A short YouTube clip by Tim Hubbard explaining disadvantages of Airbnb's Instant Book feature. He warns Instant Book can increase cancellations (guests book without thinking) and reduces hosts' control over who books, since hosts lose pre-booking communication.
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What are the cons to instant book? Well, number one, I'd say probably going to have a little more cancellations if it's easier to book. People don't think through it as far as they would if there was a reservation process where they actually had to communicate with someone. Sometimes they book the wrong dates, sometimes they broke, you know, the wrong place, whatever it happens to be. So you're probably going to see a little more cancellations, but depending on how your cancellation policy set up home, hopefully you're not losing any money from that. So I think a very obvious con is that we have a little bit less control with who's booking our property, Right. If they can instantly book it and we don't have the chance to communicate with them to find out why they're coming to town or all those things before they make the booking, then we lose a little bit of control.