What you need to know about the
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Airbnb New Fee Structure
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Covid-19 Safety practices for hosts
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Quality reliability standards for Airbnb’s guests and hosts.
If you are an Airbnb host, here are few new things to take note of that can help you in your listing.
Airbnb Fee Structure
On Dec 7, 2020, simplified pricing will apply to all your listings. Simplified pricing is a fee structure that gives you more control over your price and helps attract more guests by eliminating the guest service fee.
Split-fee pricing will no longer be available for your listings. That means a 15% service fee will be deducted from your payouts, and no fee will be charged to your guests—what you set is what guests will pay. Existing bookings won’t be affected, but this change will apply to all bookings made on or after December 7th.
What do you need to do?
- Check your prices – Since a larger service fee will be deducted from your payouts, you may want to adjust your prices through your Software Provider to ensure your earnings don’t change. Before adjusting your prices, keep in mind that it’s important to stay competitive. Airbnb observed that hosts who switched to simplified pricing and kept their prices competitive got an average of 17% more bookings*.
- Add your VAT number. To prepare for this change, please make sure that you have added your VAT information to ensure Airbnb does not withhold VAT on your host fee on Airbnb.
*Average observed bookings increase for hosts using simplified pricing in Europe between November 2019 and February 2020. Actual results may vary for each host.
How to adjust your prices?
- Your new service fee structure will apply to all bookings made on or after December 7th, 2020 at 00.00 UTC. Wait until right before then to make any adjustments.
- Use your STAAH Channel Manager to check the prices on all of the platforms you use.
- On December 7th (or earlier if you switch before then), check that your prices are what you expect. You can test this by searching for the same trip dates across the different platforms you use. For example, compare the prices for a trip from December 20-23 to make sure your prices are still consistent.
- Finally, keep in mind that there may be additional factors like discounts and promotions that are causing price differences.
How to update pricing on STAAH Channel Manager?
Instructions to manage your rates via STAAH Instant Channel Manager here and STAAH MAX here
Can a host switch to Simplified Pricing before Dec 7, 2020?
You can switch now. It will make the transition smoother and you can update your prices before the switch. It may also help you access the benefits of more control over your price sooner, such as improved guest visibility and more competitive pricing. To adopt simplified pricing now, click here.
Safety Practices
Airbnb has developed a standard of cleaning, made specifically for hosts. Earlier this year, they partnered with health and hospitality experts to create their enhanced cleaning protocol, a set of guidelines for cleaning and sanitization. These guidelines were developed with your well-being in mind, from recommended gear to step-by-step checklists.
Airbnb is now requiring their host community to agree to their 5-step Enhanced Cleaning Process, and wear masks and social distance when interacting with guests. Airbnb’s guest community will also agree to wear masks and social distance when they confirm a booking on Airbnb. Hosts that don’t agree to these requirements by November 20, 2020, may have their calendars blocked from future bookings.
Please login to your Airbnb account to review and agree to these commitments.
Quality Standards
Airbnb is updating their guest and host reliability standards to continue to foster a foundation
of trust within their community. They are expanding their guest reliability standards to include
new criteria in the following areas:
● Unauthorized late checkouts
● Disregard of check-in time periods
● Unauthorized pets (excluding any assistance animals )
● Interference or removal of approved security devices
● Lack of respect for your house rules that reflect Airbnb’s policies
Between now and the end of the year, Airbnb is going to invest in improvements to their
systems and processes to help make progress toward ensuring consistent enforcement,
quicker response times, and more overall accountability with their guest community.
Airbnb has also identified a few signals that point to good hosting on their platform, which
includes:
● Accuracy of listing descriptions and photos
● Dependability as a host
● Host responsiveness
● High star ratings
● Hosts that uphold Airbnb’s community standards
In the same way that Airbnb will be removing guests to help protect the Airbnb community, they will also be suspending or removing listings that show a consistent pattern of serious issues or that regularly received low review ratings and failed to meet guest expectations. In most cases, hosts with impacted listings have already been notified.
Please visit your Performance Hub on Airbnb for more info.