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Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

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Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#331

Post by benimar »

jillyboel wrote: post #314
cameldrv wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of hotels where you can get multiple rooms and a washing machine. When traveling with kids, one big advantage of hotels is predictability. The last thing I want to do when I'm pulling in after a long flight an hour past the kids' bedtime is to deal with potentially dealbreaking problems with the place. In a hotel, they generally have maintenance on staff and extra rooms to switch into in case of prob…

> There are plenty of hotels where you can get multiple rooms and a washing machine Ok... Can you show me some like that in the EU? > This is all not to mention being asked to strip beds, take out trash, etc, after you've paid thousands of dollars, including cleaning fees for the place. Just don't do that.

Most 4 start hotels and resorts have either connecting rooms or family rooms in Europe (the latter especially true for resorts). They are far less common on lower categories though. I suppose to book connecting room you might have to call sometimes rather than going through online platforms though. Hotel with kitchenette and washing are not that hard to find either. They certainly more common on location were people tend to spend longer stay rather than in touristic cities were people spend on average just a few nights (ie. mountain and seaside places were people sometimes spend weeks or even months), usually they call them aparthotels or suites depending or something like that.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#332

Post by jq-r »

darkwater wrote: post #225
freddie_mercury wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hotels also provide tons of variation in quality. Just look up hotels in, say, Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh City where the options are much more than just the typical Western chains. Or compare the many non-chain "motels" in North America. I think what you mean is "chains" tend to be pretty consistent. Which, yeah, that's always been the main value prop of a chain. You go to McDonald's in Tunisia and you have a pretty good…

Chains consistency kills half the fun of travelling the world.

And the other half being a disappointment?;)

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#333

Post by rightbyte »

stdbrouw wrote: post #294

Unlike others, I have only had good experiences with Airbnb, both as a host and as a guest. The platform has improved a lot in the past couple of years -- many small quality-of-life improvements for non-professional hosts to make things easier to manage, such as automatic pricing, automatic blocking of days to avoid back-to-back bookings (if you need it), instant booking but only for guests that match your criteria,…

> instant booking but only for guests that match your criteria

What criteria? What do the hosts know about the guests?

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#334

Post by rafram »

lifestyleguru wrote: post #317
mykowebhn wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just note that in a lot of countries, like Spain, the rental or hotel establishments are required by law to collect a lot of your information. It feels totally intrusive, but it's the law unfortunately.

I had some random folks in hostel reception taking full photo with their private smartphone of my id document "for the police", despite I clearly said I do not consent to have a copy of my document taken. Spanish hosts are absolutely shady and sloppy privacy wise. EDIT. Spaniards don't take it personally. There is a war at the EU borders and there are waves of scams and various predatory behaviours, plus usual organi…

They were probably telling the truth. It’s pretty common to have to register hotel/hostel stays with the authorities, and it’s increasingly uncommon to own a flatbed scanner - so what did you expect them to do, pull out a DSLR?

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#335

Post by rafram »

lifestyleguru wrote: post #329
xav0989 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where it’s the law for the lodging provides to have a copy of ID, you either consent to have them make a copy of your ID or you don’t get a place to stay. You don’t get to not consent and also get a place to stay.

Look up "spanish hotel/hostel fined for copying guest id". They certainly are not allowed to copy documents of EU citizens.

They were fined because they weren’t using the third-party online service that GGGGP is complaining about: https://spanishnewstoday.com/tourism-sector-wages-war-as-new...

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#336

Post by lifestyleguru »

rafram wrote: post #334
lifestyleguru wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had some random folks in hostel reception taking full photo with their private smartphone of my id document "for the police", despite I clearly said I do not consent to have a copy of my document taken. Spanish hosts are absolutely shady and sloppy privacy wise. EDIT. Spaniards don't take it personally. There is a war at the EU borders and there are waves of scams and various predatory behaviours, plus usual organi…

They were probably telling the truth. It’s pretty common to have to register hotel/hostel stays with the authorities, and it’s increasingly uncommon to own a flatbed scanner - so what did you expect them to do, pull out a DSLR?

Identify the guest and write down the details read from the document, that's what most in Europe outside of Spain are doing.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#337

Post by rafram »

jen729w wrote: post #159

> Chesky figured that Airbnb’s experience in attractively displaying homes, vetting hosts, and responding to crises could make it more trustworthy than competitors and therefore the go-to option for virtually anything. Online reviews are totally broken. I recently spent a week at an Airbnb in the Gold Coast, Australia. The property was rated 5* but was tired and worn. The photos must have been 5 years old before a so…

What I’ve learned (the hard way) is that you just get what you pay for. If an Airbnb is $100 and all the hotels in the area are $200, no matter what the photos look like and how good the reviews are, it will be terrible. Most people review at the end of their trip, when the disappointment of getting a crappy place is starting to fade, and tend to rate cheap places better than they really deserve.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#338

Post by subpixel »

efavdb wrote: post #79
subpixel wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People want a hotel like experience where it all just works. Airbnb had novelty, inventory, and savings as its special sauce. Nowadays we all know what a sub-par, overpriced Airbnb is like and it’s worse than a hotel because it’s usually far more inconvenient. So we’re back to a hotel like experienced as the desire: convenience, available, and competitively priced.

FWIW I’ve probably stayed in 30+ airbnbs over more than a decade and the experience has been almost universally superior to hotels. Not denying others have had different experience, but always find these threads surprising.

I’ve had great experiences renting houses when that is what the situation calls for, but the most of my travel is to cities. In cities the main challenge is inventory and price and today I’m quite willing to spend a little more for staff and a free breakfast, after countless hassles trying to spend a little less on Airbnbs. That said I’ve recently stayed in nice hotels in NYC for $150/night which you can’t touch on Airbnb.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#339

Post by wallst07 »

hansmayer wrote: post #276
janosett wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anywhere you could build a hotel you could also build more housing, so they pose the same issue. There is necessarily some tension between using space for permanent housing and using it for tourism / short term stays. Tourism often keeps a city's economy healthy, and having short term stays is important for those visiting even for non-tourism reasons (e.g. in town to visit family, for work, etc). The housing issue is…

But...why should some direct investment towards "housing" if they can direct them towards the day-rentals ? Its definitely in their economical self-interest. So as long as we allow these platforms (be it AirBnB, Amazon or FB) to amplify a single parameter at the detriment of everything else in the society as a whole, I am afraid all the philosophical discussions about "complex" aspects will not help.

This is a supply/demand problem. Your solution is to restrict the supply of short term rentals. Restrictions rarely work, the hypothetical situation you mention would benefit from allowing more building of long term rentals.

Re: Airbnb is in midlife crisis mode

#340

Post by hansvm »

xyst wrote: post #119

Explains why ABB recruiters have been filling my inbox with invites to interview. Note they have a fucking ridiculous interview process of at least _6 rounds_. Absolutely bonkers. I was tempted to go for it but fortunately have many other companies in my pipeline with much saner interview processes. Good luck to whoever gets those positions. Seems they pay quite well, but the question is whether ABB push to expand wi…

It looks like senior roles top out at $220k and staff at $250k, with another $10k or so in indirect financial benefits (401k matching, ESPP, etc). The pay is certainly enough to be well-off, but it's on par with what any random startup offers, so for the sort of person likely to qualify for an ABB position I'm not sure cash would be the motivating factor for choosing them over the other options.
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