The Airbnbust is nigh.
At least according to Twitter, which we all know is a reliable news source.
No really — surely you’ve seen the viral post going around from an account called Airbnb Superhosts, asking, “Whats going on with airbnb? No bookings at all” [sic].
And of course, any post like that is an absolute magnet for ire, and it’s been amusing to watch proceedings in the Court of Public Twitter Opinion play out this week.
Two factors are driving the latest Airbnb backlash: First is the discontent that’s been growing for awhile — and only exacerbated since the pandemic — that Airbnb unit owners are sucking up all available housing in a market, creating rental and other housing shortages. Extremely legit.
The other beef is around price-gouging, which honestly, I think anyone would expect to happen once hosts learned a thing or two about revenue management. But more specifically, guests are mad about the chore lists that increasingly have been accompanying new cleaning fees and higher rates.
Oh yes. Some Airbnb hosts, realizing that not only could they set prices and charge cleaning fees, as of late have been leaving honey-do lists for guests as conditions for their stay. Some requirements include stripping beds, doing and putting away laundry, and washing dishes. Some of the more ludicrous items on the lists seem to include mowing the lawn, prohibiting certain smelly foods, pulling hair from the drain, scrubbing shower mold and abiding by a curfew.
And this is all in addition to the cleaning fee.
You might want to check a mirror, Airbnb hosts, because your greed is showing and that might reflect in bookings as high-demand summer turns to fall and winter.
What stuff like this makes quite obvious to me at least is that buying property, adding a bed and charging a fee does not a hotelier make.
Yes, both hotels and non-hotel lodgings (how’s that for a diplomatic term?) have beds. They’re in locations where people want to be, and for argument’s sake, let’s just assume they’re all reasonably clean and safe. The difference is that trained people who are educated on hospitality practices operate hotels.
To put it simply, a hotel front-desk employee will never hand you a to-do list when you walk into the hotel because that’s not hospitality.
She may tell you that housekeeping isn’t happening every day anymore, but there’s a big difference between “we’re cleaning every other day now” and “Stephanie, aren’t you lucky you checked in today because on Tuesdays we ask everyone to snake the hair out of the shower drain! Here’s your instruction sheet; have it done by 8 a.m.”
That is simply not part of the contract. It’s not hospitality. Granted, hoteliers on property have seen guests at their worst, particularly during this current leisure boom, but they are trained and prepared and paid — hopefully more now — to deliver hospitality.
It’s what makes the difference between hotels and non-hotels real, and now is the time for hoteliers to take extra pride in it and capitalize on it a little.
Just take it from one Clifford Vickrey on Twitter, who wrote, “Airbnb is the clearest example of 21st-century innovation introducing something worse than the thing it ‘disrupted.’ Holiday Inns are usually pretty nice and don’t give me lists of chores like I’m in third grade.”
I always love to hear from you. Email me, or find me on Twitter or LinkedIn.
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel News Now or CoStar Group and its affiliated companies. Bloggers published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to contact an editor with any questions or concern.