By XIE Yixin
News that Airbnb will shut down in China from 30 July came as a surprise to many hosts. Mengmeng Mao joined Airbnb in 2016 and operates seven properties in Hangzhou, the capital city of the coastal Zhejiang Province known for its historic relics and natural environment, all of which are now offline. She told Jiemian News of her anger, and helplessness, not least because the platform now requires hosts to go through follow-up procedures.
Not trying hard enough
In 2020, in the early days of the pandemic, Airbnb sacked about a quarter of its 7,500 staff. The annual report showed that the Asia-pacific accounted for only 7 percent of total revenue. China has accounted for about 1 percent of Airbnb’s revenue for the last few years.
Airbnb has tried hard in China, from changing its name to replacing its China boss three times within five years. Its business model is not suited to the local market. Hosts complain of poor customer service and fake reviews.
Airbnb is the master of the hidden charge, allowing hosts to advertise places well below their market value while adding a plethora of hidden “service” fees, sometimes the room rate can rise by more than 30 percent when all the compulsory extras are added, including extra fees for special anti-covid measures. These charges are often nothing more than a number on a bill and do not relate to any actual costs or services.
Traditional values
Airbnb was the pioneer of OTAs with unique corporate culture, a good interaction system with B&B hosts and new concepts. The closure leaves two groups of hosts in the lurch: full-time hosts with large businesses, and part-time hosts who remain true to the original Airbnb concept and value social interactions over money.
Leizi has had 15 rooms listed in Hangzhou since 2019. “I’ve got thousands of good comments, but they all go down the drain now,” he said. “With the closure of Airbnb, people will go to domestic platforms. We’ve lost a distribution channel, but Meituan and Tujia dominate the Chinese B&B market. Airbnb was always a small-time operation in China.”
Unreasonable demands
WANG Zhan, one of the first hosts in China, believes that Airbnb’s two-way evaluation rules for hosts and tenants make it more authentic than any other evaluation system. In domestic platforms, the host has to sacrifice their integrity to meet some unreasonable needs of customers.
“Airbnb is responsible for disputes, compensation and unreasonable cancellations. On other platforms these expenses are down to the hosts,” he said.
