u/ilovemesomedata

PSA

Just received an email and also see this along with other new feature announcements in the app

Introducing Airbnb Services

Guests can now book the best chef, trainer, massage, and more at your Airbnb

Apparently this has been out for a few months or longer but now just getting released in my area (we're in a tourist beachtown in LATAM)

Hilarious that this is under a Grow Your Business section, more like growing Airbnbs business! Hosts get zero cut of any services that use YOUR property to deliver them, hosts are not notified about any service that guests book, potentially causing damage (that you have to find/claim/deal with, was it the service provider, was it the guest etc), further wear and tear on your property at the least, not to mention possible impact to your review if the service(s) don't go well

The cherry on top is that they're automatically available at your property and you can't even toggle on/off in your rules, you have to have customer service do it. I just spent an unnecessary 15min of my evening doing exactly that, and encourage everyone to do it as well.

Next I'm sure I'll see a notice that my listing is lower in the algorithm because I've opted out.

Fuck whoever rolled this new initiative out.

Hi!

So we're trying to shift from in-person check-in to self check-in. I've already started to make some quick 30sec how-to videos, not just for the getting inside the property, but also how to double-lock lock our sliding glass doors, where to locate our store of supplies, how to use the remotes on split AC units etc

For reference we have a 4bdr property on a large lot in Latin America - there's a lot of quirks and features (shout-out to Doug!), when doing in-person check-ins we cover everything but I fear self check-in could really use the instructional video help 👏

Everyone is addicted to short form videos, why not do it ourselves AND free ourselves (or our PMs) from the waiting game and sometimes awkward check-in day

For those that also do this - how do you share your videos? YouTube channel? Google Photos/iCloud video link? Your own website?

Appreciate any best practices/lived experience anyone can share around this!

TIA

Hello!

Random question for the host community -

Some quick background, we have an Airbnb property in a tourist beach town in Latin America. Mostly CA/US guests, after they book we help as quasi-concierges to arrange things like airport transportation to/from our villa, activities (ex. surfing, horseback riding, jetski etc), excursions (ex. waterfalls, volcanoes, hanging bridges, etc) m, and onsite services (ex. private chef). We have partnered with the best and most reliable providers and receive a commission for everything we help arrange, all good so far

I'm in the midst of creating a website, and one thing I was considering was a guest area, where they can login, enter their booking dates, and then drag & drop any/all desired activities, excursions, and onsite services into a calendar to help them visualize and plan out their vacation. This could sync with their own calendars for reminders, a potential add-on or enhancement could be a budgeting aspect where they put in a dollar amount and as they drag-and-drop items into the calendar it subtracts from their budget.

FYI I don't handle payment processing yet, all bookings get routed to their respective providers to finalize/bill. Eventually I want to add direct booking of our property on the site, for now this will also route to our Airbnb page.

Is there anything hosts here are using which looks and feels like this? Or am I in custom territory and need to hire a nerd much nerdier than I to create from scratch?

TIA!

FYI new issue - raised with Support but PSA to other hosts

Google Maps links are no longer opening in the guest chat - other links are good but some recent update (todays?) broke this

Latest Android OS (Google Pixel)

Latest Airbnb app update (May 6)

The links are good, when opening in an outside browser they work fine, just not within the Airbnb 'browser' when you open links in the guest chat

No issue when opening in a desktop browser, this is a mobile issue, possibly just an Android issue

This is a BIG problem as we provide our Google maps directions in the guest chat the day prior to check-in!

So a question about monthly discounts -

I currently have a 50% discount for monthly bookings (28 days or more), and this works well for months where we have our average, base nightly rates and works very well for high season months!

Unfortunately for low-season months where our nightly rates are much lower, this doesn't work out well but I'd still like to get a monthly booking, just at a lesser discount, considering the much lesser nightly rate

What's the best way to achieve this?

TIA