As the year 2020 goes on, the one
common concern that has been steadily creeping into all possible events,
subjects and topics of discussion is the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19),
which originated in China and has spread alarmingly throughout the world. Its
exponential infection rate has all but paralyzed several national economies,
with travel bans and lockdowns being implemented. A multitude of concerts, conventions
and movie premieres have either been pushed back or put off indefinitely
because of the outbreak. Even the world hospitality sector has taken hits with
the increasing reluctance to travel, particularly online hospitality market
platform Airbnb.
The Verge tells us that online hospitality brokering and booking
service Airbnb is being forced to hunker down as the novel coronavirus
infection rolls across the world, increasingly souring prospective
globetrotters from going anywhere. Many Airbnb customers who have made bookings
for listed lodging, homestay or offerings hosting on the platform have begun
cancelling their plans. Such a mass backing-off could drive the listed hosts to
potentially large losses were it not for Airbnb opting to make a temporary
change in their online reservation policies. This policy revamp will be left in
effect for nearly all that remains of the first half of this year.
To wit, Airbnb will for a time
not charge their listed hosts with the 3 percent fee that is excised from them
anytime they would refund more money from a guest’s cancelled booking than is
required in the platform’s cancellation policy. In that way, both the guests
who have changed their minds about their bookings, and the hosts they would
have booked with, will not lose much money in their cancelled transactions.
Airbnb hosts will have to opt into this feature, collectively titled “More
Flexible Reservations,” but those who did avail will have their hospitality offerings
be given priority visibility in the app’s lodging listings.
From the guests’ end, they will
not stand to lose much of their booking money when cancelling thanks to Airbnb
also waiving the 14 percent guest service fee. When guests get no service fee
charged from them, they will receive a travel coupon in that same amount that
they could keep for when they want to use it in future.
While these arrangements, which
will last until June 1 according to the Airbnb website news blog, are already a
significant load off from guests and hosts who are cancelling bookings due to
trying times, the service’s policy also includes a proviso for “extenuating
circumstances,” wherein a guest that can claim having travelled to or from a
host location with a “severely impacted” status under the COVID-19 outbreak, can
thus claim a 100 percent booking refund. Such claims will be studied carefully
by Airbnb as the conditions of countries with confirmed infected cases change
over time.
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