Airbnb has announced that it will start enabling customers to choose to see the total price of rentals — including all fees before taxes — in search results and on the map, filter and listing page.
The company will also prioritize total price rather than nightly price in its search rankings so that the best total prices will rank higher, the company said Monday (Nov. 7) in a press release. Airbnb will start rolling out the changes in December.
These changes came more than a year after Airbnb said it would review its fees in response to backlash on social media from customers complaining about fees that were not immediately displayed as part of the price, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Monday.
In some cases, the Airbnb fees, taxes and cleaning fee greatly increase the price that was initially displayed to the customer. In one example, the cleaning fee for a one-night stay was higher than the nightly price, WSJ reported in April.
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky told WSJ that the company wants customers to select the new option to see the total price.
“We want everyone to see it,” Chesky said in the Monday report. “We want people to turn it on.”
Contacted by PYMNTS for comment, an Airbnb spokesperson shared links to the company’s Monday announcement and to some Twitter threads in which Chesky announced the changes in pricing and checkout.
Chesky had signaled Nov. 1 during the company’s quarterly earnings call that Airbnb was undertaking an effort to more clearly disclose the total pricing and fees charged per night or stay on a property.
“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 are actually paying when they first get to Airbnb,” Chesky said during the call. “I think the North Star for us on this matter is transparency.”
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