Latest / STR Unpacked / Airbnb Cut The Fee To 6%. Direct Isn't Free Either.
Transcript
- Ben: Good morning and welcome to your short term rental bulletin on the 1st of September. Welcome to autumn. So I want to jump on a story that I think a lot of people have been talking about, but I just wanted to give my take and that is of course that Airbnb will cut your fee from 15.5 % to 6 % if you bring the guest yourself. Now, before you take that, I think you should work out what your own direct channel costs actually are. So just to backtrack a little bit, late last week Airbnb began sending out emails to selected hosts about a direct booking link generated inside of a listing editor. Share it, a guest books through it, and your host service fee falls to a reported six or 10%. The booking still runs on Airbnb, which takes the payment, keeps the guest data and sets the terms. Now, the instinct is that you should be keeping all of that 15 or 15. and a half percent depending on what you charge. But you cannot because direct is not free. The card processing across Europe usually runs about 1.5 percent on your card issued on your own region. It can be up to 3.25 percent from one outside it. UK operators paid a cross border rate on European cards, which since 2021 is most of their guess. And then you add your booking chain engine, your channel manager or what. ever covers you for damage. By the time you finish, you're not truly that far from 6%, depending on how you run your operations. Now, that is unlikely to be an accident, I personally believe. The discount is priced just under a point where building your own channel pays for itself. There is one exception, however. A guest who has already stayed with you costs nothing to find. Paying anybody 6 % to reintroduce you to your own repeat guest is paying for demand that you yourself already own. The offer does not tell cold traffic and your database apart. You have to. So I think work out what your direct channel costs are before you let Airbnb just let it price it for you. That is your Monday bulletin. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you tomorrow.