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
PMS - Property Management System, aka what actual hotels use to manage room inventory, bookings, etc.
IMO most of the things that people like about AirBnB vs hotels is downstream of the failed experiment of urban planning. If we want hotel operators willing to "spend" floorspace on kitchens and other niceties, then legal floorspace can't be scarce or special, but most of the current planning regime is oriented around enforcing limits on floorspace. Ditto for having options of places to stay that aren't tourist traps or commercial areas.
I suppose hotels can have a few rooms with kitchens but I'm guessing a vanishingly few people care about kitchens when traveling outside of maybe a microwave and a small refrigerator. AirBnB that are larger (e.g. houses) can also be nice for groups but that's more outside of cities than in a city center. Hotels tend to optimize for the 90% case.
Where I'm staying at the moment is a "serviced apartment" and does have a couple burners but that's unusual and I mostly stay here because I like the location in London.
A large fraction of families traveling value the kitchens (leftovers, kid breakfasts, not having to eat restaurant food for every meal, when all the kids want is Kraft Mac&Cheese, etc.) and the common living spaces (kids go to bed early). I hate traveling with my family and being stuck in a hotel room (or two!). When I'm traveling alone or with just adults, I can be out all day and only use my hotel room for sleeping, but with a diverse set of ages traveling, we often hang out in the living room while someone naps, or my kids will be done with touristing by 3pm and we need somewhere to be until dinnertime.
You see this in vacation destinations like Hawaii and Ski towns; there is a significant fraction of accommodations that are Condos, because you need a place to hang. AirBNB brought that to urban areas by sub-letting apartments, when hotel operators only provided maximally-dense sleeping-focused options; multi-bedroom hotel rooms with living rooms and kitchens largely did not exist in major city centers.
This is the primary reason I use Airbnb and it's equivalents. My typical traveling party is 4 adults, 3 kids, and 1-2 dogs most of those people have a preference to cook rather than eat out. Accommodating that in a hotel is a disaster unless you get an ultra low price of a double suite or something.
That's really the sweet spot for Airbnb (and Vrbo). Very few conventional hotels accommodate large groups well. If you're just trying to save a few bucks as a couple or solo traveler I'm not sure it usually pencils out given other tradeoffs.
If it truly is a minority preference, then we need a way to square that with all the people saying they book AirBnB's instead of hotels because of the kitchens. :)
The people who don't need kitchens and just book hotels don't say anything because their needs are met.
There are also some hotels with kitchens. Usually they have 'Suites' in their name. I stay at one most holiday seasons, we go and visit my folks and want to have a place where my family can cook without taking over my parents' kitchen.
I've stayed places with vrbo, which is pretty similar to airbnb, but older. It's most convenient IMHO if you want more than two bedrooms for a group with shared space, or you're going somewhere without many hotels.
> There are also some hotels with kitchens. Usually they have 'Suites' in their name. I stay at one most holiday seasons, we go and visit my folks and want to have a place where my family can cook without taking over my parents' kitchen.
These are okay, but they still have the antiseptic, overly-clean feeling of a space optimized for housekeeping. They will usually have a small couch or two, and maybe a table for 4. I have never seen one with a full dining room with table for 6; a fully stocked kitchen that includes non-perishable food staples, or any outdoor space. These things are common in AirBNB rentals, often at the same or similar price to nearby hotels.
AirBNB and VRBO absolutely opened a new market of accommodations compared to what was available before. These options may or may not be for the previous commenters, but it's silly to state universally that you can or should stay in a hotel instead. It's like saying "I love to ride my bike", and the reply being "you know you could ride a scooter to your destination, or drive a car."
I don't see anyone arguing that you shouldn't stay in an Airbnb or Vrbo. But a lot of us with more routine needs just want to plan to be able to checkin at any time, leave our luggage for a late departure, have a fairly predictable experience, etc. for our typical hotel stay.
The argument was never about what anyone individual should or should not do, it was about the idea that the limitations of the hotel format are more driven by urban planning and local politics - striving to keep buildings as small as possible, concentrating all non-house buildings in small slips of land, etc. - than anything inherent to the hotel format. Hotels and Airbnb’s are great, but both be better if both were legal on 100% of the land in the city, along with apartment buildings and every other form of housing, and without the arbitrary restrictions on size.
Sure tho TBF I wouldn't use the word lax - it implies there's something dangerous or untoward going on and we are choosing to let it slide. :)
Rather since the rules limiting hotel size, locations, quantity etc have nothing to do with safety and everything to do with class, exclusivity, and segregation, we can jettison them confidently without worrying that we are being too lax about anything important :)
And yes, I use Airbnb as a guest as well, but I gauge the risk of having a bad host into the decision making.
We also get all type of horror stories from guests that had a bad experience and found themselves trying to find a last minute place to stay.
The problem is that the Airbnb app heavily disincentivizes "professionalization". They have a small cartel of PMS providers that can actually hit their API. I can't build my own systems on top of their API, I have to go through a middle man or use the their crappy app.
Their app is so incredibly obtuse that it puzzles me how people shower Airbnb as a "great product design company". It's a beautiful app sure, but incredibly clunky. It's like a call center phone menu made into an art piece.
It's a tech assisted operations company, similar to Uber and Lyft.
The key distinction between say United Airlines and gig tech companies is that the latter will aggressively avoid owning physical assets and use tech to be a streamlined middle man in a market that actually requires a lot of operations.
They are a tech company, but in the sense that they get their edge from software not that they sell it.
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.
> Property Management Systems (PMS) or Hotel Operating System (HOS), under business, terms may be used in real estate, manufacturing, logistics, intellectual property, government, or hospitality accommodation management. They are computerized systems that facilitate the management of properties, personal property, equipment, including maintenance, legalities and personnel all through a single piece of software.
Without landlords, you have no rental properties and everyone who can't afford to purchase their residence outright would have to find another option whatever that might be.
Without landlords we wouldn’t have a chunk of the housing supply held captive as investment, driving costs out of reach for most of the non-HN-reading audience.
> Without landlords we wouldn’t have a chunk of the housing supply held captive as investment, driving costs out of reach for most of the non-HN-reading audience.
That isn't caused by landlords, it's caused by zoning boards.
Suppose you have a city with a growing population. Then you need someone to pay construction companies to build more housing. When the new residents can afford a down payment, they pay the construction company themselves by taking out a mortgage. When they can't, a landlord does it, or else who? The tenant doesn't have a down payment and needs somewhere to live. The somewhere to live doesn't exist unless someone pays the construction company.
The problem only comes when the zoning board stops the construction company from increasing the housing supply. Then a landlord who wants to invest in property has to buy existing property instead of causing more to be created. This is the actual problem.
It doesn't matter if landlords want to fund the creation of lots of new housing by supplying capital to pay for it. That's even good. It's only when the creation of new housing is inhibited that things go sour.
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.