Mark SimpsonHelping short-term rental hosts get the tools, tactics and training to grow direct bookings with confidence

This is what YOU should be ASKING

27 Jul 2022 · 1 min

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0:40

Mark Simpson (speaker) recounts a 2018 conversation with a booking.com representative about whether hosts should be able to take repeat guests as direct bookings. The booking.com contact reportedly said hosts "don't know how" and "don't want to" manage direct repeat bookings. Simpson also references a Sway Podcast episode where Brian Chesky dismissed the idea that hosts should manage their own bookings, saying hosts "don't know what to do." The segment frames a critique of platform control over host-guest direct relationships.

Chapters

Is that in 2018, I had a conversation with somebody@booking.com I asked them, should a host be able to have a guest stay at their property, and the next time that guest comes and stays with them again, that that guest should be able to book direct? And the guy@booking.com said, yeah, sure. But they said the host doesn't know how to do that. The host doesn't want to do that. Brian Chesky was on a podcast last year, the Sway Podcast, and the podcast host asked him directly, saying, do you think your hosts, as in you should be able to do their own bookings? And Brian Chesky dismissed it. He said, the hosts don't know what to do.