Airbnb Mulls Removing Cleaning Fees as a Separate Charge
Photo Credit: An Airbnb in Utrecht, the Netherlands, as seen on July 15, 2017. Airbnb is trying to address the issue of high cleaning fees. Flickr.com / Umair Abassi
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Hosts may be sabotaging their own bookings by levying excessively high cleaning fees. It is turning off many people to Airbnb, which is a concern for the company.
Among the options that Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky is mulling to remedy what he said is a "huge problem," namely cleaning fees, is giving hosts the ability to levy "variable" cleaning fees.
He'd even like to see cleaning fees, which are set by hosts, eliminated as a line item in the total price when guests get ready to book a stay.
“Actually I’d like a customer to never see a cleaning fee," Chesky told journalist Kara Swisher in a pre-recorded session aired in her On with Kara Swisher podcast last month. "So we do want hosts to be able to say I need to add this fixed cost but when you go to Airbnb in the future, I’d like you just to see taxes and ideally nothing else, and that’s where we want to get to.”
His comments about variable cleaning fees, or eliminati
