how you don’t care for the highlights section if you wanted to. But with a listing like yours, I doubt they make any difference at all. It’s your listing description and photos that guests are interested in.

Btw, I forgot, the other highlight has to do with the cancelation policy. Depending on the dates the guest is booking and what your cancelation policy is, the highlights will show “Free Cancelation for 48 Hours” (when relevant).

44

Yes, I know it’s always been like that and has never been palatable to me. I guess that it wasn’t all that irksome before, as it was just one of a very few things I had no control over. But since they now are letting AI determine so much, it’s just another example of what AI is simply not appropriate for.

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45

yes, I’m not happy that they choose to highlight the fact I have a “dedicated workspace”. I feel like they’ve badgered me into offering that, when I didn’t really need to, and I don’t even have a pic of the desk in my listing, and now they’ve highlighted it on the listing, even though I don’t mention it and it’s never come up in reviews, so what exactly is causing them to choose to highlight “dedicated workspace” over other things like: family friendly, pet friendly, great pool, close to wineries" ? I really didn’t care before but now that my listings have had their titles removed, and the hero image changed, i’m a bit more annoyed.

and @JJD the search has changed. Now if i put in my region and don’t click dates, it defaults to one week, and today only 1 of my listings showed up. the other 2 aren’t there. This is why i am now putting into my listing pics that I have 2 other listings on the farm, and to go to my profile to find them.

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46

They highlighted it on my listing too and I didn’t like it either. So, I removed it from my amenities list and so it cannot be highlighted (and it isn’t now).

That’s how it has been for a long time, ever since they offered the “flexible option”. It is not from this recent update. But if it doesn’t work for you, then just enter some dates. It’s not a meaningful search without dates and without the flexible week (or weekend which is also an option). But if you don’t enter dates and don’t choose “weekend” as the flexible option, it does default to a flexible week. Entering dates will make all the difference.

Because the other two didn’t have a full week open on their calendars or they have a minimum stay that is more than a week or a maximum stay that is less than a week. It is not because your listings are gone, it is because you have chosen “flexible week” and those listings either don’t have a week available or the settings negate booking a week. Again, enter dates that you know you have available to see your listings pop up. There’s really no sense in searching without dates.

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47

Sorry that’s just not true.

  1. The search default is for a minimum one week so I am low in the rankings because I have few one week gaps over the summer as most of my stays are short stays

  2. I had five friends search independently for a two night short stay, home-share in my large city with no other filters.

In all cases it showed a list of many properties . Mine came far below others without SH status and who had much lower ratings . Until they messed up the algorithms I was on the first page . Now I’m on page 9/10.

In each case when my friends searched - it showed guests searching my first availability as being 2 December when it’s 18 June !!!

@JJD many people search without dates .

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48

Thank you. JJD seems to think that everything is just fine and that the update hasn’t plummeted long-time high-occupancy hosts business and that guests should have no issues booking like they always did, that everyone is just being dense. Which isn’t the case at all.

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49

I have not had one booking or inquiry in 2 weeks. June/July/Aug are wide open. May, all weekends were booked.

Normal? I don’t think so.

50

You can say the same then about a regular job. People loose their jobs all the time …you can’t say they are entitled to have a job. It’s not useful to rely on something or someone. Brings in great disaapointments.
Things change all the time especially in this crazy world we live in the last 2 years . All we can do is to adapt .

51

The point is, people’s bookings haven’t dried up because of circumstances no one can control, like a pandemic or a natural disaster. And if you loose your job because your employer is downsizing, you at least get 2 weeks notice, unless you’ve done something truly egregious, and often severance pay.

This loss of bookings was a direct result of Airbnb changing their platform with zero notice and seemingly zero foresight or comprehension about what the result would be.

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52

Does anyone know who the bookings have shifted to? If all the hosts complaining used to get bookings and they aren’t with the new changes, then either Airbnb is losing tons of business or hosts who previously didn’t get many bookings are getting them now.

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53

@KKC
In my town the hot commodity is Air, very few listings on VRBO. I keep looking at other rentals to see if at least weekends are full and they’re not.

I’m sure there are lots of hosts on Air around the world that don’t have a clue what has happened, much less understand it.

54

What exactly did they change? I myself noticed since March very unussual trends with my bookings. Definitely less than previous years, but also less predictability. I noticed here and there few things they did…but attributed it to the ussual glitches .

55

I also see the combination of houses which I think will not work.

57

For any still not understanding what has happed in the last 3 weeks, go the Airbnb Community Forum.

You have to sign in as a host if you’re not already on that forum. Click on All Discussion Rooms, then Community Center then to Updates and scroll down where you will find Brian Chesky’s big announcement on May 6 of the big changes Air was going to do starting pronto.

Then, when you have the time, you can read the 500+ comments, 95% negative on how this is affecting hosts. Can’t find their listing, don’t know what category it’s under, etc. People worldwide getting no activity.

You’ll get the picture if you read these comments.

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58

I’ll admit that I typically avoid the CC but did go check it out when everyone started talking about this update. As usual, it is mostly people who have come to complain and shake their finger at Airbnb. And that is what the CC has been like as far back as I can remember.

Hosts are not logging-in to say that all is well and that they are booking better or the same as last year. It isn’t the nature of the internet. The internet collects complaints, not wins. And even for someone who does think to log-on and say that all is well, like myself, there is a lot of backlash for it, so it is not really encouraged for hosts to report that they aren’t having an issue.

But I am booking as well or better as any previous year as a host and know that the other 358 hosts in my near vicinity are doing the same. And that is despite 6 new hotels and over 100 new listings (and hosts with absolutely ridiculous prices). A month out there are 300+ entire places and about a week out there are 25 entire places. This weekend there was 1 place available. The pattern is exactly the same as previous years. And, yes, I do go through and check my market every single morning and always have. I am not seeing any significant differences for myself or in my market.

The only change I saw is when I switched to the new Firm cancelation policy for 3 weeks. I did not book at all during that time. But once I went back to the Moderate policy, I booked as expected.

It’s not that I don’t understand, it’s only that I am not having the same experience. For anyone who is having an issue I would think that any and all information would be useful. I’m not giving out unbridaled validation but I am giving out useful information. If it was the other way around, I’d want to know what the difference is for hosts who are not having issues.

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59

This response would be far more helpful if was not so generalized and generic but tied to @Helsi’s actual situation.

LOL. I am SO impressed with your very tailored response.

60

After being closed for 6 weeks and either snoozed or blocked I reopened this morning for bookings starting Monday. I showed up #2 on an incognito search and in the last hour I got a booking. No surprise that the changes aren’t affecting my non-tourist destination listing.

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61

The risk of blaming Airbnb for not getting bookings is that it prevents a host from really looking at their listing and figuring out why they aren’t booking. Some hosts may be victims of the updates, somehow affected by them, but for most there other plausible reasons that they may not be booking and it would be more fruitful to look at those things instead.

Your listing doesn’t fit under any of the special theme searches, so it’s not likely to affect your bookings. I’m glad that my listing doesn’t fit under the theme searches because I think that’s why I haven’t had any issues. If I don’t have a yurt then it doesn’t hurt me to not show up under yurt.

Competition has increased dramatically in most places, which likely explains a lot of the not-booking stories and it is off the hook in your area so there may be some things that were working in the past but aren’t now purely because of the increased competition (despite it being a cute place). One thing that is easy and low-risk is to change your cancellation policy.

Most of the listings in your area are using a Flexible cancelation policy though some use the Moderate policy but yours with the Firm policy is in the (very tiny) minority and I think it’s hurting it. Now that getting Covid isn’t an extenuating circumstance, people are being very careful with the cancelation policy (and for good reason). Since there’s no use trying to prevent refunds for bookings you aren’t getting, it’s worth a try. And some of your reviews mention that your Wifi is great, maybe do the speed test so that you get “credit” for that.

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