It’s great to hear you are doing so well. I haven’t changed a thing. Normally I’d have at least 3 bookings lined up.
Mike, it’s hard work and I’ve been doing this for a long time.
When you say you haven’t changed a thing, when booking go quiet that’s the exact time to change things - or at least ramp up your marketing to the maximum.
You say you’d normally have three bookings lined up and forgive me, I don’t mean to be rude at all, but you should have three months booked up.
Never mind what articles say, just concentrate on your own business.
Get in touch with local hotels and suggest that they use you as overflow accommodation.
Ensure that your local CVB or toursi board retweets your links (they are likely to have more followers than you). Ditto Instagram.
Write general interest articles about your area an send them to social media.
As you’ve been in business for a few years now, use your database of previous guests and mailshot them.
Revisit any contacts you have with local businesses for visiting staff.
Ditto theaters, convention centres,
Offer previous guests a small incentive to refer their friends.
Increase your networking to include business and organisation leaders in your area.
Be the first on the accommodation list for people who are organising events, art shows, exhibitions of all types, food festivals.
Miami is a great venue for sports. Do all the venues have your details?
I think that tickets for the Miami GP in May are already on sale. Something like 250,000 attended this year - they have to stay somewhere and you’re not far away from Homestead race track.
There are loads of things you can do, Mike. 
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I don’t understand this statement at all. It totally depends on your location, and how far ahead the demographic of guests you attract usually book. Even when my high season had almost full occupancy before I closed to bookings due to Covid, I never had more than a month or 6 weeks into the future booked up. In fact, I had totally empty calendars beyond 6 weeks. I have never had a guest book more than 6 weeks before arrival.
I can understand that guests would book far ahead if things get really expensive the longer you wait, especially if they are looking for a place that accommodates larger groups, as all those people have to have their plans in place ahead of time, and especially if you live in an area where there are big events, so places fill up quickly. But a place that is listed for 2-4 guests who are just booking for a relaxing getaway may not get bookings well in advance.
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Here’s an interesting article that shows that the time between booking and check-in for vacation rentals was on a steady decline for several years before COVID, with an average of just over a month in 2018. Booking window getting shorter
Beyond Pricing says that 50% of the AirBnB bookings happen within 30 days of arrival: Your fully booked calendar is costing you money
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Yes indeed. Mike and I are both in South Florida which answers those criteria on all points. We have tourists, nature lovers, sports fans, business people, art lovers, festival goers, music lovers, sun seekers, boaters, fishing people … the list goes on.
There was once a fallacy that if you’re booked up too far ahead, your prices are too low.
I forget where that ‘knowledge’ came from but it was a prevalent idea when I first started using Airbnb.
It’s nonsense.
Pre-COVID, I was usually booked a year in advance. I know that some hosts don’t like that but I do.
I like the security but I know it doesn’t suit everyone.
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Personally, I don’t have my calender ever open more than 3 months in advance because I don’t want to be committed to being around more than that far out in case something of interest presents itself to me where I’d like to be able to get away. And my place isn’t suitable for having a co-host I could call on.
Why do you say it’s a fallacy?
Better descriptions on all of this is “strategy”. Your strategy is to be comfortable that you get “booked up” and you set your prices accordingly. I have a neighbor that does the same - he hasn’t raised prices in seven years and is booked solid for the next 14 months. I’ve consistently raised prices over those same seven years and we’re not as booked as he is.
But looking at 2022, our revenue is 20% higher than his despite our occupancy being 10% lower. I maximize profit - he maximizes occupancy. Different objectives take different strategies.
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I literally just read that advice today! did someone share an article here or on the CC?
yes, we’d rather have a higher price and have 1 day off per week.
We open our booking a year in advance. Chance for first refusal goes to the guest in the house at that time. If they do decide not to come back next year second refusal goes to guests booked on either side of their dates.
We tend to have a modest increase year to year for return guests. If it does go to the booking platforms we increase the rate to be on the high end of properties around us.
We figure guests we don’t know are a bigger risk.
Most of our guests are return guests. Which means we are always booked a year in advance for high season, and already have quite a few bookings for the rest of the year.
Because to say that if you’re booked well in advance your prices are too low, is simply not the case for everyone. (Me, for instance).
I know that we’re all aware that many so-called authoritative articles on the internet are the exact opposite.
But I know that there are new hosts who read misleading articles which make them think that they’re doing something wrong.
What was true a few years ago, may not be now. What is true for one host, may not be for another. We all have a different location / type of property / hosting style / type of guest etc. so to say that something is true for all regarding bookings is rarely, if ever, correct.
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This is interesting. After having a great Summer of bookings, my October - November have dropped off the ledge. I don’t know what to attribute it to other than more competition with other VRBO, Vacasa, and Airbnb listings.
I plan to monitor this over the next couple months and then decide tic I need to lower prices. I can’t up services or amenities since my house already offers most of the ones you’d expect in its price range.
This is my point exactly. I understand that others have been successful and I will take everyone’s ideas into consideration. I never meant that I wasn’t doing a thing about my bookings dropping off. In fact I’ve been working harder to get bookings. 3 - 4 bookings in advance would put me a month out or longe over the past year. Now is simply not the case. Season in Miami has begun.
Rumor has it from the CC site that there is to be a “winter rollout” for Airbnb, maybe mid-Nov. Batten down the hatches.
11/16 to be exact.
202020
lol, it’s funny how we are now thinking how to survive the next rollout.
the new CC format is such a joke, from what i can see they’ve removed some useful things and added NOTHING of use to hosts. it’s really just smokescreen to delete thousands of old threads IMHO.
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Since the pandemic I’ve been open a fraction of the days I was in 2019. It’s a combination of being busy with my home based dog boarding, my own travel plans, and holding the room for friends and family to stay. But when I open my calendar I get some bookings. I suspect that if I tried to book up to the extent that I did in 2019, I’d fail unless I lowered my prices.
I have a lot more competition and now hundreds of hosts have hundreds of reviews. Most of my advantage in terms of ratings, review, availability, etc has faded. My price seems to be higher than many comparable listings. That said, I still do the following to keep my business slow but steady:
*I allow pets
*I accept same day bookings
*I have minimal booking requirements and accept requests outside those
requirements
I’ve been hosting since 2014 and I still don’t have the frustration and anger that so many do.
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@muddy I think that would be an EXCELLENT idea. In fact, I believe they should put that as a filter or even as one of their UNIQUE categories. My cottage is a historic cottage, one of Lake Worth Beach’s unique attractions (there is a tour of all the cottages in our unique little beach town It would be wonderful if there could be categories for smaller, unique homes or like you said, personalized hosts. After all, that was what the first Airbnb model was marketed for.
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@muddy This is an AWESOME suggestion Is it okay if I use some of your suggestions in our upcoming local Airbnb Community group? We are always looking for new topics to discuss, and I love your suggestion, as it is something our Community Leader can take back to Airbnb as a suggestion for those of us that are struggling to compete with these investor-owned properties.
My houses are all over a century old. They are all located in our historic precinct.
I have info and maps of the area and a walking tour for the old house fans.
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