Airbnb plans to be honest about pricing, but cleaning fees aren't going away

Airbnb may have won over hotel customers looking to have a little more space when they book a stay during the pandemic.

But just as hidden resort fees rankle hotel guests, Airbnb's hidden fees — largely centered on sky-high cleaning costs — are a major turnoff to those booking a vacation rental.

That's all about to change. Airbnb plans to bring those cleaning fees and other costs out of the shadows and incorporate them into the overall cost of each rental listing.

"One of the things we're doing is we're going to continue to move toward a more all-in pricing where when you see [the total] pricing," Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said on an earnings call this week. "Instead of seeing more of a nightly rate, you're going to see a little bit more of a fully loaded rate."

Along with cleaning fees, other charges like Airbnb's service fees are currently tallied on a final booking page instead of being included in the initial nightly rate advertised on an Airbnb listing.

This might sound familiar to hotel guests who typically don't see things like resort fees added until much later in the booking process. Marriott even settled with the Pennsylvania attorney general's office late last year on its criticized "drip pricing" policy.

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Airbnb's push for transparency means its search ranking will prioritize "great value" and a "great deal for the fully loaded pricing," Chesky said without giving too many specifics. There will also be discount tools and other features to allow hosts to "remain competitive" and enable the broader company to remain similarly competitive from a pricing standpoint.

"One of the things that we've been hearing from guests, and we heard it loud and clear, is that people would like a little more transparency about what they're actually paying when they first get to Airbnb," Chesky said. "We are working on redesigning how pricing works on Airbnb, so people better understand the total price they're going to pay the moment they arrive at Airbnb, and it's not a surprise to them."

Again, specifics of how that might be achieved without driving hosts away to list on different platforms like Vrbo were not mentioned on the earnings call. Instead, the only real detail referenced was that more tools will be available to enable hosts to offer discounts on their homes.

There will also be a greater push to "make it easier for hosts to understand" how much they are charging, as Chesky claimed a host often doesn't know how much a guest is paying after Airbnb factors in its own service charges.

The Airbnb CEO also noted the company's "north star" going forward is transparency. Keep in mind: Even after the Marriott lawsuit, hotels continue to charge resort fees.

Just because Airbnb's guiding light going forward is supposedly transparency doesn't mean it will crack down on a $300 cleaning fee at your next beachfront vacation rental.