The article touches up on it, but the "Additional fees and upfront pricing" is my biggest frustration with Airbnb that they refuse to fix (it's an easy solution, in my opinion).
Hosts want to show lower prices, so in search you don't see all the fees, but then when you get all the way down the funnel you finally see these completely ridiculous fees (usually around cleaning) of what you'll actual pay. I don't understand why Airbnb is still on the side of hosts with this. They need to change the UX, and it would expose so much of the BS hosts try to pull around rates. This would quickly kill the need for hosts to try to game the system like they do now.
Also in general, I refuse to use Airbnb these days when it's not only more than a hotel, but the audacity of some hosts have for checking out is hilariously dumb (cleaning, vacuuming, laundry, etc.). The reliability of hosts is all over the place, I see so many horror stories of last minute cancellations, hosts trying to pull one over on guests, and other sketchy practices they continue to allow.
Note: I could be wrong now though (maybe they do show up front pricing now/), but they already burned the bridge where I stopped even looking at them as an option.
Note (again): I just checked, and it does show a "total cost" in search, but it's still pretty deceptive. It should just be baked into the single nightly cost, and not a separate cost where you have to do the math to figure it all out. They should kill fees all together. Have it so it's just left at the hands of the host to make into a single cost that they want to charge per night, and simplify it.
AirBnB was fun at first when I could find someone renting out their personal beach house when they weren't using it, or an extra room in their house. I had many good experiences with family events or group get togethers at AirBnBs in the past.
In recent years, the majority of AirBnBs I've stayed at feel like someone's side business that they started for "passive income" after reading some guru's financial advice. The properties are barely maintained or have clearly broken features. Cleaning fees are sky high, but the houses don't feel clean when I arrive.
We showed up to one AirBnB and it didn't have any furniture. It was a completely empty house with some mattresses and blankets in the closets. All of the furniture in the photos was gone. AirBnB refunded us, but dealing with the issue consumed 1/4 of our trip and cost us extra money to find a replacement on short notice.
It's no longer the fun, personal experience of renting someone's property when they've got extra space. It's now a playground for pseudo-entrepreneurs who want to buy an investment property, hire a cleaning company, and then push the limits of what they can get away with without getting kicked off the AirBnB platform.
As a relatively early adopter of Airbnb, in 2012, I feel exactly the same way. Before my wife and I had kids, we'd rent a room in a host-occupied house, actually having breakfast and conversation with the host, and it was incredibly charming for a fraction of the price of a real B&B or hotel room. After having kids, about 2015, we started using the option to rent a whole house or apartment because it gave us more space than a hotel room (the key being a separate room for our kids to nap or go to bed before us) for maybe the same price. Then in the summer of 2019 we planned a cross-country road trip with a bunch of Airbnb reservations along the way, and it was a nightmare. About 2/3 of the way through the trip, after three or four bad (and very impersonal) experiences in a row (misleading descriptions, dirty but with lots of cleaning instructions, unable to gain access upon arrival, etc.), I contacted Airbnb and told them I was a loyal customer who just needed a break. After some argument, they gave me a credit that mostly refunded the cost of my two remaining reservations, but still we haven't used Airbnb since then. The idea of a whole-house rental for my family is still nice, but the costs have soared while quality has declined, so two-room or three-room suites at big chain hotels are looking pretty good again.
> "AirBnBs I've stayed at feel like someone's side business that they started for "passive income" after reading some guru's financial advice"
Pretty much this. Most Airbnbs nowadays feel like someone trying to operate a flophouse, but with 4-star hotel pricing. Value for money is just so incredibly poor, that plus the inconsistency and uncomfortably high probability of blowing up your hard-earned vacation time, it would take a lot for me to use it again.
I do like the format of renting whole houses, or at least places sized for families with space to hang out and gather. It's unfortunate that traditional hotels haven't generally stepped in to offer something like this.
I desperately want a "Vacation Homes by Hilton" offering, but it doesn't seem to exist, at least not broadly.
The closest thing seems to be the rise of apartment-hotels, which I'm a huge fan of. Nice kitchens, big living room for people to gather, etc.
[edit] I have some pretty strong suspicions that this business model will be structurally limited to low-end lodging and extreme high-end lodging. Realistically the kind of service hotels provide (and that customers expect), at hotel prices, is only possible through economies of scale. Housekeeping is vastly cheaper because you have a single crew that services hundreds of rooms rather than commuting across the city to serve a smattering of far-flung properties. Likewise maintenance and customer service is vastly cheaper because the costs are spread across many rooms.
Without exploiting economies of scale AirBnbs simply won't be able to compete in this middle tier (which is where most hotel stays are at). It's only possible to make the math work for either very-low-rent flophouse-type places where services and maintenance is poor, or very high-end vacation properties where the lack of economies of scale is sustainable.
TikTok HATES AirBNB. I don't think that the tech folks have realized how reviled AirBnB has become. The main issue I hear about - and have personally experienced - are hosts requiring a ~$200 "cleaning fee," then ALSO requiring chores to be done at checkout time. There's also STILL a lot of reports of cameras in showers, toilets, etc - and total silence from AirBNB. They need to deal with these issues immediately.
Then, if you protest, they nuke your AirBNB rating and you can't book anywhere else. Ok, great - I'll go back to Marriott. It's cheaper, has on-site security, a pool, and I don't have to take out the trash.
Given TikTok's algorithm, it's hard to make a statement about TikTok in general. Most likely, you engage with anti-AirBnB content, so that's what you see more of.
That would require them to change their model to a curated list of rentals as opposed to a smorgasbord of shit. They know the more quality controls they put in place will result in less available units so there really isn't a motivation to crack down on shit rentals.
Eventually when enough people stop using the platform someone in a boardroom will ask why rentals are down and someone in market research will say quality control of rentals at which some pea brained solution will be dreamt up.
Also want to point out superhosts might of been attempt to address this problem but I've routinely picked superhosts and many have disappointed.
A small section may violently hate them (i've stopped using Airbnb as well) but the fact they are making increasing revenues is a sign that it's not working. I would love to know why some people aren't price sensitive.
i don't protest, i just don't do the tasks they ask me to. i don't know my rating but I've never had problems booking Airbnb's. if they want me to clean they can't charge a cleaning fee.
The last AirBNB I stayed at, I received a bad review. Their negative review stated, passively aggressively, that I had only completed "some of the checkout list items". The list of chores was 3 pages long and was provided after booking. They also charged me a $250 cleaning fee. Never again.
What's missing in this article is that Airbnb is actually profitable now. Operating income, last 3 years[0]:
2019 - $(0.5b) (loss)
2020 - $(3.5bn) (loss)
2021 - $0.4bn (profit)
2022 - $1.8bn (profit)
Like with Uber and WeWork, these startups only look good next to market leaders when they have billions in VC capital to undercut their competitors with. Once they IPO, they're on their own, and their business practices start looking suspiciously similar to the bloated, bureaucratic incumbents they once threatened to replace.
They grow like crazy at a loss and then take advantage of their market dominance to strong-arm the prices back up. To be honest I'm more shocked that hotels are still having trouble beating AirBNB prices. When we went to Hawaii we wanted to go to a hotel but the prices for the same view were so much cheaper with AirBNB.
Typical accounting formatting represents losses in parens eg `$(5b)` and profits without, eg `$5b`. So you profit/loss annotations are redundant and your 2022 is confusing.
Airbnb's growth is pretty interesting when put into context of discussions I see about it in my own life and online. The company has gone from adored to reviled, and I myself have fallen back on classic hotels.
However, it seems that their bookings are up 20% year over year, so there must be a disconnect somewhere.
Airbnb was cool in the early days, when hosts were usually individual people just looking to make an extra buck on their vacation cabin in the mountains or something like that. Now it seems like Airbnb is dominated by companies who own/operate a bunch of host places. It's lost the personal touch. The last place I stayed at in Miami had an issue with the air conditioning - it wouldn't turn off, the place was freezing! I called the host, "Mark", the handsome guy in the Airbnb ad, who wrote all about his life in Miami. Well, I ended up talking to customer service rep in India. The dude just kept reading a script back to me, which was, of course, no help at all. I've heard other people with similar experiences - you get zero customer service once you're checked-in.
Exactly the same as Etsy. Last time my wife complained that even though the page states that the $100 item is located in the US, it dispatched from China. Sure enough, when I reverse image searched the product image, Aliexpress came up, with $20 as the listing price. Exact same images, even the wording was very similar. (And of course, with further digging, the original website came up, with their original product that the other sellers copied - with much better materials, a price tag of $350).
Etsy was real cool when it was a bazaar of small handmade items, and such. Now it's chock full of same garbage you can get on any large ecommerce site.
AirBnB has a super core problem: hosts are in short supply. This leads the entire service to see guests as a secondary concern. This leads to a pretty obvious problem: opaque pricing, poor customer service (never trust me, check trustpilot), and probably a serious problem for AirBnB: a resurgence of the vertically integrated hotel chain.
Airbnb doesn’t have a hosts supply issue. Actually in the past 3 years, hosts growth outpace guests growth
The issue is Airbnb attracted recently a lot of get-rich-quick types, similar to what see for Amazon sellers or crypto bros. We are far from the savvy host who want to share travel experiences and give you a unique experience
Tell me the price, make the host and tennant have a singular universal set of expectations. It's not hard. Holiday Inn Express has been getting my business lately. Everything is labeled, no wild sudden items after checkin like "don't forget to put the back door mat on the balcony railing so the racoons don't run off with it".
Everything that made AirBNB cool at first eventually made it bad inevitably. Glad to have made friends with hosts along the way before it went sour.
I have two friends that had AirBnB rentals, they've both given up. The initial novelty and fun quickly wore off and became a grind. The local LLC with 10+ properties will stay the norm now I think.
Hosts often also get the short end of the stick, and get the similarly non-existent recourse opportunities. The issue is not with either - it's the way AirBnB does its business. Hotels began to seem attractive again also because vacationers don't want to risk their precious time and money. Hotels at least have experience, and the regulators up their ass.
Yeah, this is basically the true problem. Airbnb doesn't care about guests at all (they recently refused to refund a stay I had booked even though the place I was visiting was experiencing a literal natural disaster, and then deleted my negative review about extremely unpleasant interactions with the host). I agree that most people want a much more consistent and much less opaque user experience - the trick is how someone will be able to marry that with the sheer variety of places you can stay in on Airbnb.
I have a whole home AirBnB. My energy prices have tripled in the past three years. My labor costs have gone up 50% in the past three years. Guest has a problem connecting to WiFi? HandyMan charges $95 just to show up and $120/hour with a minimum of one hour. $200 just to reset the router. That eats into a $300/night stay quickly. It's always something and guests expect the same level of service as a hotel and that's not cheap to provide. That's why that even with a $2000 a month mortgage, I need at least $6000 a month to break even.
I leave 5 star reviews for all guests and my only checklist item is for it not to look like the hotel room from the hangover. I pay cleaners good money to clean your mess.
AirBnB has been vary guest friendly IMO. I have over 200 five star reviews. A guest tried to push for a discounted stay. I pushed back and they told AirBnB my place was unsafe and I was removed from search for a week.
EDIT: TLDR. I started this 4 years ago as a side hustle but I'm ready to be out of the game. It doesn't scale to provide a nice place that I also use as a vacation home. Also, I'm constantly replacing and repairing things. The only way to win is to be a slumlord AirBnB host
$300/night is more than most hotels charge with a lot of amenities and service. If you don't want to pay the handyman charges to reset the router, you can go and do it yourself for free. You're paying for convenience of not having to do it yourself and that cuts into profit.
There's no reason to think you must be profitable renting out a house by the night, or that you'll be efficient running a one client hotel that relies on a site like airbnb that has been in serious decline for some time.
In 2008 when the housing market crashed I got stuck way, way underwater on a mortgage. To avoid foreclosure I rented out the house (with a professional property manager), and I was shocked at the senseless destruction and idiocy of people. 3 times in a week the tenant complained that the furnace wasn't working. Each time a guy came out and said "the temperature on the thermostat is the temperature in the house. everything is working perfectly." and then billed me $120. Yet, each time the tenant complained (because he didn't believe the guy I guess??) the property manager had to send someone out. In retaliation for me not "fixing" the furnace (that was working perfectly) the tenant beat the living hell out of the walls and wood flooring, broke glass, and even put the knobs from the stove into the garbage disposal. Never again. I'll just bull doze the next house before renting it.
I lived in Aribnb's for roughly a year and a half. They actually did a profile on our family on the Today Show on NBC about it.
I think the thing I hated about it the most was the system of hosts rating the guests. It was always stressful especially when our ability to simply secure our next place to live was dependent on, to some degree, a hosts subjective evaluation of how they felt the stay went. For instance I have a toddler, at one location my toddler played with some toys that were in the house. We put them back where they were but they were incorrectly arranged (not damaged just put back not the way they wanted) and the host left us a negative review. We disputed it and airbnb sided us, but the whole feeling of constant judgement makes it difficult to relax in a space. I wish they had some better / more objective system as you never know when you'll encounter an unreasonable person. To me this is the single biggest negative. A sort of cloud of social credit hanging over your head.
At this point I would never use Airbnb except for long term (30 days+) type of travel. Between the extremely intense chores you're basically given plus huge cleaning fees hotels are superior in nearly every way for short term trips. The significant % reduction for staying a month too makes it a lot more palatable. I think Airbnb sees this too which is why they're leaning so heavily into the digital nomad / long term travel user segment. It's a place they can genuinely win vs a hotel. For short term stays not dealing with unreasonable hosts, not getting surprise fees, and there not being a bunch of chores makes things significantly more enjoyable. As noted on social platforms by others getting hit with a massive cleaning fee and also then being expected to do chores also feels like a slap in the face.
Airbnb would be great if it weren't for the damn cleaning fees and other assorted crap tacked on from the price that is shown when you search for a place. "Hey this is in my budget! Great! Lets go ahead and book it...hey why did the price triple now???"
I used to heavily use AirBnB. I no longer do. I don't even bother checking it. The quality of experience / stay has gone down, and the price has gone up considerably. I now expect that an AirBnB will provide a worse experience for the same or higher cost than a hotel in any location I might travel to. The only benefit an AirBnB brings is that it may provide more square footage, but this is not worth the tradeoff when traveling solo or with my wife, it only comes into account when traveling with large groups where shared accommodations would be acceptable. I have a large double-digit number of stays with AirBnB over the years, and I don't even go to their website or app anymore.
A good example is over the summer, we had an AirBnB for my wife and my step-daughter and I in Rome for a few nights. We had so many issues that when we came back through Rome on our way back home I booked a 5-star luxury hotel. The hotel ended up being cheaper than the AirBnB when you count the tacked on fees, and had none of the issues we experienced, although there was less total square footage. It was in a better location as well, and the AirBnB was far from a luxury 5-star experience. I typically stay in 2-star or 3-star lodgings when I travel, and AirBnBs are now typically worse than a 2-star offer, but charging higher than 5-star prices. It's ridiculous.
Ya know, I remember a time when Airbnb was still pretty new (this would be 2010 or 2011 or so). Didn't have all the fees and other bullshit UX problems they have now. And it actually was pretty cheap. Often, you could get an interesting, cool, or off-beat room or whole unit/place/house for cheap and often the same or less than competing hotels. This made it compelling.
But then, one time, trying to get check into a place and the combination padlock or whatever wasn't working to get the key inside and I couldn't get ahold of the host took another 2 hours, I was like, I don't have time for this crap. That sort of problem would NEVER happen at a hotel.
And now, 12+ years later, while some things have improved (like keyless entry and whatnot that lots of hosts have finally), the situation is worse in many other areas, including cost.
Generally speaking, hotels work better for me. No bull shit fees (except some of those resorts that throw in the ridiculous daily 'resort fee' on top of the room rate, which is not reflected when you are searching and booking the room, except in fine print). No bullshit like cleaning up the room/place before you leave (isn't that why you are paying a cleaning fee?).
I think it suffered from a cobra problem to an extent. Airbnb was saying "rent out your spare square footage on the side for some beer money" and that model worked fine for a time. People would rent out a room for $50 a night and that would be great for them, because it was $50 they didn't have before that they wouldn't have made otherwise, and it was great for guests because it meant they could pay $50 and not be in a smoky motel.
Now we have people breeding cobras instead of being paid for cobras they already have so to speak. You have people building entire apartments with plans to put the entire thing on airbnb. Suddenly $50 a night doesn't cut it when you have a huge loan to pay off on that build, then if enough people in the market are operating like this prices just go up and up just like the wider landlord rental market (relative to the polite couple renting a backroom for way under market rate market, perhaps). You have people buying property and renovating it just to justify higher rental income, which only serves to feed the beast without creating any new supply in the market of course.
My team develops a platform (data.rabbu.com) thats based in large part on Airbnb data and I swear its kind of ridiculous how much hate Airbnb gets on social media. Like for one thing - compared to the other options Airbnb is doing WAY more for both hosts and guests. Try to get someone on the line at VRBO or Booking.com that cares one iota about any issues you have. Everything else is anecdotal. I think having a bad experience when you're on vacation is like 10x worse than anything else. So any bad experience with an Airbnb gets amplified and whenever people get a chance they'll go blue in the face telling you about the time some shady host tried to put them on ice and harvest their organs. Cleaning fees going up? Guess what - cleaning sucks, and the hospitality industry got completely gutted by Covid. So maybe they're not trying to rip you off, maybe they can't find anyone to clean for the price everyone stills expects based on pre-Covid travel.
I've been using AirBnB for about ten years, about 30 or 40 stays in total.
There are a number of issues.
1. When I come to use AirBnB again, and so to log in, I never know if I will be able to log in. AirBnB repeatedly break log in, and in ways which can be problematic - "your account has been frozen, click here to notify support, we'll email you in a few days". That's not what you want to discover when you are looking to book now.
2. Relating to that, AirBnB support is Satan's method on Earth to cause and spread screaming psychic and emotional torture amongst the human population. It is the worst. Screaming, dribbling, rabid insanity. It is unspeakable. There is no support, because you do not use it, ever.
3. AirBnB seems completely unaware, or uncaring, about the actual outcomes of the various mechanisms they have in place in their product. The "clean fee" problem is a recent example, but I've heard many more. This is classic large-company syndrome; completely oblivious to the actual experience of the end user.
4. I increasingly hear now of negative reviews being removed by AirBnB. This is putting their entire proposition at risk; if I cannot trust reviews, every booking is blind, and that's not good.
5. A long term problem is that most hosts do not know how to price their property. You can see a lot on the map, but look more closely and a lot of it is crazy money.
6. Finally of course, AirBnB keep raising their fees to landlords and tenants. They now charge monopoly rates, and they need to, because the company is I would say vast and bloated.
The big advantage AirBnB has over every other company in this space is they bake long-term stay discounts into their UI/pricing model, and so they are normally offered. I do not see that on VBRO, etc.
I constantly see bad feedback on Airbnb and Twitter, and when I ask where these things happened, it's usually USA. I lived in Airbnbs almost exclusively the whole 2022, and travelled through various european countries, moved 32 times total. I've never had any of these problems, any cleaning fees or other stuff like that. I've rented full apartments for $70 per night, where I could cook, do laundry and in general feel much more comfortable than in a hotel for a stay longer than a week.
Small sample size but the only time a host complained about how clean I left a place was in Tignes, France. Their complaint? There were crumbs on the floor, _under_ the overhang of the dishwasher.
I've probably booked 15 airbnbs in the US, and they've all been great. No complaints of unruly hosts, or crazy checkout chores. I think if you stick with superhosts or any property with lots of reviews, you'll usually have a good time. My biggest problem with airbnb at this point is the hidden fees until checkout.
My wife and I are what I call “hybrid digital nomads”. We stay in a unit in a “Condotel” [1] we bought last summer six months out of the year - October through mid March - and we fly around the US staying in mid range extended stay hotels the rest of the year.
We experimented with AirBnb one time last year while we were in Florida looking at places before we bought. While the experience wasn’t bad, we really prefer hotels.
At a hotel, we always have access to a gym, the vast majority of the time we have access to a pool and we have consistency.
I know exactly how much we will be paying, we check in before we get there on the app, our digital key is usually ready and we go straight to the room and unlock the door with our phone. When we get ready to leave. We leave. We don’t have to wash anything. Clean up anything. Nothing. We just leave.
We don’t have to worry about auditioning to find a place to stay our ratings as guests and we know the exact address of the hotel.
We usually fly out on Sunday. When I land, I want to know what I’m going to get. I prepare my work setup when I land. My wife does an Instacart order.
I don’t have to worry about shady owners, renting places that aren’t zoned for short term stays etc.
If I have an issue, and the hotel can’t or won’t fix it, I can look for another hotel, cancel the reservation with no questions asked and move on.
Not to mention that I’m also getting loyalty points along the way - worth around 25-30% - of each dollar spent for future stays.
We are using the points we earned to stay free for a week this year in a San Juan, PR, Los Angeles, Niagara Falls Canada and Toronto. We stayed in downtown Savannah for a week free New years week.
Hotels are light years easier, and I don't worry about anything. Last AirBnB I had to read a list of rules a mile long. $200 cleaning fee and I still have to take the trash out. Also every host has a different set of rules. No thanks. Quality between bnbs is also wildly different, I simply don't care that much.
For comparison, US median house prices are up by 42% over the same period [1]. Hospitality prices (especially for traditional hotels, which raised rates by about 10%), are actually significantly trailing inflation.
I stopped using Airbnb after being scammed by it two times in a row. Both times the property rented was unliveable and completely different than the description. They said they couldn't do anything about it. I asked if I can at least review it so others don't fall into the trap. They said sure.
A few days after my review went online they removed it because "checkout didn't take place". It did take place and I am out several hundred Euros. I guess they wanted me to spend the night with the scammer in unliveable place.
The whole experience was refusal of cooperation by Airbnb and protecting the scammer. I think it's very likely they are on the scam themselves. Afterall the only person who is out of money is me and I am not even allowed to warn others (being left late in the day to find emergency accomodation in the high booking season is another small problem I had to deal with).
The whole process is designed to make it as difficult as possible to win a case vs dishonest host or even leave a review (ridiculous design like max 1000 words of review, no ability to go back if you make a typo and click next, several minutes of chatting with bots before you can get disinterested human the line etc.)
If you don't want to get scammed with no recourse don't use Airbnb. The reviews you see are heavily filtered to make hosts look better. Hotels are better and cheaper. Private apartments are way better via Booking as they take customer's side regularly (which is why many Airbnb hosts find Booking hard to work with).
[+] [-] bluetidepro|3 years ago|reply
Hosts want to show lower prices, so in search you don't see all the fees, but then when you get all the way down the funnel you finally see these completely ridiculous fees (usually around cleaning) of what you'll actual pay. I don't understand why Airbnb is still on the side of hosts with this. They need to change the UX, and it would expose so much of the BS hosts try to pull around rates. This would quickly kill the need for hosts to try to game the system like they do now.
Also in general, I refuse to use Airbnb these days when it's not only more than a hotel, but the audacity of some hosts have for checking out is hilariously dumb (cleaning, vacuuming, laundry, etc.). The reliability of hosts is all over the place, I see so many horror stories of last minute cancellations, hosts trying to pull one over on guests, and other sketchy practices they continue to allow.
Note: I could be wrong now though (maybe they do show up front pricing now/), but they already burned the bridge where I stopped even looking at them as an option.
Note (again): I just checked, and it does show a "total cost" in search, but it's still pretty deceptive. It should just be baked into the single nightly cost, and not a separate cost where you have to do the math to figure it all out. They should kill fees all together. Have it so it's just left at the hands of the host to make into a single cost that they want to charge per night, and simplify it.
[+] [-] PragmaticPulp|3 years ago|reply
In recent years, the majority of AirBnBs I've stayed at feel like someone's side business that they started for "passive income" after reading some guru's financial advice. The properties are barely maintained or have clearly broken features. Cleaning fees are sky high, but the houses don't feel clean when I arrive.
We showed up to one AirBnB and it didn't have any furniture. It was a completely empty house with some mattresses and blankets in the closets. All of the furniture in the photos was gone. AirBnB refunded us, but dealing with the issue consumed 1/4 of our trip and cost us extra money to find a replacement on short notice.
It's no longer the fun, personal experience of renting someone's property when they've got extra space. It's now a playground for pseudo-entrepreneurs who want to buy an investment property, hire a cleaning company, and then push the limits of what they can get away with without getting kicked off the AirBnB platform.
[+] [-] warner25|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] potatolicious|3 years ago|reply
Pretty much this. Most Airbnbs nowadays feel like someone trying to operate a flophouse, but with 4-star hotel pricing. Value for money is just so incredibly poor, that plus the inconsistency and uncomfortably high probability of blowing up your hard-earned vacation time, it would take a lot for me to use it again.
I do like the format of renting whole houses, or at least places sized for families with space to hang out and gather. It's unfortunate that traditional hotels haven't generally stepped in to offer something like this.
I desperately want a "Vacation Homes by Hilton" offering, but it doesn't seem to exist, at least not broadly.
The closest thing seems to be the rise of apartment-hotels, which I'm a huge fan of. Nice kitchens, big living room for people to gather, etc.
[edit] I have some pretty strong suspicions that this business model will be structurally limited to low-end lodging and extreme high-end lodging. Realistically the kind of service hotels provide (and that customers expect), at hotel prices, is only possible through economies of scale. Housekeeping is vastly cheaper because you have a single crew that services hundreds of rooms rather than commuting across the city to serve a smattering of far-flung properties. Likewise maintenance and customer service is vastly cheaper because the costs are spread across many rooms.
Without exploiting economies of scale AirBnbs simply won't be able to compete in this middle tier (which is where most hotel stays are at). It's only possible to make the math work for either very-low-rent flophouse-type places where services and maintenance is poor, or very high-end vacation properties where the lack of economies of scale is sustainable.
[+] [-] throwayyy479087|3 years ago|reply
Then, if you protest, they nuke your AirBNB rating and you can't book anywhere else. Ok, great - I'll go back to Marriott. It's cheaper, has on-site security, a pool, and I don't have to take out the trash.
[+] [-] rcme|3 years ago|reply
Given TikTok's algorithm, it's hard to make a statement about TikTok in general. Most likely, you engage with anti-AirBnB content, so that's what you see more of.
[+] [-] mdgrech23|3 years ago|reply
Eventually when enough people stop using the platform someone in a boardroom will ask why rentals are down and someone in market research will say quality control of rentals at which some pea brained solution will be dreamt up.
Also want to point out superhosts might of been attempt to address this problem but I've routinely picked superhosts and many have disappointed.
[+] [-] purpleblue|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acchow|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] somsak2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bbertelsen|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rchaud|3 years ago|reply
2019 - $(0.5b) (loss)
2020 - $(3.5bn) (loss)
2021 - $0.4bn (profit)
2022 - $1.8bn (profit)
Like with Uber and WeWork, these startups only look good next to market leaders when they have billions in VC capital to undercut their competitors with. Once they IPO, they're on their own, and their business practices start looking suspiciously similar to the bloated, bureaucratic incumbents they once threatened to replace.
[0] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ABNB/financials/
[+] [-] Salgat|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hammeiam|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Workaccount2|3 years ago|reply
However, it seems that their bookings are up 20% year over year, so there must be a disconnect somewhere.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jimt1234|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] npteljes|3 years ago|reply
Etsy was real cool when it was a bazaar of small handmade items, and such. Now it's chock full of same garbage you can get on any large ecommerce site.
[+] [-] aliljet|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtw|3 years ago|reply
The issue is Airbnb attracted recently a lot of get-rich-quick types, similar to what see for Amazon sellers or crypto bros. We are far from the savvy host who want to share travel experiences and give you a unique experience
[+] [-] aliqot|3 years ago|reply
Everything that made AirBNB cool at first eventually made it bad inevitably. Glad to have made friends with hosts along the way before it went sour.
[+] [-] rr888|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] npteljes|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whakim|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dicomdan|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rticesterp|3 years ago|reply
I leave 5 star reviews for all guests and my only checklist item is for it not to look like the hotel room from the hangover. I pay cleaners good money to clean your mess.
AirBnB has been vary guest friendly IMO. I have over 200 five star reviews. A guest tried to push for a discounted stay. I pushed back and they told AirBnB my place was unsafe and I was removed from search for a week.
EDIT: TLDR. I started this 4 years ago as a side hustle but I'm ready to be out of the game. It doesn't scale to provide a nice place that I also use as a vacation home. Also, I'm constantly replacing and repairing things. The only way to win is to be a slumlord AirBnB host
[+] [-] adoxyz|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LegitShady|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freedomben|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Der_Einzige|3 years ago|reply
You do not need to pay those rates. You need a different handyman. Even in the bay area.
[+] [-] rideontime|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jsonne|3 years ago|reply
I think the thing I hated about it the most was the system of hosts rating the guests. It was always stressful especially when our ability to simply secure our next place to live was dependent on, to some degree, a hosts subjective evaluation of how they felt the stay went. For instance I have a toddler, at one location my toddler played with some toys that were in the house. We put them back where they were but they were incorrectly arranged (not damaged just put back not the way they wanted) and the host left us a negative review. We disputed it and airbnb sided us, but the whole feeling of constant judgement makes it difficult to relax in a space. I wish they had some better / more objective system as you never know when you'll encounter an unreasonable person. To me this is the single biggest negative. A sort of cloud of social credit hanging over your head.
At this point I would never use Airbnb except for long term (30 days+) type of travel. Between the extremely intense chores you're basically given plus huge cleaning fees hotels are superior in nearly every way for short term trips. The significant % reduction for staying a month too makes it a lot more palatable. I think Airbnb sees this too which is why they're leaning so heavily into the digital nomad / long term travel user segment. It's a place they can genuinely win vs a hotel. For short term stays not dealing with unreasonable hosts, not getting surprise fees, and there not being a bunch of chores makes things significantly more enjoyable. As noted on social platforms by others getting hit with a massive cleaning fee and also then being expected to do chores also feels like a slap in the face.
[+] [-] CyberKimura|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darkwizard42|3 years ago|reply
I'm not sure how this keeps getting brought up. There is a large thread started by @pitdesi on Twitter that sort of got it directly addressed.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Temporary_31337|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tristor|3 years ago|reply
A good example is over the summer, we had an AirBnB for my wife and my step-daughter and I in Rome for a few nights. We had so many issues that when we came back through Rome on our way back home I booked a 5-star luxury hotel. The hotel ended up being cheaper than the AirBnB when you count the tacked on fees, and had none of the issues we experienced, although there was less total square footage. It was in a better location as well, and the AirBnB was far from a luxury 5-star experience. I typically stay in 2-star or 3-star lodgings when I travel, and AirBnBs are now typically worse than a 2-star offer, but charging higher than 5-star prices. It's ridiculous.
[+] [-] speby|3 years ago|reply
But then, one time, trying to get check into a place and the combination padlock or whatever wasn't working to get the key inside and I couldn't get ahold of the host took another 2 hours, I was like, I don't have time for this crap. That sort of problem would NEVER happen at a hotel.
And now, 12+ years later, while some things have improved (like keyless entry and whatnot that lots of hosts have finally), the situation is worse in many other areas, including cost.
Generally speaking, hotels work better for me. No bull shit fees (except some of those resorts that throw in the ridiculous daily 'resort fee' on top of the room rate, which is not reflected when you are searching and booking the room, except in fine print). No bullshit like cleaning up the room/place before you leave (isn't that why you are paying a cleaning fee?).
[+] [-] asdff|3 years ago|reply
Now we have people breeding cobras instead of being paid for cobras they already have so to speak. You have people building entire apartments with plans to put the entire thing on airbnb. Suddenly $50 a night doesn't cut it when you have a huge loan to pay off on that build, then if enough people in the market are operating like this prices just go up and up just like the wider landlord rental market (relative to the polite couple renting a backroom for way under market rate market, perhaps). You have people buying property and renovating it just to justify higher rental income, which only serves to feed the beast without creating any new supply in the market of course.
[+] [-] jmuguy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j-krieger|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] casenmgreen|3 years ago|reply
There are a number of issues.
1. When I come to use AirBnB again, and so to log in, I never know if I will be able to log in. AirBnB repeatedly break log in, and in ways which can be problematic - "your account has been frozen, click here to notify support, we'll email you in a few days". That's not what you want to discover when you are looking to book now.
2. Relating to that, AirBnB support is Satan's method on Earth to cause and spread screaming psychic and emotional torture amongst the human population. It is the worst. Screaming, dribbling, rabid insanity. It is unspeakable. There is no support, because you do not use it, ever.
3. AirBnB seems completely unaware, or uncaring, about the actual outcomes of the various mechanisms they have in place in their product. The "clean fee" problem is a recent example, but I've heard many more. This is classic large-company syndrome; completely oblivious to the actual experience of the end user.
4. I increasingly hear now of negative reviews being removed by AirBnB. This is putting their entire proposition at risk; if I cannot trust reviews, every booking is blind, and that's not good.
5. A long term problem is that most hosts do not know how to price their property. You can see a lot on the map, but look more closely and a lot of it is crazy money.
6. Finally of course, AirBnB keep raising their fees to landlords and tenants. They now charge monopoly rates, and they need to, because the company is I would say vast and bloated.
The big advantage AirBnB has over every other company in this space is they bake long-term stay discounts into their UI/pricing model, and so they are normally offered. I do not see that on VBRO, etc.
[+] [-] golergka|3 years ago|reply
May be Airbnb is only bad in states?
[+] [-] biesnecker|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CapmCrackaWaka|3 years ago|reply
I've probably booked 15 airbnbs in the US, and they've all been great. No complaints of unruly hosts, or crazy checkout chores. I think if you stick with superhosts or any property with lots of reviews, you'll usually have a good time. My biggest problem with airbnb at this point is the hidden fees until checkout.
[+] [-] scarface74|3 years ago|reply
We experimented with AirBnb one time last year while we were in Florida looking at places before we bought. While the experience wasn’t bad, we really prefer hotels.
At a hotel, we always have access to a gym, the vast majority of the time we have access to a pool and we have consistency.
I know exactly how much we will be paying, we check in before we get there on the app, our digital key is usually ready and we go straight to the room and unlock the door with our phone. When we get ready to leave. We leave. We don’t have to wash anything. Clean up anything. Nothing. We just leave.
We don’t have to worry about auditioning to find a place to stay our ratings as guests and we know the exact address of the hotel.
We usually fly out on Sunday. When I land, I want to know what I’m going to get. I prepare my work setup when I land. My wife does an Instacart order.
I don’t have to worry about shady owners, renting places that aren’t zoned for short term stays etc.
If I have an issue, and the hotel can’t or won’t fix it, I can look for another hotel, cancel the reservation with no questions asked and move on.
Not to mention that I’m also getting loyalty points along the way - worth around 25-30% - of each dollar spent for future stays.
We are using the points we earned to stay free for a week this year in a San Juan, PR, Los Angeles, Niagara Falls Canada and Toronto. We stayed in downtown Savannah for a week free New years week.
[1] https://www.thebalancemoney.com/what-is-a-condotel-5212277
[+] [-] anarticle|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kilroy123|3 years ago|reply
What I've noticed over the years is the service has very much gone downhill. Prices have super skyrocketed across the globe.
I try to use hotels as much as possible and only go for Airbnb on long stays of 1-6 months.
If it's less than a month, I now opt for a hotel.
[+] [-] caseyross|3 years ago|reply
[1]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS
[+] [-] bluecalm|3 years ago|reply
A few days after my review went online they removed it because "checkout didn't take place". It did take place and I am out several hundred Euros. I guess they wanted me to spend the night with the scammer in unliveable place.
The whole experience was refusal of cooperation by Airbnb and protecting the scammer. I think it's very likely they are on the scam themselves. Afterall the only person who is out of money is me and I am not even allowed to warn others (being left late in the day to find emergency accomodation in the high booking season is another small problem I had to deal with).
The whole process is designed to make it as difficult as possible to win a case vs dishonest host or even leave a review (ridiculous design like max 1000 words of review, no ability to go back if you make a typo and click next, several minutes of chatting with bots before you can get disinterested human the line etc.)
If you don't want to get scammed with no recourse don't use Airbnb. The reviews you see are heavily filtered to make hosts look better. Hotels are better and cheaper. Private apartments are way better via Booking as they take customer's side regularly (which is why many Airbnb hosts find Booking hard to work with).