Airbnb’s history actually began with rooms; hosts would offer up an extra room in the house or even couch space to make a few bucks. That platform grew to include whole apartments for rent, entire houses, and even: full-on castles. Now, as summer travel begins and people feel the pinch of lingering money issues from the pandemic, Airbnb’s launching its Rooms feature so you can search for private room stays.
Most people would probably say the one thing that keeps them from renting a room is not knowing who they’d be staying with. Someone creepy? Someone unlikeable? Airbnb is addressing that concern with the Host Passport, which includes details that hosts share about themselves, so you can get to know them a little bit and see if you feel comfortable staying in a room in their space. These facts range from sharing what they do for work to what the title of their biography would be, to what they eat for breakfast, what they spend too much time doing, and what makes their home unique. Visitors can also narrow down the search with additional filters and privacy features. If you’re happy with a private bedroom but can’t handle sharing a bathroom, you can search within Rooms to find ones with private attached bathrooms.
Most importantly for trust, Airbnb promises that all hosts will go through identity verification by spring, which should eliminate hoax listings.
Right now, the Rooms category has 1 million curated private rooms to pick from, and they’re inexpensive. Most of them (more than 80 percent) cost less than $100 a night. The average rate has been $67 a night. And people are really interested in these Rooms stays. Last year, these stays increased by 40 percent and hosts in the U.S. earned $1.2 billion—the typical host earning close to $5,000.
Airbnb’s 2023 Summer Release also includes a few other features to improve the experience. The wishlist feature has been redesigned to permit you to make notes to the listing to remind yourself why you were excited to stay there. An improved calendar also shows you the availability of all the places you’ve wishlisted. Another helpful feature is the total price display, which incorporates taxes and fees, to avoid sticker shock when you actually book the property. In December, Airbnb first offered this as a toggle, and a ton of people turned it on—why wouldn’t you want to know from the get-go what the site really costs?
Finally, amid complaints that hosts were requiring too many cleanup duties from guests, there’s now a more transparent way to view checkout instructions, so you can see what’s required before you book and receive a reminder as you prepare to depart from the space. During the review process, guests can also report any excessive requests from hosts—who may end up being removed from Airbnb if their chore list is ridiculous.
Hosts also receive improvements like pricing tools so they can compare their space to nearby properties, and a way for them to easily add in discounts for weekly or monthly stays. Altogether, there are 50 upgrades in this summer release; see them all here.