- Airbnb stock tumbled 14% in one day after the company predicted slowing demand.
- Some former Airbnb diehards say they now prefer the consistency of hotels.
- Airbnb said it might increase travelers’ ability to book hotel rooms through Airbnb.
That’s odd. Do people not want to pay hotel prices and a “cleaning fee” and also clean up the place before they leave? Or is it like they want to show up and the room they booked actually exists?
No, people like to find out that there’s a fucking rooster farm across the road and that you have to park 3 miles away. It’s all part of the adventure.
Yes exactly. Hosts got greedy, Airbnb let them, and this is the result.
They could fix it pretty easily but the host would hate it.
- Make the price that is displayed by default inclusive of all fees and charges, except taxes. So that stupid cleaning fee makes your property go down in the list.
-Make the listing page clearly indicate whether or not the guest is required to perform chores. Make the filter aware of certain chores and allow a guest to screen out listings that require those. IE, ‘strip bed’, ‘do laundry’, ‘take out garbage’, ‘cleaning tasks’, ‘other’, etc. and have a really easy button at the top ‘filter out listings with chores’.
If I’m paying half the price of a hotel then I don’t mind having to throw the sheets in the laundry. If I’m paying more than a hotel plus a cleaning fee, I want to be on vacation and act like it.
Why shouldn’t taxes be displayed?
Americans are used to mentally adding taxes to the price
They should be displayed.
To add to this, in the U.S. the price on the shelf should be the actual price after tax. It’s so weird seeing the price and knowing it’s not actually the price.
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Taxes are not displayed anywhere else, so if Airbnb starts including taxes in their listing they will be at a competitive disadvantage as their pricing would become apples to oranges versus hotels in the wrong direction.
Almost nowhere in the US includes taxes in the advertised price.
Goddamn millennials are so unreasonable.
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Hotels are pretty nice. They come to make up your room, they have a nice person at the front desk to help you out with any issues, and they will usually have a breakfast option or at least some free coffee.
Airbnb has a lot of potential downsides: from cleaning and fees to broken stuff and hidden cameras. I’ve been in a few situations that have been weird to put it mildly.
Sometimes weird can be fun, but if I just want a clean bed and a reliable experience, I go to the hotel these days
Airbnb’s are great when you’re bored with life.
Some hotels have hidden cameras too, assuming they havent been found yet
Nature of the business means that’s a higher risk activity. Customers can’t get access back to the same room, employees work in rotation and owners aren’t physical present.
my best stays have been apartments… my worst stays have been in apartments.
you kinda dont know wtf you are going to get, especially on airbnb where the reviews are bs folksiness “the host is amazing, thank you so much” garbage. reviews on booking.com are much more reliable and brutally honest.
hotels maybe meh, but they are far more reliable and you have a better idea of what you are getting. a “serviced apartment” is ideal, but often $$$.
i very much understand that airbnb’s sterilise communities and drive up rents. taxing the fuck out of them would remove a lot of the slum lord garbage from the market but keep the option there for ppl really want that.
Also generally with hotels, especially chains, you can actually talk to people to get issues sorted or at least get refunds etc a bell of a lot easier than just chatting with someone overseas through an app.
they should be paying hotel taxes.
I stopped looking at ABnB a few years ago. It stopped making financial and quality of life sense. The costs became nearly equal or greater than that of hotels I cross shopped.
The hassle though is what really killed it. The inconvenience of dealing with a host that was not on-site and often not available to deal with issues plus the long list of chores required and the potential penalties of not following them perfectly just made it not worth doing.
The chores are what killed it for me. I’m supposed to pay a cleaning fee and do the cleaning myself? Fuck that noise.
Airbnb in North America is awful. More expensive than hotels, often dirtier, greedy hosts try to offload their own expenses to tenants. Hotels all the way!
Oddly enough though, when my wife and I went to Japan, it was the opposite. All the Airbnbs we stayed at were much more affordable, way cleaner, and the hosts were incredibly kind and respectful. The hotels we stayed at were average. Not sure what’s keeping the service so nice over there, or if we just lucked out at 3 different places
That describes my family. We’ve done Airbnb and VRBO, but now pretty much stick to hotels. You know what you’re getting, price is competitive, to bdint have to wash your own bedding, and a lot of hotel workers are unionized. That’s all in addition to the awareness that every Airbnb house could be a home for someone who needs it. I won’t be sad if the Airbnb model folds and helps the housing market regain a bit of sanity
The main Airbnb value proposition was trading some of the conveniences you get at a hotel for a significantly cheaper room.
When they are roughly the same price as staying in a hotel, why would you choose it?
The only time I’ve ever used an Airbnb was when I wanted a location that did not have a good hotel option. Which has been cabins in the woods, and beach front property. Outside of that, I would rather have the convenience of a hotel.
I dunno. For my family, vrbo/Airbnb offers something I can’t get elsewhere. Human living conditions for a family. We need three bedrooms. That is pretty much unheard of. And hotels always go low on bathroom. Sleeps 6, one bathroom. I have ibs, 9ne bathroom just isn’t going to cut it. And even if I didn’t, jockeying for bathroom time isn’t my idea of a vacation. And when we brought the in-laws we needed another. The cost of that in rooms was more than double. And the vrbo had a private pool and a huge living room/kitchen. Now I do wish hotels had family living spaces, but most only do adjoining rooms, which they never guarantee. Hotels being greedy created the short term rental market. Hosts and Airbnb being greedy ruined it. We just can’t have nice things.
A lot of hotels are now offering that. I went on vacation in Sydney recently and hotels have been buying up apartment buildings and turning them into hotels. To stay in a 3 bedroom apartment it was 40% cheaper than Airbnb and had all the amenities of a hotel with staff.
Sweet, I hope that continues to spread.
I never did get into Airbnb: there was always too much room for unpredictability that I don’t want to deal with when traveling. Since then, we have the rise of chore lists and they’ve lost the price advantage in many places, so I don’t really see a point. Even worse, AirBnB has been around long enough that we all probably know someone who had a bad experience
I was solely airbnb for years, down to literally nothing now. Won’t even search the site anymore. Many reasons articulated by others, but just a pure garbage company and garbage “homeowners” who are mostly just vc conglomerates and bs fronts now - last time I looked, I saw a listing that was overpriced, but I was going to do it out of last minute need…
Host was named Miranda and showed profile pic of a smiling younger women. Listing text was written in her voice. I had a specific question that I sent and received an odd, cold form response, not in her same tone. Then looked and saw that Miranda owned most every property in this beachfront area? She looked pretty young, but okay, good for you. Looked further and found that “Miranda” was actually just the name of a property management group. That wasn’t her in the profile picture, she didn’t exist. She wasn’t going to answer my question, she didn’t give a shit, because she was… not.
Fuck you in your stupid greedy faces, hotels will do.
Never stayed in one and I never plan to.
An extended stay hotel is predictable and more than good enough. AirBnB has a consistency problem. To include pricing and hidden fees.
I’ve stayed at my share of Airbnbs booked by others, but never really enjoyed the feeling of sleeping in some strangers house. Also, disliked the impact of airbnbs on local housing markets. The idea of replacing long term housing with short term housing is completely stupid from a public policy perspective and a great way to ruin a city.
Additionally, I like being a customer, and anonymous. I don’t want to be rated by the host. I don’t want to be judged on whether I put my own towels in the washing machine before I checked out. If I’m paying, that shouldn’t be my damn job.
Also, airbnbs are random. Some are good, some are awful. Some hosts are fine, some are a bit too much. Hotels do vary, but on the whole, the experience is much more consistent.
To chime in on your anonymous comment, racism is a huge issue for AirBnB too. None of my brown friends are able to book one without the help of a white friend/partner, because of their names and the lack of AirBnB history.
For me, it’s almost always the cheapest/most convenient way to stay somewhere with a kitchen. And it may be an okay kitchen but almost always better than a hotel’s. That’s the part I find the hardest to replicate outside of Airbnb.
Short stay apartments are a thing, but you’ll typically only find them in big cities.
Exactly, I lost all taste for Airbnb when we were staying for 2 nights, and every 4 hours the owner was balsting me with text messages telling me I needed to rate them 5 stars because if I didn’t they wouldn’t rate me 5 stars…but I had to take out my own trash, put all towels and linens in the washer, and make sure to tidy up before I left or else I’d incur their “clean up fee”. Fuck that shit, I’m not paying you a shitton of money to clean up after myself. Especially when half the bathrooms have black mold and rotten water damaged wood around the showers, and you have to be extra mindful because this was a time when hidden cameras were common.
Cleaning fees are just overhead on staying now. But if you don’t tidy your rating will take a hit.
It’s a scam coming and going. But it’s often cheaper and with more selection on location. The last two, I think, are really what keeps them around.
Ability to zero in on location is definitely the thing that keeps me on the platform. I can’t say its always cheaper, it maybe in some cases but its often equal or higher than a budget hotel in my experience. The fact that I can get a unit with a kitchen and within walking distance of a few of my planned vacation activities is the reason I check it out.
