France: Airbnb has announced that it will terminate its Luckey concierge service in France in May.
In an email to hosts sent out yesterday evening [13 March] that has since been seen by STRz, Airbnb said that from 14 May, property owners / hosts in France will no longer be able to contact the Luckey concierge services team to manage their listing, and nor will they be able to be part of Airbnb’s co-host platform as a team.
Taking the changes into account, owners and hosts will have the option to transfer their information or sensitive data from the Luckey platform to the new platform for experienced co-hosts and co-host tools.
Hosts and owners who choose to transfer their information from Luckey to the new platform will have to accept two specific conditions relating to additional services for the co-hosting services platform and co-hosting tools, as well as an Airbnb confidentiality policy.
For those who choose not to transfer their information, their listings will remain active and the person listed at the top of the listing will be able to choose to add co-hosts to the accommodation with the help of co-host tools. In addition, they will be able to set up new authorisations and fractionalise their payments for any co-hosts that are added.
All profiles and dashboards belonging to experienced former co-hosts will be removed from the platform after 14 May.
According to a source, Airbnb plans to hold a webinar next week to explain the changes to the Luckey platform – more information on the update can currently be found at this link.
Airbnb acquired the French concierge services company [then known as Luckey Homes] in December 2018 for an undisclosed sum, which some industry figures saw as a potential signal for the home-sharing platform to move into property management.
Founded in 2015, Luckey Homes helped short-term rental hosts manage their listings, handle guest arrivals and departures, provide cleaning services and offer customer assistance in 20 cities across France, raising around $3.2 million [€2.8 million] in funding. France represented one of Airbnb’s most profitable markets at the time, with over 500,000 listings and 13 million guests and hosts.
Airbnb’s acquisition of Luckey was designed to bring more hosts on to the Airbnb platform and grow its network in France. The services aligned with Airbnb’s Plus category of verified accommodations offering high-end amenities, although the Plus program was discontinued in November last year.
Airbnb relaunched its co-hosting marketplace last year via its ‘Hosting Services’ page, which enabled individual hosts to search for and connect with “local partners” [i.e. property managers] to help them if they were new hosts or struggling in some way.
While Luckey provided the foundations of the technology for the platform, which had been available in France, Canada, Spain and the UK, it had seemingly already ceased offering management services as recently as last year.
As Airbnb bids to increase its supply and revenue, the platform has been increasingly keen to leverage professional property managers to enhance trust and reassure its hosts and guests.
So far in March, Airbnb has committed to verifying nearly 1.5 million listings across the United States, Canada, Australia, the UK and France by the end of this month and announced that it will bring in a new highlight to help top listings stand out, based on ratings, reviews and reliability from this summer.
It follows Airbnb’s introduction of Guest Favorites in its 2023 Winter Release in November, to go alongside the existing ‘Superhost’ designation. Guest Favorites is described as a collection of the two million “most-loved” homes on Airbnb, based on ratings, reviews and reliability data from over half a billion trips.
This week, Airbnb also announced that it is issuing a global ban on the use of indoor security cameras at its listings, as it seeks to prioritise guest safety and privacy and responds to increasing security concerns.
STRz has approached Airbnb for a statement on the Luckey update and the co-hosting platform.
