Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky announced Wednesday the company has built a new system to verify listings, which will be denoted by an icon on the platform's maps starting in February.
The news came as part of a broader announcement Chesky posted on X, formerly Twitter, about improvements to the company’s service. He said verified listings would begin first in the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and France, with 30 more countries added next fall.
A company statement said the effort complements ongoing work to “prevent fraud, remove bad actors and increase trust in our community.” Airbnb said it blocked 157,000 fake listings from joining the platform this year and removed an additional 59,000 on a site with more than 7 million listings.
Jamie Lane, chief economist with AirDNA, a data and analytics company that tracks short-term vacation rental data, welcomed the announcement.
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“Verified listings is something that users have been calling for for some time and should go some way to improving user trust in Airbnb,” he said. “Implementing this feature brings the Airbnb experience closer to the expectations one might have when checking into a hotel.”
Chesky nor the company provided any details on how the process would work. Vrbo said on its website it screens for fraud by verifying accounts, conducting background and fraud checks.
Airbnb has been trying to make it easier to bring more supply onto its platform, with initiatives to match potential hosts with existing Superhosts and to offer host insurance and other protections. In August, the company announced during its second quarter earnings report that its supply had increased 19% compared with the same period last year.
Ironically, the company scored plenty of free publicity this year over an incident that reportedly involved an unverified short-term rental on a different website. Alix Earle, a 22-year-old with millions who follow her skincare and makeup tips on TikTok, was with friends in Italy when she posted on TikTok that the house where they were supposed to stay didn’t exist.
Someone on Airbnb’s TikTok account was among the more than 5 million who viewed the post — and a follow-up video from Earle showed her group enjoying themselves in a palatial villa and thanking Airbnb for arranging it.
Airbnb cleaning fees and other updates
Verified listings was just one of the updates Chesky highlighted in Wednesday’s tweet. He also addressed new search filters for king-size beds and pet-friendly homes; faster response times on customer service calls; and lower cleaning fees and prices.
“Hotel prices are up 10% from a year ago,” he wrote. “The average price of a 1-bedroom Airbnb is down 1%. This fall, we’re releasing updates to help make Airbnb even more affordable.”
What Chesky didn’t mention in citing the price for one-bedroom units is that the overall average daily rate of an Airbnb rental increased 36% higher between 2019 and 2022, as reported by chief financial officer David Stephenson in February during a full-year 2022 earnings call with analysts.
Verified listings is something that users have been calling for for some time and should go some way to improving user trust in Airbnb.
Jamie Lane - AirDNA
Asked about the other updates, AirDNA’s Lane said it was great to see Airbnb make it easier on pet owners.
“We’ve known for some time that pet-friendly rentals are popular with guests and in many cases can even earn more than their counterparts,” she said.
Lane also weighed in on the cleaning fees, which have been a point of contention for many guests, who have accused hosts of hiking the fee to compensate for listing lower daily rates that turn up more prominently on search results.
Chesky noted that following the launch of Airbnb’s total price display this year, more than 260,000 listings lowered or removed cleaning fees, and nearly 3 million listings don’t charge a cleaning fee.
Research by AirDNA shows that the cleaning fees are mostly a North American issue; only 15% of U.S. properties don’t charge a cleaning fee and 18% in Canada. By contrast, just over half of properties in the U.K. don’t charge a fee. In most of Western Europe, more than 2 in 5 properties don’t charge a fee.
“The case could be made that all-inclusive pricing incentivizes including your cleaning fee in your rates,” Lane said. “Airbnb’s new announcement seems to reinforce that.”
Wednesday’s news comes amid greater regulatory scrutiny from local governments. While Airbnb has welcomed efforts by the European Union to craft uniform rules for short-term rentals, it sued to stop New York City from implementing regulations Airbnb called a de facto ban against short-term rentals.
After the suit was dismissed, New York in September began enforcing the rules, which bar hosts from renting out an entire apartment or home and require they be present during their guests’ stays. Fines for hosts who violate the rules range up to $5,000, depending on the violation. Booking platforms could face penalties of up to $1,500 for processing payments from unregistered hosts.
The Phocuswright Conference 2023
Hear from Airbnb commercial director Amir Segall during the event November 13-16 in Fort Lauderdale.