Vacation rental and Airbnb news

• Sleep like Dracula @ Airbnb

  Halloween nights don’t get much spookier than this. You can now sleep like Dracula at a Castle in Transylvania, Romania. Earlier this month, Airbnb announced that Bran Castle in Romania, also known as “Dracula’s Castle”, would be listed on its website for the night of October...

• New app to check your Airbnb's ranking position

  Yourporter has just launched a new app checking your Airbnb's ranking position in search.  See also: 10 Airbnb SEO tips to improve your Airbnb ranking position The app was recently launced and you can get a detailed report on your Airbnb's ranking position on a daily or weekly...

• Airbnb can no longer protect horrible listings

  Regulators have forced Airbnb to rectify a major flaw in its customer review system which meant that until now some of the worst listings have escaped bad reviews. Currently, guests who decide to cancel their stay or leave early because the apartment or house is a bit of a dump cannot automatically...

• Airbnb explains what star rating means

  I just used Airbnb as a guest recently and one change I noticed is that when writing a review, Airbnb is explaining what each star means as follows: 1 star = Terrible 2 Star = Bad 3 Star = OK 4 Star = Good 5 Star = Great

• Airbnb is about to launch a premium service to compete with luxury hotels

  "Airbnb is close to launching a new service that will match guests with quality-inspected home and apartment rentals. The product is intended to attract higher-paying travellers who have yet to use Airbnb because they prefer the amenities guaranteed by fancy hotels, said three people familiar with...

• Airbnb is introducing new rules for instant book:

  Airbnb is introducing new rules for instant book: Improved calendaring — giving hosts with multiple listings (for example, a host with a listing for an entire home and a separate listing for a room inside that home) controls to link their Airbnb calendars and prevent double-bookings, as well...

• NEWS: Misterb&b raises $8.5 million to build the Airbnb for the LGBTQ community

  "Is there room for smaller, more focused Airbnb competitors? French startup Misterb&b thinks so as the startup just raised $8.5 million from Project A and Ventech to build an apartment renting platform focused on the LGBTQ community. As the name suggests, Misterb&b started with a focus on...

• News: Airbnb is standardizing the check-in process to make it way less confusing

  Airbnb is standardizing the check-in process to make it way less confusing  "Airbnb is rolling out a new check-in instructions tool to streamline and improve guest arrivals. Now, guests of hosts who opt in to the new tool will receive clear, visual, in-app step-by-step guides on what to...

• News: Airbnb increases fees and changes cancellation policies

  Airbnb increases fees for hosts and changes it's cancellation policies.  In short, what is going to happen is the following: The Moderate and Strict policies (less favourable to the guests), will be accompanied by an increase in host service fees, from 3% to respectively 4% and 5% to...

• Airbnb targets business travellers

  Airbnb business travel is now ready Airbnb has just launced its new thing: Airbnb for business.    Airbnb is now targeting business travellers and listings eligible to meet those travellers requirements can now "upgrade" to get the Airbnb business badge. To get the airbnb...