AIRBNB’S
When Susie, Todd and I began to use Airbnb’s four years ago we assumed that Airbnb’s were extra rooms in people’s houses that they were given a way of renting to strangers for a night or two through the Airbnb network. It was the trustworthy network that made this possible. You advertised through Airbnb and people located you through Airbnb and all money went through Airbnb, which was trustworthy. It was an alternative to hotels which could also be booked in a similar way on line through booking.com and other sites. It gave you a chance to meet a local host, but could also be very uneven in the quality of housing and service.
But now that I’ve been using Airbnb for several years I find that it is much more complicated than this.
In the last year I booked an Airbnb in Greece where I became good friends with the host who lived downstairs and rented two unconnected private rooms upstairs. I booked an Airbnb in London where I was literally in one of the bedrooms of the house and shared all facities including the bathroom with the host and ant other guest. In San Francisco I rented a room in an apartment with other guests without ever meeting the host by being instructed how to type in a code to get in and out of the apartment. I don’t know where the host lived. In Montmartre the apartment I and Susie stayed in was part of a corporate network of apartments with an employee sent to sign me in and turn everything on, after which I only connected with the office when the Wifi stopped working and someone from the a Wifi company was sent to correct things. In Essouria the very nice host was living in France and a representative was sent to turn things on and give me the keys. All of our contact was through Airbnb messaging. In Marrakesh we signed up for a room in a Riad, a hotel, and paid through Airbnb but otherwise were like any other guest as also happened in Casablanca, where the hosts needed Airbnb to direct people to them but resented paying Airbnb a 20% fee. Airbnb won’t let you connect with any of these forms of Airbnb until you have reserved and paid for a room and after that encourage you to only communicate through Airbnb messaging in order to protect the 20% commission which Airbnb doesn’t want to lose by people connecting directly.
The upshot of this is that you don’t know quite what you are getting when you reserve a room or apartment through Airbnb.
There are upsides and downsides to each of these arrangements. You have more privacy if you never see your host but you miss out on the great experiences we had with Adel La Tief in Taroudant or Effi in Naousa. But when you share everything with a host like Lili
Froufrou in London in her everything pink house who had very strict rules about wearing shoes or taking showers or making noice and were continually practice Pilates in the tiny kitchen area you become tangled up and have tensions.
It is very hard to anticipate what you are getting yourself into and I guess that is part of the experience of another culture.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 