So true. I had that happen. Last minute cancellation with zero documentation.
Luckily I got an even better group in for a longer stay the moment the shitty guest cancelled but I could have been out $2000+ if I didn’t rebook within hours…
Admittedly I was shocked at how Air handled that.
Very stoked for my website listing.
With all the cancellations we received through airbnb with full refunds, even though we have a strict policy, we were left extremely vulnerable financially.
This would be an overriding reason to try and book direct bookings. We have airtight cancellation policies on our website that guests need to agree to and if you can afford it, you can issue refunds but no one will be overriding your cancellation police.
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I have considered this too. Would you use Wix or one of those free online ones? I would be interested to see what other hosts have done. I suppose you would need to be very careful to ensure none of the information, house rules etc conflicted with your Airbnb listing.
I have my own website.
We have our own site. We used Wix originally but didn’t like their Wix Hotels booking platform. I don’t believe guests did either because only one person booked using the booking engine, but quite a few just emailed me directly to arrange dates/payment. I have since built my own site, but might move to WordPress to have more creative options. I am still learning so WordPress, etc would allow me to do more things than I know how to do right now on my own. I picked a company that I liked for hosting, and they have a few plans for hosting as well as building.
It has been 
worth it. We got more bookings in the first year than I expected and the first booking alone covered our site hosting and more.