A brand new Airbnb feature was added to the platform a few weeks ago: co-hosting. Once limited to vacation rental owners’ friends and acquaintances, anyone can now help host travelers.

What’s a co-host?

A co-host can help you manage your vacation rental and its logistics. Writing the listing, handling emails, checking in and out the travelers… In short, you pick which services you need help with and define the related service fees.

You have two options: either you know a friend who could help you, either you don’t know anyone and will need to use Airbnb’s co-hosting service.

If you’d like to become a co-host, there’s nothing easier! Just add your profile to your neighborhood’s co-host directory. Pick the services on which you wish to help and define your service fees. They’re generally ranging between 10 to 20% of the booking revenues. When an owner picks you up, you then become the travelers’ official intermediary: it’s now your duty to share your sense of hospitality and hosting, valued by Airbnb! That’s also an easy way for you to supplement your income.

One last feature was added to the platform: owners who also have a co-hosting activity can now create a company profile. This page gives a preview of all the vacation rentals you own AND you co-host. This also highlights your rating!

What about property managers?

As you can imagine, this new service may not be equally appreciated by all the vacation rental professionals.

With this new feature, Airbnb keeps extending its offer and highlighting the non-professionals: following Experiences (various experiences to book during your stay) and Places (a guide to help you discover your host’s favorite places), your friends or neighbours can help you in your activity.

These services are not yet available everywhere. Will the vacation rental owners trust their neighbours and give the keys to their home, or will they prefer to call upon professional vacation rental agencies? Only time will tell...