AirBnB has a super core problem: hosts are in short supply. This leads the entire service to see guests as a secondary concern. This leads to a pretty obvious problem: opaque pricing, poor customer service (never trust me, check trustpilot), and probably a serious problem for AirBnB: a resurgence of the vertically integrated hotel chain.
Airbnb doesn’t have a hosts supply issue. Actually in the past 3 years, hosts growth outpace guests growth
The issue is Airbnb attracted recently a lot of get-rich-quick types, similar to what see for Amazon sellers or crypto bros. We are far from the savvy host who want to share travel experiences and give you a unique experience
It now has quality hosts supply issue. Most of the places aren't designed or made for living, they were set up as bare minimum where you can crash on a bed (or, more likely, a couch) for the night and imaginatively call it "a comfy modern clean fully-equipped apartment close to everything" (where only the "apartment" bit will be actually true).
In 2019 it took me 30 minutes to scroll through a list and pick one of good places - or maybe I was just lucky.
In 2023 it takes over a week (I'm not exaggerating) of routine work every evening to find something that may somewhat match my requirements and wishes. All those filters except for price are now useless ("dedicated workspace" is a particularly bad joke), one literally has to skim over every single listing, review the photos and figure out what they really have. Honest good listings still exist but are drowned in sea of low-effort ones.
For a good portion of the airbnb market thats exactly what the guests want. They go, "I have 12 boys in new orleans for mardi gras, we are partying every day for a week straight, lets rent what is basically a frat house and make it cheap by sleeping 4 in a bedroom, and spend the savings on partying since the room is just where we pregame and pass out."
Sure, you can do this stuff in a hotel too, but sometimes the airbnb has cool stuff like a patio or a deck versus your bog standard hotel layout with too much bed and not enough floorspace for partying, not to mention a smoke detector. The lack of any staff oversight also makes it easy to party without fearing noise complaints or having staff see just how many people are staying in the unit. I'd wager airbnb has completely changed how big partying holidays like spring break works in a lot of cities for this reason.
Hm, maybe. It's very different from my typical forced-to-be-a-digital-nomad use case, which is "I need to be in $city/$country for {anything between 2 weeks and 4 months} and I want a private place to live in, with a comfy bed, proper kitchen with a large fridge, decent Internet, comfortable sturdy wooden desk with an ergonomic chair to work at, in a quiet area with a grocery store nearby". AKA home away from home, except that I surely won't find a proper coffee machine there (can't be helped), and that I'm having mini-vacations on holidays and weekends, exploring the new area.
The only alternative I know of is extended stay hotels, but those are extremely rare, especially outside the US. It used to be Airbnb was not just the only option, but also a blessing - I suppose because nomads were a major part of its guest client base. Now it feels like trying to find something tolerable in a pile of garbage.
It depends. I've stayed at many regular B&Bs over the years and many hosts try to make you feel at home. And, generally speaking, they're a more distinct experience than a business hotel is--though when traveling on business I tend to go with the hotel for predictability, 24 hour desk, etc.
If there is no supply problem, why have prices shot up ~30-50% in 4 years ? (Source : I am trying to book an Airbnb in London after a few years away from the platform)
The venture capital ran out. Same way the rideshare and food delivery services spiked in price. Freshman year of college, Uber was subsidizing rides, and was so cheap I would choose when to go visit a friend of mine on the other side of LA based on whether I could get there for less than $15. By senior year, an equivalent ride never fell below $30.
Prices have shot up 30-50% on a lot of things in the past 4 years(and mostly just the past 2) due to inflation. Real estate markets in most places have skyrocketed, so how would you figure real estate to go up but short term rental prices to stay low?
Tell me the price, make the host and tennant have a singular universal set of expectations. It's not hard. Holiday Inn Express has been getting my business lately. Everything is labeled, no wild sudden items after checkin like "don't forget to put the back door mat on the balcony railing so the racoons don't run off with it".
Everything that made AirBNB cool at first eventually made it bad inevitably. Glad to have made friends with hosts along the way before it went sour.
I have two friends that had AirBnB rentals, they've both given up. The initial novelty and fun quickly wore off and became a grind. The local LLC with 10+ properties will stay the norm now I think.
I think if you have an LLC booking hotel rooms and its not an individual booking out rooms, they need to comply with all building codes and regulations for hotels.
I wonder how much of this is just people being bigger jerks now than before. Just anecdotally service workers and small business owners in general seem to complain about a major shift in norms towards customers more often being abusive or even vindictive towards them.
Hosts often also get the short end of the stick, and get the similarly non-existent recourse opportunities. The issue is not with either - it's the way AirBnB does its business. Hotels began to seem attractive again also because vacationers don't want to risk their precious time and money. Hotels at least have experience, and the regulators up their ass.
Yeah, this is basically the true problem. Airbnb doesn't care about guests at all (they recently refused to refund a stay I had booked even though the place I was visiting was experiencing a literal natural disaster, and then deleted my negative review about extremely unpleasant interactions with the host). I agree that most people want a much more consistent and much less opaque user experience - the trick is how someone will be able to marry that with the sheer variety of places you can stay in on Airbnb.
