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Post by clocktowerpete on Apr 5, 2016 5:37:15 GMT
Last night I attended an Airbnb discussion in London on its new initiative for creating "community leaders". There were about 10 people there. Most had been hosting for three or four years. Why we had been singled out as "leaders" I have no idea.
These are the highlights. The idea is that people will be branded as community leaders and they will get some kind of recognition, a bit like a super host mark. Where this will show was unclear, but perhaps there will be a badge on their profile page. How it would be monitored seems a puzzle.
The Airbnb people talked about the purpose of these leaders being to organise meet ups. They were a little vague about what form of meet ups there should be and suggested that there might be meet ups for hosts who share a particular interest in some social non-Airbnb activity for example. They gave the suggestion that there could be meet ups for hosts who are into particular hobby activities. Or tours of a particular district. They suggested that there might be a way for people to share information about different districts. And they said that the way to do all this organisation was through the new community center. And in their view the great thing about this is that it is accessible to guests as well. They were suggesting the guests would be interested in joining meet ups that hosts were organising. But we were sceptical.
They are rolling it out in 14 cities around the world (the ones on the community center cities section)
I felt that 10 random hosts pulled together at Airbnb offices out of 35,000 people listing in London was hardly going to make a difference and I was unclear it would help the whole hosting experience. I walked home with another host, who shared her perplexity at how this will develop. Let us see what announcements happen now.
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Post by trafalgar on Apr 5, 2016 17:07:55 GMT
They have the budget to throw a nicely catered party, With the notable exception of the Superhost Cocktail Party at the Paris Open 2015. I was expecting a glamorous venue, waiters with trays of champagne at the door, that sort of stuff. No. You were handed two coat-check type tickets on entry, entitling you to two drinks from the one bar in the whole room. Also, we were all left waiting outside for half an hour beyond the advertised start time. I was so disgusted I didn't bother to hang around and queue for half an hour for a probably lukewarm glass of white wine. But, moving on..... Spot on. Hosts like to interact with other hosts because we have a very compelling shared interest, which is hosting. You can't talk about Airnbnb with your friends for obvious reasons. I also had the same thought about unpaid organization work - it's the same deal with the community centre, they're expecting us to do their CX work for them.
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Post by trafalgar on Apr 5, 2016 17:12:00 GMT
The idea is that people will be branded as community leaders and they will get some kind of recognition, a bit like a super host mark. Where this will show was unclear, but perhaps there will be a badge on their profile page. They don't seem to understand we are adults and won't share our toys/eat our vegetables/tidy our room in exchange for a gold star on the chart on the fridge door.
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Post by helgaparis on Apr 9, 2016 12:54:09 GMT
A pity, I see that thread only now. In hindsight I understand a bit more of the presentation on the webinar. I remember a few seasons of catalogue layout for a Turkish travel agency, where there were so many badges and color splashes to set on every add that you could hardly see the hotels. Not omly is a badge not an incentive for free work, they are pretty ugly.
It feels like airbnb has to find new products all the time and the good ideas are limited. As said by others, the fact that others are hosting too, does not motivate me to engage in other activities with them. That happens after you become penpals on a forum and decide to meet in real life. And as for random guests, pfff. I give advice to my guests, tell them funny stories, that's part of my trade, they write about it in reviews and attract other paying guests - why would I want to give that away for free? Would a restaurant invite random tourists for free?
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Post by High Priestess on Apr 9, 2016 14:28:09 GMT
I have experienced some of this AIrbnb-led local host community in my area too and it is also dorky in my area. I think that the intention is good, but it is awkward, because Airbnb the corporation isn't the best one to organize host community (as we see on the Airbnb Community Center). Hosts are the best ones to organize community. I believe that some of the reasons Airbnb is trying to do this, were explained in the articles about the "100 clubs" efforts of Chris Lehane. The idea is that if Host Community groups could be started in cities all over the world, there will be more potential for hosts to organize politically to advocate for our own interests (which just happen to be similar to Airbnb's interests) in various cities around the world.
THere are a couple difficulties with this that I can see. One is that as we have found, it's really HOSTS who do the best job organizing and creating host community, not Airbnb. When Airbnb either tries to offer "fun activities" or nominate host leaders (who as you found Peter, may not be people who have anything to do with the local host community) this ends up being quite artificial, and for that reason, won't succeed very well. But the other difficulty is that there are not many places where a sizeable number of hosts are truly interested in creating community (having meetings, get togethers) unless there is political work to be done, that is important because it threatens host's livelihood. In other words, people don't tend to organize until they need to organize.
Now it may turn out that some of these efforts do create some degree of community, because some hosts seem to respond well to being asked by Airbnb to do something. But since they aren't being asked to create community with Airbnb employees, but rather with other hosts, there needs to be something real there to foster that relationship. ANd this generally needs to be more substantial than common interests, such as playing chess or going surfing or playing soccer etc.
In my area, because there were already two leaders (Myself and JOrdie) in the East Bay, Airbnb is working with us as leaders and recognizing us as leaders for the East Bay version of its club. The person from Airbnb coordinates with us to set up meetings, and he calls hosts to ask them to come. So far the two or three meetings we have had have been quite boring for me. Essentially, what happens is that each time we meet, we get newbie hosts who have very little understanding about the history of Airbnb rentals in our area, and each time we go thru the process of telling them about this history.
ANd then each time they ask some of the same dorky newbie host questions. I find That I have very little patience with this as I can only say the same thing over a dozen times before I find it annoying. My co-leader Jordie is more patient and more extroverted and she likes meeting people and hanging out and telling the stories and answering some of the same questions. So I told the AIrbnb rep to set up the meetings with he and her and I said I would come to the meetings where they had a real agenda -- and to my mind, saying the same things over and over to a new group of 4 to 10 hosts each time is not a meaningful agenda.
I think this all can make sense if you see that the ultimate reason for these clubs AIrbnb is trying to create, is to help Airbnb fight back against hostile city governments, and the consequences of cities hostile to Short term rentals, by helping hosts organize in cities around the world. That is the basic point of it all. So as you can see this makes sense. It's just that, lacking a threat to one's livelihood as occurred with the horrible laws proposed in SF and the high level of host engagement that resulted from such bad proposed laws (the extremely restrictive proposed laws were not passed b/c hosts organized to fight), it is hard to motivate hosts to organize. Hosts put in hours and hours of effort in SF, but they would not have done so if SF had been very content with relatively mild laws like in many other cities.
If you don't see this self-interested rationale underneath the whole thing, then it will indeed appear odd, and one might wonder why in the world Airbnb is getting so very interested in helping hosts get together to have potlucks or play chess or card games or baseball etc.
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Post by High Priestess on Apr 9, 2016 19:29:27 GMT
That does sound difficult in Berlin....I do not envy Airbnb having to try to contend with both city governments from one side and hosts on the other side and mediate, as well as work for its own interests....but at least if they have an office in a city that would give them more resources to do this educational work one would think.
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Post by Olivier François on Apr 9, 2016 21:30:33 GMT
I'm totally confused: on one hand, with the new TOS, airbnb put us away with 30 days contract, highlighting hosts are totally external, can't raise its voice under punishment of being delisted. On the other hand they want hosts in communities totally under airbnb control like some little army encouraged to fight for them for free. It's time for them to decide if we are in or out.
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Post by Olivier François on Apr 9, 2016 21:35:50 GMT
I'm totally confused: on one hand, with the new TOS, airbnb put us away with 30 days contract, highlighting hosts are totally external, can't raise its voice under punishment of being delisted. On the other hand they want hosts in communities totally under airbnb control like some little army encouraged to fight for them for free. It's time for them to decide if we are in or out.
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Post by High Priestess on Apr 10, 2016 17:00:48 GMT
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