direct marketing vs Airbnb story

[Bob Willis]

https://www.businessinsider.co...

I thought this was interesting. I wonder what the tipping point is to try and make this change. Any thoughts?

[Zeb B.]

The fees are more than 3%. The platforms charge both the hosts and the guests. In reality it doesn't matter how the platforms split the fees between the guests and the hosts, ALL of the fees come out of the guests pockets and reduce the income to the hosts. For an example, the breakdown from one of my guests:

Guest paid
$206 x 3 nights = $618.00
Cleaning fee = $149.00
Guest service fee = $108.28
Occupancy taxes = $70.02
Total (USD) = $945.30

Host payout
3 nights room fee = $618.00 

Cleaning fee = $149.00
Host service fee (3.0%) = -$23.01
Total (USD) = $743.99

Guest pays $945, of which $70 goes to taxes. Of the $875 remaining, Airbnb collects $108 guest service fee and $23 host service fee = $131 or about 15% of the pre-tax booking amount. VRBO is slightly cheaper but still well above 10%