What the new Airbnb changes means for hosts

Hi, guys. So I wanted to share with you the exciting news coming out of Airbnb. In the last few hours, They've released their 2022 update. They do these releases every year, sometimes they change a few things. This year they've actually changed some really exciting features, but not ever so many of them. So what I wanted to do is quickly break down those features that they've updated and changed. It's really important that you know about these and how it could affect your business and also share my opinion of how I think it could affect hosts and why I think they've done it, because I, of course they don't share that. What you can do is I'll pop the link below this video and that link basically will take you onto Airbnb's website. You'll be able to watch the short six minute video with Brian, the CEO of Airbnb, basically staying in an Airbnb himself and talking about the, the updates. And you can't argue with the fact that Airbnb are very good at marketing and it even made me want to go and stay in in some of these places. So definitely worth a watch if you're on Airbnb, as cheesy as it was. So, yeah, let's get into it. Before we do get into it, I'll just break down the reasons why they've changed these features and also what I'd love to know in the comments. Can you, can you put Airbnb, if you do host on Airbnb? Because I'd just love to know, you know, the number of people that are on Airbnb and any thoughts based on this video, you know, so what your thoughts are around the changes. So the, there's three main updates. Those updates have come about because the world of travel is changing, basically. So since the dreaded pandemic, there's two major changes. The first thing is that everyone's been sort of shut inside for a couple of years and this is the first time where many places are feeling a bit more confident about traveling. So if you're like me, I've booked a family holiday abroad. It's the first time that we'll be traveling abroad for a little while. We've also, you know, we're going to stay places in the UK as well. But it's one of those things where we're feeling a little bit more confident to be able to go and travel without interruption. So there's a lot of people, more people are going to be traveling and looking to explore. The other thing is that the world has changed in the way that people work. Whereas before people would work in offices, now many people are able to work from home. And the benefit that brings is that they don't need to necessarily be at home. What they can do, they can set off on the road and they can go explore. Providing they've got a laptop and they've got good Internet and good WI FI connection, then they can work from just about anywhere. And this means they could be coming to your properties to come and stay. And that's just a really cool thing. So what they wanted to do is to change these the way that we search, basically. So this is the first out of the three features. The first thing they've changed is how we search. So for years, we've always had to decide where we want to go. So whether or not it's the country, the county or the city, then we'd always have to put in where you want to go. And then you select dates. And what Airbnb have basically introduced is categories instead. So if you're somebody who wants to go and stay in a castle, you can select castles and it'll bring up all the castles for the dates that you want. If you were somebody who wants to go and stay in tiny houses or in, you know, glamping sites, you can search by the type of experience you want. And that's the first thing that. They don't talk a bit about this on the video, but it's the first thing I really got out of it, that these days we all, when we travel, we picture how we want to feel and what kind of experience we want before we go and search for somewhere. We then tend to research places and then go and search for places to stay in that place. Whereas now what we'd be able to do is kind of select the category, the type of holiday, the type of experience we want, and then search by that instead, which is really cool, because there'll be a lot of places which you wouldn't necessarily consider. And as a guest myself, I think that's a really cool little, Little feature that one of the things which stood out out of the categories is they've got the design category. So if you're a, you know, host who's got a really cool place or has been in, you know, design books and that sort of thing, then you could be in the design category. So that's going to help more people see your. Your listings. The other category which stood out to me is the oh, my God category, which is for anywhere, which is Absolutely out of this world. So the one that they featured on the video was the yellow submarine in the middle of the woods. You know that. But it's that focus on experience is why I think they've made this change. And the other thing we've got to be aware of with Airbnb is they're looking for reasons for people to use Airbnb as we're getting more and more and tech is getting more and more straightforward. Well, you know, we can have searches by dates on our websites. We can have, you know, searches by location on any ota. Airbnb are doing something different. So when everyone else is zigging, they're zagging, which is fair enough. And I like disruption. I think it's pretty cool. So it's one of the things where having this search by feature or by category is really cool. And by the way, just if anyone's wondering, you can have categories added if you've got boostly sites, you can have categories added to your homes if you've got a sort of batch of homes which are beachfront or a batch of homes which are city based. You know, it's a really cool thing that we can do for the boostly websites. If you've got one. Had to stick that plug in there. So that's feature number one. Quite a cool way to search feature number two. And you can actually see these just on that categories. You can actually see these categories here. So amazing views, Arctic. I don't know who would want to go to the Arctic. Somewhere warm, definitely. Driver, surfing, skiing. So there's some really cool categories there. So the other thing they've done, which is a major change is introduce split stays. So people are traveling for longer. We host for my business, we host a lot of work stays and we also host people who are, you know, working in the area, digital nomads and people also having work done on their principal and primary residence. And this is one of the ones where when people are searching, a lot of the time they're putting in, say a month long stay. And that'll only at the moment or previously. It would only bring up the houses which are available for that full amount of time. Now what it'll do is it'll bring up two different properties. So the benefit to the guest who's looking to book is they might choose to stay in two different properties. And that option wouldn't have come up before, which is a really neat, neat option from a host point of view. My perspective of that is yes, some people would be going well Actually, I don't want people to split their stays and that side of things. Whereas I'm looking at it going, actually, sometimes I've got a gap, but I can't take the full month. Well, actually that means my property will, will appear and I might get at least half the stay, which is pretty cool. So the split stays is really cool little feature. And again, that's something which makes Airbnb different from say, booking.com or Expedia, which is really cool. So that is feature number two, feature number three, and this is the one I wanted to talk about, which is unmatched level of protection. So air cover, some of the stuff they've kind of was already doing in a way, but they've certainly made this a major thing for guests. So what they've said is they've now got a booking guarantee. So that booking guarantee means that in the unlikely event that host one of us has to cancel, then they will look to find the guests a similar home or refund them. Now, I've just done a little bit of digging on there and it basically says that if a host has to cancel, then, you know, Airbnb are becoming very savvy that hosts may try and get the guests to cancel. So they're not liable for things now on there. If the host has asked the guest to cancel, the guest can go on there and actually still type that the host has requested that they, you know, that is cancelled. So or the host needs to cancel. So it's something which is, it's become, I mean, they had that before, but something which has been brought to the forefront more so something to be aware of. They've added the check in guarantee again. So if a guest can't check in, then again Airbnb are going to make sure they're looked after and find them an alternative home. So it's really important for us to know as hosts if we're on Airbnb, to make that check in process as easy as possible to either be available or make sure the codes are right. If it's self check in, get what you booked guarantee. And this is an interesting one. If at any time during the guest stay they find the listing isn't as advertised, for example, the fridge stops working and the host can't easily fix it, or there's fewer bedrooms than listed, the guest will have three days to report it and we'll find them similar or a better home or they'll refund. Now this one for me as a host makes me a little bit uncomfortable because although we're very confident in our homes. We can't control everything. If stuff goes wrong, it goes wrong. My worry is with this is that stuff could go wrong. They don't report it until, you know, two days and 23 hours later or 71 hours later, and then they could still seek refund. So that is a bit of a concern for me. And I don't know if you've seen Mark's video about some of the changes with Airbnb, but it's worth searching that out. So, again, that's something which is looking to help the guest. They've also added a 24 hour safety line, so if for whatever reason they feel unsafe in anybody's property, they can call the line and get specially trained agents. Now, I don't know if you've ever tried to call Airbnb, but it's always quite hard. So for them to install this in, they're obviously quite serious about it. And that if we was to just take this, these new kind of air cover features that they've added on all of this stuff is really saying to the guest, you can trust us. If you book through us, then we're going to make sure your holiday or your stay goes without a hitch. And if there is a hitch, then you're looked after anyway. So is quite a cool little thing for a guest. As a host, I can't help but feel this puts me on the back foot a little bit because although we do look after guests, this is one of the things where, you know, you can't control everything. So, you know, I'm a little bit worried. This can be interesting to see how this plays out. The other thing that I really note from Airbnb is because they're trying to gain that trust of guests so much, then what we need to be doing as hosts is really, you know, making sure that people are aware that when they come to us through our direct booking sites, again, that they've got the trust that if anything goes wrong, you know, they've got our telephone number, that they will be able to check in on time, that ultimately they will get exactly what we advertise it as. So this may help in a way as hosts, because this might get rid of the hosts, which may be, you know, doing it as a side hustle or not really looking after guests. Well, this, this will certainly stop those kind of hosts from being able to, you know, just stick something on Airbnb which might not be as advertised. So for those of us who are looking after our guests, I don't think we've got to worry too much, but ultimately it's just making sure that, you know, we've got all of our systems in place where you've checked, your listings are as just as described, you've checked the codes and that, you know, guests can get in. And ultimately that is as far as we can that nothing will go wrong during their stay. Again, you know, that one's left to be decided, isn't it? Depending on the day in hospitality. But those are the free updates. So we've got the categories. In summary, this is. We've got the categories which people can select by category instead of selecting their location. We've got the split stays, so people can now book part stays at two properties. And we've got air cover, which pretty much is Airbnb saying, well, we're going to really look after the guest and that the guest can trust us to book. Um, and yeah, that's the update for this. So let me know your thoughts. Are you. Are you excited about these changes? Are you worried about these changes? Is there anything that you can see which I haven't thought of or that Airbnb haven't thought of within this? Hope this has been useful. Yeah, I will. I'll update you on anything else I see that is worthwhile. You know, jumping in the group. If you can just do us a favor if these are useful, ping us a like on the. On the Facebook group. And yeah, I know people are getting value from it. So thanks very much and see you on the next video.