A lot of the travel process, before you enjoy your destination, is price comparison. Yet trying to quickly compare pricing is rarely as easy as one might think it should be.

In a world where the “lowest lead price” catches eyeballs, travelers are often uncertain if their comparisons accurately reflect the total price. For far too long, Airbnb hasn’t been neutral on this, and in fact things have been becoming worse.

Attractive lead in prices were becoming further removed from reality, as new fee features appeared, a “$100 a night” stay would often end up over $200. Why? Platform service fees, cleaning fees, and a variety of others were added

Following the lead of airlines, which have become better at noting some fares don’t include checked bags, or seat selections from the start, Airbnb is set to tackle fees after a long review of its fee structure, and even more importantly, how they display prices.

Airbnb Tackling Fees

Brian Chesky, Co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, stated that the cleaning fees were “never intentionally designed,” which is a short way of saying that they never assumed hosts would use these fees to game listings, thus earning additional money for rentals.

You are correct – the cleaning fees were never intentionally designed, which is why we're now playing catch up. This is one of my top priorities – we are redesigning how pricing on Airbnb works

— Brian Chesky (@bchesky) October 10, 2022

It’s disappointing that so many hosts have added outsized cleaning fees, impacting the total price paid for accommodation, especially during short stays.

Travel Fee Culture

So, the first question is, why additional fees are so ubiquitous across all areas of travel pricing? Well, fees comes down to two very important concepts:

• Search (Price Ranking) – Getting your listing to rank higher in online searches.
• Commissions – Most hotel fees (resort fees) go directly to the hotel property cutting out any commission payments to travel gents or online travel agencies.

Airbnb Cleaning Fees

In essence, cleaning fees are the Airbnb equivalent of hotel or resort fees. This is especially true when reviewing the price per night for a stay. Often don’t see the fees until check-out or when you’re ready to complete a reservation.

A distasteful surprise

At least a “cleaning fee” is for something specific and sensible. In contrast, many hotel resort fees include unnecessary services and are generally unwanted by consumers.

Nebulous examples include free local phone calls, notary services, or a daily newspaper. These items should really already be included in the per night pricing for a hotel stay. That would be better, but still not great.

Fees as a Profit Center

For those that want to get deeper into fees, check out (paywalled) this Wall Street Journal Article from September 2022, Welcome to Your Airbnb, the Cleaning Fees Are $143 and You’ll Still Have to Wash the Linens.

In short, thee cleaning fee is just like hotel resort fees, Airbnb cleaning fees have become a profit center. The fees cover the cost of the cleaning services and include a markup for the host as extra profit.

Airbnb Fees: A Business, Not Tech Decision

The way Airbnb fees are displayed in search results has been a business decision and not a technical issue. It’s a choice that was allowed to run, perhaps until things got a little out of hand.

In fact, Skift recently shared an article about these fees, pointing out several items demonstrating the methodology used by Airbnb for defining these fees.

Cleaning fees should legitimately cover costs for cleaning and not be a profit center. If hosts desire higher rates for stays, they should focus on the value proposition of a property and price it accordingly.

Changes on the Way? Airbnb Says They Are

In the coming weeks to months, Airbnb will be testing how to display prices based on the review that started over a year ago. But, providing tips to hosts and suggesting that cleaning fees not be added, or be reasonable, has not been enough to discourage exaggerated cleaning fees.

According to Brian Chesky, the founder and CEO of Airbnb, the platform has been listening to users about their experiences and complaints.

It’s taken awhile, but the new hope is that a combination of added upfront transparency on pricing along with a prioritization of listings with lower fees will become common as part of the renting process for Airbnb.

Treating guests as valuable customers begins with the search and pricing experience. Nobody wants to feel tricked or “ripped off” after they’ve fallen in love with a place.

It seems that Airbnb is finally giving customers what they want, and realizing that encouraging transparency and awarding more transparent hosts can only be beneficial.