In its Winter 2023 Release, Airbnb has rolled out some important updates to make the Airbnb experience even more reliable and affordable for guests while encouraging hosts to strive for excellence. One of the most important upgrades is the introduction of the Guest Favorites feature to highlight top-rated homes and rooms on the platform and help guests find great places to stay.
Read on to discover how this new feature may affect your listings and what strategies you can use to adapt to this change.
If you are just beginning your hosting journey, you may also want to check out our Airbnb hosting how-to guide to find answers to common questions.
What Are Guest Favorites?
Guest Favorites is a collection of the 2 million most-loved homes on Airbnb based on ratings, guest reviews, and reliability data from over half a billion trips. These listings receive an Airbnb Guest Favorite badge, displayed in search results and on listings’ pages to guarantee that each property meets the highest standards. Travelers can also use a new filter to search specifically for Guest Favorite listings.
According to Airbnb, Guest Favorites have some common characteristics:
- They boast excellent reviews and ratings above 4.9 stars on average.
- They also stand out for ease of check-in, cleanliness, accuracy of description, host communication, location, and value offered.
- Moreover, these listings have an impressive record of reliability, with minimal host cancellations and very few quality-related customer service issues (1% on average).
If your listing is included in Guest Favorites, it can benefit from enhanced visibility and will likely attract more guests. And since the badge is a marker of trust and quality, it can potentially increase the listing’s booking rates.
Then, you’ll need to proactively communicate with your guests via messages to provide them with the necessary information and make them feel cared for and welcome. This can help build relationships with your guests and increase the chances of repeat bookings. Automating the process using vacation rental management software like Hospitable is the easiest way to ensure perfect communication with guests.
Have conversations with your guests even when you sleep
How It Works
As the company explains, hosts don’t need to apply for their listing to be evaluated for the Guest favorite badge. All Airbnb properties are evaluated automatically every day to determine which homes are the most loved by guests. The Airbnb Guest Favorite badge is automatically applied and updated every 24 hours.
Many factors are considered to create a score that helps determine whether a listing qualifies as a Guest Favorite, including:
- At least five guest reviews,
- Overall star ratings and feedback in guest reviews,
- Subcategory ratings for check-in, cleanliness, accuracy, host communication, location, and value,
- Host cancellation rates,
- A number of quality-related incidents reported to Airbnb customer service.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence tools consider all these factors and automatically award the Guest Favorite badge to the properties at the top. You should focus on these main areas to help your listing become one of the most loved by guests on Airbnb.
Since the Guest Favorites category is updated daily, earning the badge is quite attainable even if your listing isn’t included now. You just need to be a responsible host and follow the best practices to ensure an exceptional guest experience.
But it’s important to remember that a dynamic Airbnb Guest Favorites badge is added (and removed) from a listing using an AI-powered system based on guest feedback. That means you need to consistently maintain high customer service standards to make your guests happy. Even a single bad review from a disappointed guest could immediately impact your listing’s status and visibility.
As a busy Airbnb host, you have a lot of responsibilities. That’s why it makes sense to automate your routine tasks using vacation rental software like Hospitable and make your business more efficient. This way, you can ensure that everything runs smoothly and will have more time to focus on enhancing the overall guest experience.
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How Guest Favorite Differs from Superhost Status
According to Airbnb, nearly two-thirds of Guest Favorites are hosted by Superhosts with a strong track record of outstanding hospitality. The company emphasizes that the Airbnb Superhost program is not changing, and the Superhost criteria remain the same.
The key difference between these two statuses is that a Superhost badge is awarded at the host account level to the top-rated and most experienced hosts on the platform and is reviewed quarterly. As to Guest Favorites, it is a badge that is reserved for the highest-rated listings on Airbnb, awarded to an individual listing, and reviewed daily.
So, if you manage several Airbnb properties, each of them will be treated individually when determining whether they’re eligible for the Guest Favorite badge. If you’re a Superhost, your listings included in Guest Favorites will get the Guest Favorite badge in search results. And those that don’t qualify as Guest Favorites will retain the Superhost badge.
Your listings’ Guest Favorite status won’t affect your Superhost status, which remains valuable and prestigious for hosts. The Guest Favorite badge offers an immediate, specific, and dynamic way to highlight the quality of individual listings in Airbnb search results. It’s designed to catch the eye of potential guests as they browse through numerous options. If your Airbnb listing earns the Guest Favorite badge, it can lead to increased visibility and potentially more bookings.
The Airbnb Guest Favorite badge is awarded to an individual listing based on feedback in guest reviews; new Airbnb properties are at a disadvantage compared to more seasoned rentals. You’ll need to encourage your guests to leave you a review; the proven way to do it is to write yours first. You may want to check out our blog article for some good Airbnb review examples you can copy and paste.
