Obama Chesky Voyager Scholarship

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It’s pretty clear to me that there’s a real lack of understanding amongst many of the more vocal participants in this forum about how the business world works.

From a business perspective scholarships and other philanthropic activities serve multiple purposes, including marketing, publicity, and tax reduction. Couple this with a genuinely great outcome for those fortunate enough to receive a scholarship, and it’s clear that this should result in an overall benefit to both the business owner and the students involved.

What I sense from some of the responses here is a combination of jealousy (“why can’t I have some of that money”), entitlement (“I’ve worked so hard so I deserve more”), playing the victim (“here he goes again not treating us poor hosts better”) and just plain small-mindedness.

However it’s really good to see others calling out this pettiness for what it is (though of course no good deed goes unpunished and the naysayers just jump back on their keyboards to have a crack at those pesky do-gooders!).

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I appreciate your postings that you and fellow hosts in your area are not seeing reduced bookings. As well as checking on other host’s listings to see if they can be booked as normal.

But putting forth the notion that the hosts who have seen their views plummet and their bookings evaporate, the “victims” as you call them, cannot be judged, (as you are wont to do) by one or two hosts whose listings you perused and found that they had a couple of reviews that mentioned cleanliness issues.

And I do not understand why you are talking about the cancellation policies. All of these hosts have had their cancellation policies in place for a long time. That isn’t why they are suddenly not getting bookings. Their bookings stopped dead as soon as the update happened.

For starters, just because you or I don’t get the type of guests who make bogus complaints, does not mean all other hosts are so lucky. You read a couple of reviews on some host’s page that complains about something and you take that at face value? The guest must, of course, be telling the truth?

Nor do all the experienced hosts who say the update has resulted in in their business crashing have any reviews which would put guests off.

There are posts on those update threads on the CC from guests, as well as hosts who have travelled extensively as guests, who are saying that trying to book as usual is a hot mess. I do not understand why you are trying to make them all out to be fools, or that this has only happened to a handful of hosts who are vocal on the CC.

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In the past, on this very forum, when a host would come on and say, “I’m not booking”, we would, as a community, pitch in and try to help, try to figure it out. It is just dumb to instead say, “oh evil-Chesky boo hoo. Oh, bad technology, boohoo, it’s Airbnb, it’s their fault, omg, omg”. It’s useless. If someone says they are not booking, there are only 3 questions to ask:

1. Is your listing showing up? Can it be found?

While not common, there are occasionally cases of a listing just plainly not showing up. It is a known glitch and thus must be the first issue explored. You have to call Airbnb to fix this problem.

2. Is your calendar open? Can I book your listing?

If you say you’re not booking and I go to your calendar and it looks like you’re completely booked or the system won’t let me select dates or go to the payment page then there is a calendar and/or settings issue that needs to be fixed. You’re not booking because no one can book you.

3. Are other similar listings in your area booking?

“No”: Then it’s a very slow time, not too much to worry about, but still, how can you be more competitive so that you are the one who gets the rare bookings that are coming into your area? How can you get your listing on the 1st page of search results? What can be changed, added or subtracted so that you get booked as much as possible even though it’s slow?

“Yes”: (And this is where this forum can really help). Then how can you be more competitive? What can be changed or added or subtracted so that you get some of those bookings that your competitors are getting? What is holding back your listing and what can be done about it?

Because if (1) your listing is showing up, (2) I can book it and (3) other similar listings in your area are booking, then it is not an Airbnb issue, it is your listing’s issue. It is most likely a competition issue and your listing is not competitive enough. You should ask us how to be more competitive instead of blaming everything on Airbnb, because it is probably you, which is the good news because you can do something about it.

Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.

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I switched off instant book on 2 listings because of the guests I was getting.
Those 2 listings became invisible for around a month. I feel I was penalised for changing the ease of booking for guests.
Really getting over the attempts to control my listings and my business.

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I forgot IB and even the individual IB settings. That is something else that can make a listing more or less competitive.

I also turned off IB one time. I had to go through 3 or 4 pages where they told me it would affect my bookings which seemed a bit heavy-handed, but at least I wasn’t surprised.

My bookings decreased a lot but because I’m pet-friendly I still got some. Ultimately I decided it wasn’t worth the extra hassle of dealing with Requests and turned IB back on. In my market, most (entire place) listings are IB so it’s necessary for me to be competitive. But if the listings I compete with weren’t IB, it wouldn’t matter as much.

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Of course we all know what Airbnb likes and that if a host complies with those things, they will have higher search ranking. Using IB, having a flexible cancellation policy, allowing 1 night bookings, allowing last minute bookings, allowing long term bookings, accepting pets, accepting children, etc.

It has been thus for ages.

None of that has anything to do with the issue of hosts who were previously almost fully booked, having their views and bookings totally plummet as soon as this update went into effect.

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You forgot being cheap.

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I did indeed. Airbnb’s price tips for my listing usually hover around $19 Canadian. That is simply ridiculous and insulting. Why would anyone host for like $12 CAN profit per night? My price has always been $36/night, and many guests have told me it’s great value for what they get.

And I am planning raise my price when my season starts up again in the fall.

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If you look at the email Airbnb sent out to all hosts a few weeks back it ‘explains’ all the new changes @wonderlust

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Ok thank you! I am so used to many glitches on this site that I just thought all these things are new glitches. For example my listing is on IB but it doesn’t show in search under it.

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