The Copenhagen Airbnb Communication Study: What 458,302 Reviews Reveal

What We Analyzed (And How)

This is our own analysis of a public dataset, not a vendor survey. We used the Inside Airbnb Copenhagen snapshot from 29 September 2025: 458,302 non-automated reviews and 22,994 listings. For rating comparisons we focused on the 15,104 'established' listings with at least 5 reviews, so that a single glowing or angry review can't distort a listing's average. Where we quote guests, the text is verbatim and anonymized. Every figure below is reproducible from the same public files. We're showing our work because original, checkable data is worth more than another round-number claim.

• Source: Inside Airbnb, Copenhagen, 2025-09-29 snapshot (a public dataset)
• 458,302 non-automated guest reviews; 22,994 listings
• Rating analysis limited to 15,104 listings with 5+ reviews
• Guest quotes are verbatim and anonymized

Communication Is the Strongest Controllable Lever on Your Rating

When we group established listings by their communication subscore and look at the average overall rating in each group, the gradient is steep and consistent. Listings with a perfect 5.0 on communication average a 4.92 overall rating. Listings below 4.5 on communication average just 4.27 — a full two-thirds of a star lower. That matters because a listing needs to stay around 4.7 or above to keep Guest Favorite status and the search visibility that comes with it. Two honest caveats: this is correlation, not proven causation (a great host tends to do many things well), and communication is one of several subscores. But it's the cheapest subscore to fix — you can't relocate the apartment or rebuild the bathroom, but you can answer faster and more completely starting today.

• 5.0 communication → 4.92 average overall rating (6,981 listings)
• 4.9 → 4.85 · 4.8 → 4.77 · 4.5–4.79 → 4.64
• Below 4.5 communication → 4.27 average overall (214 listings)
• Guest Favorite status generally requires staying around 4.7+

Check-In Is the Weakest Link

If communication is the biggest lever, check-in is where hosts most often drop the ball. 17.4% of established Copenhagen listings score below 4.8 on check-in — versus 10.4% below 4.8 on communication overall. Check-in is the single weakest subscore area in the city, and it shows the same rating gradient: listings with a perfect 5.0 on check-in average 4.92 overall, while those below 4.5 average 4.45. This makes intuitive sense. Check-in is the guest's first physical interaction with your property, it usually happens after a long journey, and it's the moment when a wrong door code or an unclear instruction turns into a stressful phone call — or a review complaint.

• 17.4% of listings score below 4.8 on check-in (vs 10.4% on communication)
• 5.0 check-in → 4.92 average overall; below 4.5 → 4.45
• Check-in is the weakest-rated subscore area in Copenhagen

Most Hosts Are Slow to Respond — Which Is Your Opening

Airbnb asks hosts to report a typical response time, and the Copenhagen distribution is telling. Of the 14,626 hosts with a reported response time, only 38% respond within an hour. That means nearly two-thirds are slower than an hour. About 37% fall into the 'within a day' or slower brackets — they typically take a day or more to reply — and roughly 1 in 10 (1,468 hosts) take a few days or more. For a guest comparing properties or standing outside a locked door, slow is slow. This is the opening: if the majority of hosts around you are hours or days behind, being the host who answers in seconds is a visible, rateable advantage — not a nice-to-have.

• Only 38% of hosts respond within an hour — nearly two-thirds are slower
• ~37% typically take a day or more to respond
• Roughly 1 in 10 hosts take a few days or more
• Based on 14,626 hosts with a reported response time

Guests Praise Communication More Than Anything Else

We also scanned the text of the 268,526 reviews written since 2023 for what guests actually mention. Communication and responsiveness is the most-praised host behavior in the entire dataset: 7.9% of reviews call it out unprompted — roughly one in every twelve. By comparison, only 1.7% praise a host's local recommendations and 0.9% praise an easy check-in. Explicit complaints are rare in public review text (guests are famously reluctant to leave negative reviews — the well-documented 'review inflation' effect), which is exactly why the subscore distributions above are the honest measure of the problem, not the count of angry reviews. Guests reward good communication loudly and punish bad communication quietly, by giving a slightly lower score and moving on.

• 7.9% of reviews praise communication/responsiveness — the most-praised behavior
• 1.7% praise local recommendations; 0.9% praise easy check-in
• Explicit complaints are rare in public text — the subscores tell the real story

What the Complaints Actually Say

When guests do describe a problem, the specifics are strikingly consistent — and almost every one is a question a good knowledge base answers instantly or a failure it prevents. On access: 'The only way to check in was via a machine, and it was frozen.' 'No instructions on the check in (it is the left door on the ground floor).' On missing information: 'Wifi password not provided despite requesting again and again.' 'We could not figure out how the stove worked.' On unresponsive hosts: 'Tried contacting the host multiple times but received no response.' 'Contacted a few days before day of arrival. No response to mail. Then called several times, no response.' None of these are exotic. They're the everyday friction of hosting — and they're exactly the moments that decide a review.

• Access: frozen check-in machines, unclear door and entry instructions
• Information gaps: missing WiFi passwords, appliances guests can't operate
• Responsiveness: hosts who simply don't reply before or during the stay

What This Means for Hosts

The takeaway isn't 'send more messages.' It's that the information guests need is predictable, the moments they need it are predictable, and the hosts who deliver it fast and completely earn measurably better ratings. You can act on this without any tooling: tighten your check-in instructions, front-load the questions guests always ask, and reply faster. Automation makes it durable — a WhatsApp assistant like Milo, trained only on your host-approved property guide, answers the WiFi-password and how-does-the-stove-work questions the instant they're asked, at 3 a.m., in the guest's own language, so a frozen-lockbox moment never becomes a one-star review. However you do it, the data is clear: communication is the highest-ROI, lowest-cost improvement available to a Copenhagen host.