I have had no recent bookings on Airbnb while my VRBO has exploded. I check the site to see if I can make changes and improvements almost daily. I wanted to cut the ties with VRBO for a multitude of reasons but I can’t because they are beating Airbnb to the punch week in and week out. Has Airbnb made changes that could have made my site drop off? What am I missing? Any advice is welcome. My site is Family ready and Business ready. We do not have plus yet.
No-one can comment without seeing your site, so you will need to provide a link to your listing.
Have you checked whether there is increased competition/your price is competitive.
There are other listing companies besides Airbnb and VRB0.
Jusst because I’m a nit-picky olde farte, I’m gonna say that your verbage needs a serious spell check and grammar check. “Bring your boat(Heated Pool…)” is just wrong. “Padel boards” is no better. If you’d like help drop me a PM, I’ve got decades of experience as a writer/editor.
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Thank you for the advice and I will make the changes. I could certainly use the help but I don’t think that is why my bookings went from hero to zero. My listing was receiving bookings every week until 2 months ago. Since then its been lights out. Thank goodness I did not cancel VRBO. I just can’t figure out why everything stopped with Airbnb. I really want to break completely away from VRBO.
Feedback on your listing
I think you need to put up front where your place is. I had to read right through before I realised you were in Tampa, Florida.
I think you need to make more of the fact you have a pool. ie ‘Stunning Villa with Pool + Boat - 20 minutes from Tampa, Florida’ or wherever you are located.
Talk about what sort of people your place is suitable.
Why you aren’t getting so many bookings
You only have eight reviews so imagine you are quite a new host. When you first start you get lots of bookings, because Airbnb gives an artificial boost to your listing for a month or two. After that you are competing with everyone else.
The other reason you are likely not to be getting bookings is that the vast majority of your dates until August are blocked out, so you won’t come up in searches.
I agree you need to proof your copy.
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They did major site changes on Jan 22 so maybe that affected you. But I did a general search for “entire place” in Apollo Beach with no dates entered and you are on the first page of results so it’s not that you aren’t showing up in search.
I looked at your calendar and you have pretty much nothing available until August. I don’t rent out an entire home but based on what people are posting here it seems that entire place rentals have slowed and people aren’t booking as far out. So you are either booked or blocked out for the next few months and you aren’t going to be getting inquiries until later in the year. The less expensive places will book first and the inquires for back to school and hurricane season may come later in the year.
Ok good to know I am on the first page. That does make me feel a little better. I just wonder why my last 8 bookings came from VRBO and not Airbnb. It used to be the other way around. Maybe its just a fluke or like Helsi said I am not new and not getting the artificial boosts. Ty for your help
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Stunning Villa with Pool + Boat - 20 minutes from Tampa, Florida…I like that ty.
Although I launched out of season, it did seem a bit quiet on the bookings front, I felt a little dead in the water. So I mucked about with the prices, dropped the by a fiver, nothing.
Dropped them by another fiver, and reduced minimum stay to one night, and WHOOOOSH!
Now not sure whether to risk calming things down by going back to 2 night min, or adding a magic fiver. Maybe even keep to one night minimum and teak the cleaning fee.
Having my minimum stay at one night has made a big difference to my bookings, especially with the two room rental, as no one else in my area does this. There seems to be a minimum stay of two nights for all accommodation offering two rooms.
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Maybe I should get a job in PR and communications :)
As I said it’s much more likely because you have little if any capacity until August @Bigsimp so you won’t appear in searches.
Hi @Barns
I have compromised by having minimum of two nights at weekends and one night during the week and added a fiver for cleaning (costs a lot more but few around my way charge).
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A friend has a canal house in South Carolina that is comparable to yours but with no pool. Because of the size of the rental, she gets mostly grandparents renting for a family vacation with the kids and grandkids. She get’s very few rentals from Airbnb, 80% are from VRBO. We think it is because the Grandparents are more familiar with VRBO.
could be but that would not explain why VRBO is out booking airbnb. I have bookings until next march. The good thing is I just recieved a airbnb booking today. Maybe just a fluke.
Well they will have a different set up than Airbnb and search criteria so you can’t compare one with the other.
My airbnb property is having the same issues. Last year it was gangbusters – this year pretty dead in the water too. VRBO reservations are 4-1 to airbnb so far this year. Not sure what happened.
As others mentioned, you were getting the new host bump. But if you’re booked out through August what exactly are you expecting? Who books that far in advance these days?
I guess I do. VRBO is at least 4-1 at the moment. My intial question was to see if anyone else has seen a change with Airbnb. From what I can surmise it’s just random and not anything to be concerned about. Ty all for the feedback.