Airbnb is rolling out a new toggle to show you the price, inclusive of all fees (before taxes), for your stay instead of showing you a per-night price. This means you won’t have to go to the booking page to see other fees like service fees and cleaning fees.
The company first announced this update back in November, and now it is making the feature available to users through a toggle. If you turn on the toggle, the search algorithm will prioritize the total price of the stay (before taxes) in ranking for search results. So properties with a lower nightly rate but high cleaning fees won’t show up on the top.
The question is why not switch to showing all-inclusive prices by default? Last month, Airbnb told TechCrunch that the opt-in search method “allows us to educate guests as to this change, without causing additional confusion.” The company doesn’t want to make a sudden switch to the new search parameter as some users might be used to seeing the nightly price. While it is offering a toggle in early access, Airbnb said that it plans to make all-inclusive pricing a default parameter the next year.
Airbnb, which rolled out a bunch of host tools last month, said that next year it plans to introduce more pricing and discounting tools for hosts to help them see the price guests are paying. The company said this will help the listing owners set more competitive prices.
What’s more, the company is set to improve guests’ checkout experience by providing guidelines to hosts about being “reasonable” about tasks.
“Guests should not have to do unreasonable checkout tasks such as stripping the beds, doing the laundry, or vacuuming when leaving their Airbnb. But we think it’s reasonable to ask guests to turn off the lights, throw food in the trash, and lock the doors—just like they would when leaving their own home,” it said.
However, Airbnb didn’t detail how it plans to enforce these rules on hosts and guests. Airbnb users have long complained about ridiculous cleaning fees and a long list of checkout tasks listed by some hosts. The company is now finally paying attention to some of these problems.
Apart from this, CEO Brian Chesky is also focused on increasing hosts on the platform, as he doesn’t want to “get to a supply-constrained era.” To onboard more hosts on the service, the company launched a new program last month to let renters find Airbnb-friendly apartments in select markets.