Hometime have recently implemented a change in the way the cleaning fee is displayed to guests to improve the optics of your property's listing. As you know, high cleaning fees have been something that the short-term rental industry has been contending with since Covid. It is a nationwide issue due to a large supply shortage in professional cleaning companies. As such, cleaners have continuously increased their prices with sufficient demand to absorb these price hikes. As a way to combat this, Hometime has incorporated a portion of the cleaning fee into an Airbnb feature called the 'Resort Fee'.
The Resort Fee is a back-end feature of Airbnb where extra fees can be added to a listing and this figure is averaged across and incorporated into the nightly rate of the guest's reservation.
For example, if the Resort Fee is $100 and the guest enters a 5-night stay at your property, the nightly rate of the property will be displayed to the guest as $20 per night higher to incorporate the $100 Resort Fee into the 5 nights.
By using this feature, Hometime can standardise the cleaning fee that is displayed to the guests on Airbnb across our entire portfolio and keep them at a reasonable level.
The cleaning fee has been standardised on the size of the property (eg. 1-bed = $119, 2-bed = $149, 3-bed = $199, 4-bed = $249).
Please note that your cleaning fee may still be higher than what is shown on Airbnb for cleaning - but the remaining amount is incorporated into the Resort Fee and 'hidden' from the guest through the nightly rate.
This means that the guest is still paying for all the cleaning fees - but the way it is presented to them is partly through the cleaning fee (visible when they book) and partly through the nightly rate (obscured when they book).
For your property, your Hometime statement may show that your cleaning fee is $537.20, but when you look on Airbnb the cleaning fee is only $249 that the guest pays. This is because the remaining $288.20 is within the Resort Fee and is being added to the nightly rate when the guest books. So, the guest still pays $537.20 for cleaning when they book - just through two different avenues to improve the optics.
Hometime has decided to do this for two reasons:
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Having a modest cleaning fee improves conversion rates as guests feel they are getting a better deal and the listing is competitive against other listed comparable properties in the market
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Having a modest cleaning fee also assists in improving cleanliness guest review scores. If the cleaning fee is very high, this comes with high cleaning expectations and means that guests can be tough on their cleanliness review scores because they are paying a lot for cleaning and expect perfection. If the cleaning fee is more modest, they will generally not have the same cleaning standards - resulting in better average review scores.