It sounds like AirBnB would benefit from a feature where you can personally and automatically contact the booking customer to confirm the reservation. A sort of

It sounds like AirBnB would benefit from a feature where you can personally and automatically contact the booking customer to confirm the reservation. A sort of automatic email with your brand confirming the dates and other information. Or maybe do so by pressing a button. Or maybe just a status on the reservation: "Host has seen reservation and confirmed". I have never used AirBnB, but I am loathe to rely too much on entirely electronic information, without a real human confirming it. Case in point: several restaurants claimed they'd be open on Christmas day on their websites, so we planned to pick up food for a gathering. When we arrived at the restaurant on the day, they were closed, at a time which was at least 2 hours before their posted closing time (which did include holiday hours). This caused a last-minute scramble to arrange food for people at short notice on Christmas day. If we had tried to reach an actual person on the phone, presumably this mixup would have been avoided. If my travel arrangements depended upon the availability of an AirBnB, then I'd probably want to confirm with the host too. A major hotel isn't going to lose my reservation, but with AirBnB who knows. Maybe the host will be "out of town" that day and forgot to mark their property unavailable, just like the restaurants that "forget" to mention when they'll be closed. (Have I mentioned how much I hate hate hate when businesses don't keep to their posted hours?)