Skift Take
Cleanliness standards will guide guest preferences in the years ahead. Short-term rental host practices will have to undergo significant enhancements to cope with that changing consumer behavior — a heightened sensitivity to just how clean their surroundings are as an outgrowth of the coronavirus pandemic.
While some airlines may be mulling shedding middle seats, Airbnb is rolling out two voluntary sanitization and coronavirus prevention programs for hosts, including one that would block guest arrivals for 72 hours between stays.
With the knowledge that the depth of such cleanliness programs could be a defining factor in post-coronavirus guest confidence, Airbnb's plan has some hosts opting to use a booking buffer tool that would automatically block reservations for an established period, such as 72 hours, between stays. Cleaning would be the only permissible activity during this duration.
Booking Buffer Tool
The buffer tool, which grew out of Airbnb's practice of making hosts' homes available for medical personnel and first-responders, would be the less rigorous of the two programs that Airbnb is rolling out globally in May.
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