Airbnb Changes

Airbnb Changes 2017

Airbnb Changes 2017 – How it affects your vacation rental business


Platform Airbnb is currently rolling out new changes to their website and policies that may affect the way you use the site. Airbnb is working to make the booking experience as user-friendly as possible by changing the way that users interact with the site. Making a note of these changes early and often can prepare you and give you time to adjust your business. Currently, there are 3 Airbnb changes to be aware of. Keep reading to learn more.

Instant Book preference

We all know that the Instant booking option has been around for some time now. It’s a great way to help expedite the booking process by letting guests get immediate confirmation of a rental. Despite the fact that hosts are split on whether they like this feature or not, Airbnb wants to focus on it moving forward. The instant book feature is so essential to Airbnb that they are giving preference to those who use it. If you choose to use Instant Book, your listings will rank higher in searches. If you’re on the fence with this feature, the ranking boost may be enough to encourage you to use it.

Removing multiple listings

In some cities where the rental property is scarce, Airbnb is cracking down on short-term rentals and removing multiple listings from hosts. In other words, each host must only rent one location on the platform. To read more about this change in Vancouver, click here.

Data sharing

Since Airbnb started in 2008, they’ve changed the rental industry for good. Despite their ingenuity, one of their weak points has been working with local authorities and adhering to local laws. A way that they’re working through this is by sharing their user data with certain cities as a peace offering. Data collected by Airbnb is robust and informative and can help cities understand who is renting and for how long. Some Airbnb hosts are concerned about this data sharing and its implications. They consider it intrusive and worry if the data will fall into the wrong hands.

Pro tip: Want to learn more about Airbnb changes? Click here to read about how both Airbnb and HomeAway are making changes to their policies.

As you can see, there are a lot of changes are going on with Airbnb. One thing that will never change? The long-term success that you can get from Hosty! Hosty is professional vacation rental management software that can help you no matter what changes Airbnb makes. Hosty will help you organize your listings, keep track of arrivals and departures and message guests, all from one easy to use the platform. Ready to get started? Sign up and start your 14-day free trial today.

A great way to safeguard yourself from some of these changes is to make sure you post your listings on multiple channels and always paying attention to new developments. However, keeping up with Airbnb changes can be tough. Luckily, Hosty can help. Simply check back on our blog often to makes sure you always have the most up to date information on the news that matters to you most.