I feel like this is missing a really important factor: how likely are guests to use airbnb again after staying at a listing?
A listing could look great online and receive a lot of bookings (so high LTV), but ultimately drive users away from the platform.
A certain ad platform I worked on cared a lot about this - offensive ads could get you to quit the site altogether. You might want to count every ad as positive for the company since you make money, but some might actually be negative expected value! As a side note, I think this is a really undermeasured problem. There are many sites I won't use because the ads are so overwhelming or are often offensive.
> A listing could look great online and receive a lot of bookings (so high LTV), but ultimately drive users away from the platform.
I am precisely this kind of churned customer. I have personally booked maybe 3 AirBNB stays, and stayed with family in them on other occasions. The units I pick are always well-reviewed.
But in the cities I've stayed in (LA, SF, Rome), the price is really no cheaper than a hotel, and the quality is extremely variable. You have to really carefully read those 5-star guest reviews to read between the lines.
And you feel pressured not to leave a negative review, as that would negatively impact your ability to book in the future, since the hosts (I have heard) can see your average review score.
My impression has been that AirBNB's customers are actually the hosts. You, the guest, are an expendable commodity. You will use AirBNB until you have a severe enough problem, and experience them siding with the host over you. Then you'll be churned permanently, and by force if you do a chargeback.
If I were going to disrupt AirBNB, I'd offer hosts a better percentage with the requirement that the experience is standardized and high-quality. There would be an in-unit noise & vibration sensor, reporting directly in the app. 24 hour check-in and check-out. A minimum set of amenities, minimum WiFi speed. The bedding would be standard. Cleaning fee standard. Every unit subject to a surprise multi-point inspection at least once per year. Essentially, make it no worse than an average hotel, and maybe some units as good or better than high end hotels.
An interesting distinction is between staying at a listing vs booking it. I booked an AirBnB in Texas for the eclipse last year. The booking was made months ahead of time. Minutes before I left for the airport, the host canceled with no communication and didn't respond to messages. I got a refund, but I wasn't able to leave a review because the stay hadn't begun.
I had only used AirBnB once or twice before and was leery of it, but after this experience I'm unlikely to use it again. The inability to review the host in such a situation is pretty much a dealbreaker. (Note that I want to review the host --- not the property, but the person who decided to cancel the booking at the last minute.)
No model is perfect, but some are useful. Their "baseline LTV" looks at the sum of listings on their platform (plus other features), then tries to forecast the next 365 days — so this should indirectly capture people coming and going. I think their cannibalization model is quite clever as well.
Going deeper with modeling users might yield some tighter estimates, but I imagine this gets estimates far closer than some simple accounting formula, and likely helpful for budgeting a year out — but it would have been nice to have seen some performance metrics.
AirBnBs are as expensive as hotels now, except you have to clean it yourself and deal with an often insane host and their random rules. I am back to hotels and resorts all the time now, you at least know what you’re going to get.
In the case of Airbnb, wouldn't that show up in the listing's reviews, requests for refunds, etc. and ultimately drive down the listing's LTV? Nobody leaves reviews on an ad, and I imagine that very few users report inappropriate ads, so you can only measure that indirectly. But if somebody books an Airbnb and has a bad experience, they are much more likely to give you direct feedback about it.
Good point and it affects far more than just Airbnb. I'm sure some companies internal ROI for app notifications is universally positive... but when you send me 10 app notifications a week for a product or service I only purchase occasionally, I'm uninstalling the app. Obviously I'm in the minority because the app still has millions of users but hopefully others have turned notifications off.
I had this experience years ago. The first place I ever rented in had Wi-Fi that didn’t work and after about a week the water stopped working. I cancelled my booking through support and the owner called me 3 or 4 times on WhatsApp and then left me a bad review. The second place had a shower that didn’t drain and the washing machine flooded the apartment one evening. The third place had black mold growing out of the kitchen ceiling. I tried to get them to waive the cleaning fee over it, but the owner claimed he had told me about it already and refused to do anything. When I left, he told me he had written me a good review and expected one in return. I pointed out that he had done nothing to remedy the mold issue and then posted my own review, and found that in his review he had accused me of bringing prostitutes and drugs into the apartment (which I did not).
It was nominally cheaper to travel this way, but for my next trip I’ll be staying in hotels.
> There are many sites I won't use because the ads are so overwhelming or are often offensive.
I hate to sound like the “Do people still watch TV? I haven’t owned a TV in 20 years.” Guy. But why are you seeing ads on the web? Don’t you use an ad blocker?
Airbnb’s original promise was magical, thrilling, interesting - get to stay in unusual places that are full of charm and possibility.
But that promise was broken for me when Commaleta played back the video of her front door camera and counted that we had 10 people walk in her door, not eight. She proceeded to accuse us of throwing a party, when we absolutely did not, and tried to charge us $1000 extra dollars.
At that point, I decided that Airbnb’s hosts were too much of a wildcard in most travel situations.
By the way, the story above is from 10 years ago and I will never forget her name for the rest of my life…she turned what should’ve been a relaxing, beautiful week into a miserable arbitration process. It’s hard for ABNB to succeed long term when one experience like that can ruin everything.
had the same experience with a wildcard host that went absolutely full lying during our stay just because we told her that the place was not really clean.
She went full damage on us as a revenge. Trying to charge us 2000$ for fabricated damage. Airbnb Support tried to stand on her side asking us if we "had proof we didn't do it". I was on holiday. I didn't think about taking every single object in high definition picture.
We had to spend 3+ hours on the phone and by message to have Airbnb "drop" that 2000$ charge.
Never again. Not worth the time. Airbnb is great when it goes well. But you have too many bad hosts that ruin it for everyone. And when it goes bad it goes really bad.
> A deep dive on the framework that lets us identify the most valuable listings for our guests.
An opening article lie! For our hosts would be much more appropriate. Why does a guest care about how many nights a place is going to sell in the next few months?
This assumes value for guests is how much money the property they stay at makes, when it obviously isn't that.
Mega-tangent: As a host, I feel compelled to rant about Airbnb whenever they come up in a discussion.
The last 2 years they have _really_ moved to squeeze the hosts. The customer service has been demolished and they seem to have taken a stance of "the guest is always right". I've spent countless hours going through their customer service as a super host, so I know I have a decent amount of anecdata.
My suspicion is that they found themselves with more supply than demand, so they are "improving the guest experience" at the expense of the hosts. Since they are a quasi-monopoly (depends on the market) it makes sense for them to prune supply in exchange for better guest experience, a full market approach makes less sense since they make money in proportion to the total amount of money transacted (which as a monopoly it can optimize for in the way a free market can't).
But I think this will blowback sooner or later. The biggest value for an Airbnb guest is the review system that allows you to have some degree of certainty of what you are getting. The biggest value for a host is the massive global audience. But guests and hosts, pay a steep fee (17%!) for this. For well-reviewed, long-living stays (like mine :)), paying 17% is way too much to access this audience: the listing already has an online record that provides that quality assurance for the guest, and the host could spend that money on advertising.
So that's what many of us are doing, moving to PMS + paid advertising / SEO to diversify on distribution channels. I think there's an opportunity for capturing that semi-pro host market and bundling them in a similar offering that 1) doesn't squeeze them, 2) offers a proper PMS software, and 3) charges a flat fee instead of a variable rate.
PMS as in Pantone Matching System or Premenstrual Syndrome?
AirBNB can be equally frustrating for users as well.
Recently ended up at night in a new city in northern Japan where the host told me the listing was at a different address, where I found nothing, and got only radio silence from the host.
Every hotel room in town was occupied that night.
Airbnb support, seemingly in far away India, told me to try contacting the host, and that was that.
Also recently stayed at a place with a dog that shat inside due to the owner not taking them out; due to politeness no one had complained in the reviews.
Also Airbnb lists one price but when booking it always ends up being way more with more fees added.
I’m using hotels.com with a filter for “has kitchen” these days, which was the only reason I used Airbnb in the first place
Surprised to hear this because I had a very weird experience on my last stay. (and it will always be last as I will never stay at an Airbnb again).
Airbnb sided with the Host for some fabricated damages because the host was mad we told them the place was unclean. They put the burden of proof on us to prove we didn't destroy one of the sinks. Absolutely ridiculous.
We had to fight it for 3+ hours on the phone and message and start a chargeback and only then did support drop the fabricated charge.
And to top all of this, Airbnb deleted our bad review from that place (but left the review of the host).
So, never, absolutely never again. Too bad because I was spending 2k+$ on Airbnb before that incident and only got great reviews from other hosts.
AirBnB and Uber both have a dynamic where the host/driver has often taken out a loan and modified their lifestyle to depend on this income, which makes them the easier party to squeeze.
I have a smalltime Airbnb and I feel the same. Their only value is in their marketing distribution and they take 30%+. Their hosting tools could be worse but are not particularly great. Usually things work fine, but they have zero / hostile customer service on the host side on the random exceptional occurence. Hopefully more marketplaces show up
I would love to not use Airbnb as a consumer but there is no real alternative here. I hear a lot of people say that Airbnb is just as expensive as hotels but I just don't see it. I'm looking at traveling and a hotel in the area is $900 to $1200 while Airbnbs are $500 to $800.
I would have liked more discussion on handling uncertainty; how big is it, how well calibrated is it, how are they approaching variance reduction, how do they reduce the predictive distribution into decisions, etc. And no discussion of causal inference in the marketing section.
My advice to everyone is to never book an Airbnb if you value your time and sanity.
After a couple OK stays I had an absolutely horrible experience. The place was super dirty and the shower was clogged. The hosts tried to play nice and made us stay even though they didn't do the cleaning (Our fault I guess but when you are tired and already there you just want to move on and forget about the incident).
After the stay they became dishonest and lied to Support, tried to make us pay more. Support sided with the Host and even deleted our bad review of the place.
And the final nail in the coffin is that by deleting our bad review the host was able to get to Superhost status.
That stay destroyed our holidays. We then had to spend multiple hours on the phone and by message with support to defend ourselves. Ultimately they manage to leave a misleading review for us that we couldn't delete and Airbnb deleted our review of them.
It was already overpriced but once you account for the time lost when something goes wrong there is absolutely no point to book an Airbnb ever again.
Stay with professional in hotels. Your future you will thank you.
Surely Airbnb - a company that runs a website - has the capability to put a text post on their own website. Then they'd own the content, and people looking for it could find it easier? It's not a revolutionary concept either, Facebook has one:
maxrmk|11 months ago
A listing could look great online and receive a lot of bookings (so high LTV), but ultimately drive users away from the platform.
A certain ad platform I worked on cared a lot about this - offensive ads could get you to quit the site altogether. You might want to count every ad as positive for the company since you make money, but some might actually be negative expected value! As a side note, I think this is a really undermeasured problem. There are many sites I won't use because the ads are so overwhelming or are often offensive.
avidiax|11 months ago
I am precisely this kind of churned customer. I have personally booked maybe 3 AirBNB stays, and stayed with family in them on other occasions. The units I pick are always well-reviewed.
But in the cities I've stayed in (LA, SF, Rome), the price is really no cheaper than a hotel, and the quality is extremely variable. You have to really carefully read those 5-star guest reviews to read between the lines.
And you feel pressured not to leave a negative review, as that would negatively impact your ability to book in the future, since the hosts (I have heard) can see your average review score.
My impression has been that AirBNB's customers are actually the hosts. You, the guest, are an expendable commodity. You will use AirBNB until you have a severe enough problem, and experience them siding with the host over you. Then you'll be churned permanently, and by force if you do a chargeback.
If I were going to disrupt AirBNB, I'd offer hosts a better percentage with the requirement that the experience is standardized and high-quality. There would be an in-unit noise & vibration sensor, reporting directly in the app. 24 hour check-in and check-out. A minimum set of amenities, minimum WiFi speed. The bedding would be standard. Cleaning fee standard. Every unit subject to a surprise multi-point inspection at least once per year. Essentially, make it no worse than an average hotel, and maybe some units as good or better than high end hotels.
BrenBarn|11 months ago
I had only used AirBnB once or twice before and was leery of it, but after this experience I'm unlikely to use it again. The inability to review the host in such a situation is pretty much a dealbreaker. (Note that I want to review the host --- not the property, but the person who decided to cancel the booking at the last minute.)
munro|11 months ago
Going deeper with modeling users might yield some tighter estimates, but I imagine this gets estimates far closer than some simple accounting formula, and likely helpful for budgeting a year out — but it would have been nice to have seen some performance metrics.
j4coh|11 months ago
MajimasEyepatch|11 months ago
listenallyall|11 months ago
lurk2|11 months ago
It was nominally cheaper to travel this way, but for my next trip I’ll be staying in hotels.
scarface_74|11 months ago
I hate to sound like the “Do people still watch TV? I haven’t owned a TV in 20 years.” Guy. But why are you seeing ads on the web? Don’t you use an ad blocker?
iambateman|11 months ago
But that promise was broken for me when Commaleta played back the video of her front door camera and counted that we had 10 people walk in her door, not eight. She proceeded to accuse us of throwing a party, when we absolutely did not, and tried to charge us $1000 extra dollars.
At that point, I decided that Airbnb’s hosts were too much of a wildcard in most travel situations.
By the way, the story above is from 10 years ago and I will never forget her name for the rest of my life…she turned what should’ve been a relaxing, beautiful week into a miserable arbitration process. It’s hard for ABNB to succeed long term when one experience like that can ruin everything.
gameshot911|11 months ago
hintklb|11 months ago
She went full damage on us as a revenge. Trying to charge us 2000$ for fabricated damage. Airbnb Support tried to stand on her side asking us if we "had proof we didn't do it". I was on holiday. I didn't think about taking every single object in high definition picture.
We had to spend 3+ hours on the phone and by message to have Airbnb "drop" that 2000$ charge.
Never again. Not worth the time. Airbnb is great when it goes well. But you have too many bad hosts that ruin it for everyone. And when it goes bad it goes really bad.
vasco|11 months ago
An opening article lie! For our hosts would be much more appropriate. Why does a guest care about how many nights a place is going to sell in the next few months?
This assumes value for guests is how much money the property they stay at makes, when it obviously isn't that.
kreyenborgi|11 months ago
Airbnb these last years went from feeling fresh and adventurous to scammy and dubious
ceejayoz|11 months ago
philipwhiuk|11 months ago
sabellito|11 months ago
aprilthird2021|11 months ago
huevosabio|11 months ago
The last 2 years they have _really_ moved to squeeze the hosts. The customer service has been demolished and they seem to have taken a stance of "the guest is always right". I've spent countless hours going through their customer service as a super host, so I know I have a decent amount of anecdata.
My suspicion is that they found themselves with more supply than demand, so they are "improving the guest experience" at the expense of the hosts. Since they are a quasi-monopoly (depends on the market) it makes sense for them to prune supply in exchange for better guest experience, a full market approach makes less sense since they make money in proportion to the total amount of money transacted (which as a monopoly it can optimize for in the way a free market can't).
But I think this will blowback sooner or later. The biggest value for an Airbnb guest is the review system that allows you to have some degree of certainty of what you are getting. The biggest value for a host is the massive global audience. But guests and hosts, pay a steep fee (17%!) for this. For well-reviewed, long-living stays (like mine :)), paying 17% is way too much to access this audience: the listing already has an online record that provides that quality assurance for the guest, and the host could spend that money on advertising.
So that's what many of us are doing, moving to PMS + paid advertising / SEO to diversify on distribution channels. I think there's an opportunity for capturing that semi-pro host market and bundling them in a similar offering that 1) doesn't squeeze them, 2) offers a proper PMS software, and 3) charges a flat fee instead of a variable rate.
jeofken|11 months ago
AirBNB can be equally frustrating for users as well. Recently ended up at night in a new city in northern Japan where the host told me the listing was at a different address, where I found nothing, and got only radio silence from the host. Every hotel room in town was occupied that night. Airbnb support, seemingly in far away India, told me to try contacting the host, and that was that.
Also recently stayed at a place with a dog that shat inside due to the owner not taking them out; due to politeness no one had complained in the reviews.
Also Airbnb lists one price but when booking it always ends up being way more with more fees added.
I’m using hotels.com with a filter for “has kitchen” these days, which was the only reason I used Airbnb in the first place
hintklb|11 months ago
Airbnb sided with the Host for some fabricated damages because the host was mad we told them the place was unclean. They put the burden of proof on us to prove we didn't destroy one of the sinks. Absolutely ridiculous.
We had to fight it for 3+ hours on the phone and message and start a chargeback and only then did support drop the fabricated charge.
And to top all of this, Airbnb deleted our bad review from that place (but left the review of the host).
So, never, absolutely never again. Too bad because I was spending 2k+$ on Airbnb before that incident and only got great reviews from other hosts.
carlosjobim|11 months ago
gregorymichael|11 months ago
bickfordb|11 months ago
9283409232|11 months ago
mtlynch|11 months ago
For those of us not in this space, what does PMS mean?
barbazoo|11 months ago
Have you considered increasing the cleaning fee to recoup some of that money? /s
hbsbsbsndk|11 months ago
[deleted]
doctorpangloss|11 months ago
Maybe their folks need to punch "LTV" into Google Scholar.
And also, is it even actionable?
> For example, suppose we run a marketing campaign that provides hosts with tips on how to successfully improve their listings
Right guys. “Marketing-induced incremental LTV” indeed.
mrweiner|11 months ago
esafak|11 months ago
hintklb|11 months ago
After a couple OK stays I had an absolutely horrible experience. The place was super dirty and the shower was clogged. The hosts tried to play nice and made us stay even though they didn't do the cleaning (Our fault I guess but when you are tired and already there you just want to move on and forget about the incident).
After the stay they became dishonest and lied to Support, tried to make us pay more. Support sided with the Host and even deleted our bad review of the place.
And the final nail in the coffin is that by deleting our bad review the host was able to get to Superhost status.
That stay destroyed our holidays. We then had to spend multiple hours on the phone and by message with support to defend ourselves. Ultimately they manage to leave a misleading review for us that we couldn't delete and Airbnb deleted our review of them.
It was already overpriced but once you account for the time lost when something goes wrong there is absolutely no point to book an Airbnb ever again.
Stay with professional in hotels. Your future you will thank you.
game_the0ry|11 months ago
cityzen|11 months ago
epolanski|11 months ago
JohnScolaro|11 months ago
Surely Airbnb - a company that runs a website - has the capability to put a text post on their own website. Then they'd own the content, and people looking for it could find it easier? It's not a revolutionary concept either, Facebook has one:
https://engineering.fb.com/
Wait, Airbnb already has one?
https://airbnb.io/
Genuinely confusing.
unknown|11 months ago
[deleted]
unknown|11 months ago
[deleted]
josefritzishere|11 months ago
tomhow|11 months ago
Or is there just a signup/login banner that you can dismiss?
If there's a paywall we'll pin a workaround at the top.