Airbnb enhanced cleaning protocol

Airbnbase -

Airbnb partnered with experts in health and hospitality to develop an enhanced cleaning protocol to help support the community as travel evolves. Hosts with eligible listings who commit to these steps will get a special highlight ✨ on their listing page.

Airbnb enhanced cleaning protocol - Image Credits: jeshoots.com

Airbnb is making available new educational resources and a quiz for hosts on how to adhere to more rigorous cleanliness standards. This program includes enhanced procedures and guidance on how to clean every room in a home. These guidelines will include a learning program and quiz to empower our hosts' community.

Eligible hosts will be given the opportunity to attest/commit to these new cleanliness standards or to agree to a Booking Buffer of vacancy between stays (72h).

Start date: 3 June 2020, this program became available to eligible hosts. Airbnb says the option is currently available to hosts based in the US, but hosts in other countries reported to Airbnbase they were able to sign up. Check eligibility

Airbnb enhanced cleaning protocol eligibility requirements

  1. Listing type is not one of the following:
    • Private room
    • Shared room
    • Hotel room
  2. Listing has not been banned from the program by an admin
  3. Hosts with an average cleanliness rating of less than 4 stars can commit to the protocol, but the highlight won’t appear until there’s an improvement to their listing’s rating (that means getting at least three new reviews with an average cleanliness rating of 4.75)
  4. Host is not API connected
  5. Host will be encouraged to agree to wait 24h before the host/cleaner can access the listing

All eligible hosts will receive a notification about this program and will be encouraged to self-educate, take a quiz, and commit to the new Cleaning Protocol. Additionally, eligible hosts who commit (based off average cleaning start rating, etc.) will receive a special highlight on their eligible listings page.

How Airbnb enhanced cleaning protocol works

Airbnb is partnering with an expert third-party company that specializes in cleaning and sanitization with whom we've created cleaning standards contained in the protocol.

Airbnb is rolling out a new global self-serve training for hosts that want to take their cleaning practices to the next level. All hosts in eligible countries are strongly required to take the training and commit, but are not required at this time.

The Airbnb cleaning protocol is a 5-step process that was developed to empower the Airbnb community to reach these new cleaning standards.

The program includes:

  1. An education module that allows the host to read and show their understanding of the enhanced cleaning protocols
  2. Hosts are able to access the education module under a new Cleaning tab
  3. Every eligible host will only need to complete the quiz one time
  4. If the quiz is successfully completed an attestation will show in their settings
  5. A recommendation to a 24-hour block between reservations

As the cornerstone of the program, this process is detailed in a 30 page handbook. Hosts participate in the Enhanced Cleaning Initiative by committing to the cleaning protocol.

Important: The 72-hour Booking Buffer is a fallback option for those hosts who cannot comply with the enhanced cleaning protocol.

Booking Buffer

For safety reasons, if a host in unable to follow the cleaning protocol for any reason, eligible host can instead opt to apply a 72h Time blocking policy between stays:

  • If a host turns on the Booking Buffer, 3 nights before every reservation will be blocked on the listing calendar
  • If a host opt-out of the 72h Booking Buffer, any reservations created while opted-in, will honor the buffer
  • When the host turns the Booking Buffer on they also agree that the cleaner will not enter the listing for at least 24h after the guest checks-out
  • If conflicting reservations are present:
  • The system will inform the host on which date the last conflicting reservation is going to be completed, at which point they'll be able to opt-in the program
  • If the host has 1 or more listings with conflicting reservations, the system will surface which listing(s) has conflicting reservations in the bulk edit tool
  • The Booking Buffer applies to all reservations that start on or before July 31, 2020

Booking Buffer Eligibility

  1. Listing type is not one of the following:
  2. Private Room
  3. Shared room
  4. Hotel room
  5. Listing that do not have any existing reservations with less than 72 hours between them

How to set the Booking Buffer

If the host has been notified that their listing is eligible to turn on the booking buffer:

  1. Go to your Listings
  2. Select an eligible listing
  3. Select Availability
  4. Next to Booking buffer, select Edit
Airbnb Booking Buffer
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