Every day, an average of nearly one million guests put their trust in Airbnb as they check into a listing.1 Each one of them should feel confident that they know exactly what they can expect before they book.
Over the past year, through our 2023 Summer and Winter Releases, as well as our Fall Update, we have upgraded our product and policies to improve the user experience, help boost confidence and provide additional peace of mind for both Hosts and guests. Today, we’re sharing an update on our work to continue to deliver on high quality and reliability across the platform.
Verified listings
Last fall, we announced our commitment to begin verifying listings across the US, Canada, Australia, UK, and France by early this year. Later this month, nearly 1.5 million listings will have completed the verification process and will receive a “verified” badge.
We’ll soon introduce new tools – including photo and video authentication – for more Hosts in those countries to verify their homes, and, starting this fall, we’ll launch listing verification in 30 additional countries.
Introducing a new highlight for top homes
With more than 7.7 million listings on the platform, we want to make it easy for guests to find the best listing for their needs. In the 2023 Winter Release, we introduced Guest Favorites – two million of the most-loved homes on Airbnb based on ratings, reviews and reliability data from over half a billion trips. Since November, Guest Favorite homes have been booked over 13.5 million times,2 with nearly 95 percent of reviewed stays receiving our top five star rating. The average overall rating across all Guest Favorites remains high at 4.92.
This summer, we’re also introducing a new highlight to help top listings stand out, based on ratings, reviews and reliability. Those in the top 25 percent of ranked listings globally will soon have a unique highlight added to their page, with the top one percent receiving a trophy icon, making it clear that these are the world’s best homes on Airbnb according to guests.
We’ll also show guests if a listing is in the bottom 10 percent of ranked listings, and have added a new sort function for lowest-rated reviews.
Reducing Host cancellations
Cancellations, whether last minute or in advance, can cause holiday anxiety for guests and break the trust they expect when booking a listing on Airbnb.
Since July, we’ve made considerable changes and improvements to deter avoidable Host cancellations, including:
adjusting default booking settings and reducing calendar availability, to give new Hosts greater control and flexibility before their first booking;
new pricing tools for Hosts to allow them to easily see the price guests pay, to prevent inaccurate pricing; and
firmer consequences and stricter policies for Host cancellations that could have been avoided.
Following these updates, in the final quarter of 2023, Host cancellations were reduced by 36 percent.3
Removing low quality listings
Quality isn’t just determined by a listing’s overall rating: There are many factors that we use to understand more about a guest’s stay, including subcategory ratings, Host cancellations and quality-related Community Support issues.
Based on these criteria, in April 2023, we launched an updated hosting quality system, which takes a more targeted and holistic approach to better evaluate listings that may have failed to meet our community’s expectations when it comes to quality issues with a stay. In the first three months, we removed 12,000 low-quality listings.
Since then, we have removed 100,000 listings – including those that continue to provide a below par experience for guests – and continue to evaluate every listing after each stay to help ensure they provide the best possible experience for guests. This is the largest set of removals we’ve ever made,4 and we’re building new tools to prevent these homes from being relisted.
Before a listing is removed, we work closely with Hosts, providing education and tips with actionable feedback on how they can improve their guest’s experience, all directly in their account dashboard.
Smart lock integration with Schlage live soon
In our 2023 Winter Release, we announced a new feature that would allow some Hosts to connect compatible smart locks to their Airbnb account. This month, Hosts with listings in the US and Canada will be able to connect compatible Schlage smart locks with their Airbnb account and automatically generate unique codes for every reservation. In the first few months of Airbnb Early Access, guests have had overwhelmingly positive experiences, leaving an average check-in rating of 4.96.5
This integration will roll out for August and Yale devices later in the year.
We look forward to introducing even more product updates in our 2024 Summer Release in May.
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