Airbnb has been in the limelight for its fee structure where many users have feedback on being on the high side, however, the company has taken the comments constructively and looks set in addressing some of these issues.
On the concerns of booking prices and cleaning fees, CEO Brian Chesky said the platform introduced several initiatives aimed at fostering affordability, from new pricing tools for Hosts to making pricing even more transparent for guests. Airbnb says four out of every five Hosts use one of its pricing tools. Almost 680,000 Hosts have used the new tool to compare their prices with similar listings nearby, while almost two-thirds of Hosts offer weekly or monthly discounts.
Against the backdrop of increasing prices industry-wide, and with an average nightly rate of $127 in July 2023, the average nightly price of a one-bedroom listing on Airbnb is 1 percent lower than it was in July 2022 – while hotel prices have gone up 10 percent to $163 over the same period.
Since its launch, Brian said over 8 million guests have booked travel on Airbnb using the total price display, which made fees even more transparent. This year over 260,000 listings lowered or removed their cleaning fees – on top of nearly 3 million listings that currently don’t charge one.
One of the top suggestions from the community was to expand search capabilities. Average global price (USD) of a hotel room compared to a stay in a 1-bedroom home on Airbnb. Sources: CoStar, Airbnb Between 1 January 2023 and 31 August 2023.
Starting today, if search results are limited, Airbnb will automatically display a carousel at the bottom of search results so guests can review more great homes available over similar dates. The platform has also added two new search filters by popular demand: pet-friendly homes and king-size beds. This should come as no surprise as there have been over 6 million pet arrivals on Airbnb in the past year 3. The top ten most popular countries for pets in the past year include the USA, France, UK, Canada, Brazil, Spain, Italy, Australia, Mexico, and Germany. 4 With over a quarter of listings across the platform welcoming pets, it’s now even easier for guests to narrow their search to those that welcome furry friends.
And with king-size beds featured in over a million listings, the new king-size bed filter will help guests easily find the homes that offer them. Listing verification in our top five countries. firmly believe guests shouldn’t have to worry about whether a listing is fake or isn’t located where it says it is. Later this year, we’ll begin verifying every listing in the US, Canada, Australia, UK, and France with verified icons appearing on listings from February. Starting next fall, we’ll begin verifying listings in 30 more countries.
Brian said it complements its ongoing work to implement tools to help prevent fraud, remove bad actors, and increase trust in our community. This year, we blocked 157,000 fake listings from ever joining the platform and removed an additional 59,000.
Customer service improvements- This summer, the platform answered 94% of calls in English within 2 minutes. Airbnb also extended this 2-minute response time to 9 more languages. From November, it start making additional improvements to customer service so that when guests call, they’re going to be matched with the best agents to resolve their specific issues, faster.
