Our lives have suffered a major shock, and it happened quite suddenly. It didn’t give us the time to prepare for a health or economic crisis. Airbnb hosts were not any different from the rest of entrepreneurs. The global pandemic pushed the hospitality industry into another direction, and as good survivors, we need to adapt to new trends.
The tourism industry has been turned upside down with the Coronavirus outbreak. Airlines and travel agents were filing for bankruptcy as never seen before. Airbnb hosts were severely affected since airbnb chose to issue full refunds. We found mixed opinions on the way airbnb took action. There were those hosts who didn’t really oppose themselves to giving full refunds and there were those on the other extreme, who didn’t want to refund a dime, and that’s perfectly fine. Each individual should be able to choose how to run their business. If strict cancellations are your default setting, then be it. Those third party reservation channels should only limit themselves to be exactly that: “a third party collaborator”. As well, if you have a strict cancellation policy and you decide to be flexible, that’s 100% up to you.
We found ourselves in the middle. We know how airbnb cares about guests, and they might have thought that remaining indifferent would have costed losing popularity, but we are also hosts who have to pay utility bills, mortgages, and other expenses. This was a global health issue, that’s understandable. Everyone suffered when the lock downs started happening. With that said, why is it that only hosts were targeted to incur in loses? The ideal and fair resolution would have been to equalize the loses to half and half. It was totally unfair to see only one side suffer major loses.
If the 50-50 split still sounds unreasonable, at least copy what many airlines did and offer to change the dates. Such actions help to keep the tourism activity alive somehow. Knowing that you have paid for accommodation that is booked with an open date forces you to make special arrangements for the future. This action would have helped not only airbnb hosts, but also travel agents and all subjects who depend on tourism to have hope in business recovery sooner or later.
Whatever the outcome, this pandemic shaped the hosting mentality across the globe. Many hosts were only depending on airbnb, but they started navigating into VRBO and Booking.com to have more freedom to choose the way in which they manage their business. Some other hosts even created their own reservation portals. The future of short term rentals might be driven to advertise your listing in different channels, so keep up with the trends and watch the market moves closely.