All the Best Airbnb Updates in 2021
Airbnb has always been at the forefront of short term rentals and it continues to improve its service for hosts and guests alike. All these updates enhance the experience from both perspectives and, in this article, we give you the lowdown on these new developments.
Streamlining guest experience
Airbnb has made significant changes to improve guest experience to adapt to today’s travel climate. These improvements are said to go live at the end of June 2021 and it brings with it interesting features that let guests search with more flexibility.
Before these enhancements, guests would have to search for specific areas and dates to find suitable accommodation for their travel plans. With the new “I’m flexible” button, guests can now opt to search for multiple dates and places for their stay. Say you’re open to multiple weekends over 2 months, you can now search for all available Airbnbs that fall under these criteria instead of searching for all your available dates individually.
Another cool feature replaces fixed area searches. Flexible guests can opt to view this option that suggests all nearby Airbnbs within a short distance away from their original travel destination. This gives guests more Airbnbs to consider booking.
image by Airbnb
An added filter includes different types of accommodation guest are looking for. It includes treehouses, castles, beachfront properties, caves, tents, yurts, igloos, houseboats and more. This feature expands the options and makes it much easier for guests to book a true experience.
Hosting made easier
Airbnb is making it easier for hosts to stay on top of everything since it’s been forecasted that the world will have the biggest travel rebound in recent history, coming soon. The all-new host welcome page gives new hosts a clear introduction of how to go about the process of listing their homes in a simple and streamlined way.
The new sign up journey begins by asking hosts what kind of place they’re renting out; this includes farm homes, boats, cabins, villas and many more. If a host feels like their property does not fall in any of the categories, they are provided with a help button that can connect them to an online class or a Superhost so they can further define the kind of space they have. This is followed by asking hosts if they’re renting out the whole property, a room within the property, or even a shared room. They will also be asked to input the location of their property and how many guests they are willing to welcome and the amenities available. After that, it’s just a matter of dragging and dropping the photos of the property which the Airbnb platform. The app will then automatically arrange according to photo quality and which ones will be most appealing to potential guests. Once that’s done, all the host has to do is add a title with the help of Airbnb, which suggests the best titles. As for the home description, Airbnb will ask hosts to pick two attributes of the property and they’ll provide the first sentence of your listing description. After this, add your nightly rate, and you’re done! Airbnb will also provide a nightly rate based on the other properties in your area with similar features. It’s important to note that new listings on Airbnb get booked easily. In 2021 alone, half of them got booked after only 4 days.
For existing hosts, there’s good news too. The hosting side of the app also got upgraded and some of the familiar tabs have been renamed. Profile is now menu, performance is now insights, the listings tab is now placed within the menu tab. The inbox is now faster by tenfold and completely redesigned, featuring schedules, messages, and quick replies. A new Today tab shows hosts what they need to do that day all in one place. It also has helpful articles that may be relevant to that particular host and they can now even track local trends happening within their vicinity.
These are only some of the new features we all look forward to but there are a lot more to discover once this update goes live on June 30.
More support for the global community
Airbnb owners come from all over the world and from all walks of life. More support for the global community is apparent in this upcoming update since Airbnb has decided to double the number of their customer service agents and triple the number of local languages available in-app. They will also roll out the Dedicated Superhost Support which will connect Superhosts to the company’s most experienced support agents.
Learn more about all these latest developments from Airbnb in detail when you get in touch with us. Our team will be happy to answer any questions you may have about these updates and the broader short term property rental management market. Let Hometime do the heavy lifting as you watch your property’s performance improve when you sign up for our services.
Photo by Compare Fibre on Unsplash
