Hi fellow hosts. I received an email from Airbnb saying that they were new promotion features to explore. Apparently you can lower your rates for a period and give people a special announcement that catches their attention. The email said to click on explore promotions but when I did it just brought me to my Airbnb page and I didn’t know where to go from there. Can anyone help?
I haven’t see it offered to me but I’ve seen them on other people’s listing. One was “15% for booking early.”
If you do decide to follow this advice, first raise your prices then allow them to be lowered for the promotion. Don’t fall for the race to the bottom BS Air puts out
RR
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See my post and screen shots in the link below. I have had access to this for some time, but others on the forum couldn’t find it. I’m not sure if I was part of a beta test or something else.
Airbnb looks at your 30 day past pricing average, so you can’t bump up the rate, then discount it - trust me, I tried! This also stacks on top of other discounts, including multi nights, early booking and last minute discounts, so be careful. As I was playing around with it, one of my nights dropped from $250 to $89.
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I think hosts might be better off running their own promotions rather than being at the mercy of Airbnb’s systems.
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Agree @jaquo , but how does a host have access to potential guest’s email addresses to contact them and let them know that a home that they checked out what, say, 2 weeks ago, is now discounted by $75/night, etc.? Thanks
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They can’t. But there are so many ways to promote a listing that don’t involve the people who have looked at it on the Airbnb site. Hosts who do that are still at the mercy of Airbnb after all, and there’s no way of knowing just why someone has looked at your listing.
Which is part of the problem. If hosts are trying to promote their listing by relying on a site that has thousands of other listings in their area (for me anyway) then it doesn’t really make a lot of sense, does it? Especially when you consider that Airbnb have offered the same promotion opportunity to other local listings too.
Good information @jaquo, but what other ways can a host promote their business? If it’s by renting their place privately, (via, Craig’s List, own private website, etc.) I can’t rent privately, (the insurance is too expensive, more than $5000 a year in my case, and I really don’t want to get into the insurance debate with other hosts on here again, as after spending the last 2 weeks researching/getting quotes, etc., it’s just not an option for me at this point, maybe in a year or two, but not now.)
Just one example (sorry but I don’t have lots of time right now 
) is that I have built up a good relationship with the concierges at three local hotels. All three are near me so we offer more or less the same location and distance to various touristy places.
Many times, potential guests have contacted the hotels looking for accommodation. If they don’t have rooms available, they refer those guests to me. I have a similar arrangement with a couple who run a place with about a dozen units about half a mile away. Most of those units are on Airbnb and we recommend each other if we can’t accommodate guests.
Other useful contacts are people who are organising annual events such as festivals, art shows, exhibitions, conferences and so on. People who are taking part in the event, plus the people who are visiting it, need places to stay.
Okay, I get that so my lips are sealed, although you know what I’d say
But there’s nothing to stop you directing people (from your local hotel contacts, your local event organiser contacts etc.) directly to your Airbnb listing. If you think that the UIRL is a bit awkward (and they tend to be) have it printed on some cheap business cards.
I use more expensive cards with a photograph of our building on the reverse side (they are gorgeous). But it does mean that you can still get the (perceived!) benefits offered by Airbnb if you direct people to your listing.
I know that today, people would rather rely on a website than actually talk to people ‘in real life’ but you can use that to your advantage. I bet that there aren’t many other Airbnb hosts in your area who are contacting useful people. And it only takes a few minutes of your time.
Oh, that was meant to be a quick post…
That’s some really good advice @jaquo! We get a lot of wedding and funeral business and I was thinking of contacting funeral homes and wedding planners, etc., and seeing if they would recommend my business. They would still have to book through an agency for the insurance, but I would direct them to VRBO (I have more control over my listings at VRBO and am trying to “shift” my business which is now primarily (60-40) Airbnb to primarily VRBO. I’d like it to be (90-10)
Thanks again!
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I didn’t use to have access to this but did see it last week while checking on the laptop.
I primarily use the app. It since there are such differences I go on the laptop about once a month to check things out. The know they change things without host knowledge…the one that kills me when I see it on other listings (hasn’t happened to mine yet) is when a whole house listing shows NO private entrance.
ETA: I used to get options to offer a discount amount Airbnb determined the amount and dates of…now I see I can set it for any day(s) and for any amount I tubing up to 30% off. Depending on the level there are certain other things (like callouts it emails) that go along with the deal.
When I was offered the option for the discount I was able to raise the prices of those dates before accepting.
I’m not sure why I can’t figure this out. Most of you are much for techie than I am. We are entering our colder months and bookings have dropped. I’d like to offer a winter discount and let potential guests know about it. Any simple way?
If you have the promotion options set them up and put Winter Special in your title it something.
I was able to raise the rates for dates on my calendar, but the promo offer used a 30 average look back at my pricing. There was an info button explaining that the 30 day look back prevents hosts from raising rates, then using discounts to get back to the same rates, with Airbnb advertising.
I haven’t fooled with it in a few weeks, but that was my experience.
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After being booked solid for five months I’m seeing some slack in bookings, particularly mid-week, so I turned on promotions for two mid-week blocks. I did just enough so you get the strike-through pricing on the listing (I believe that’s 15%). The one for next week just got booked yesterday (not sure if it’s b/c of the promo). I had previously manually lowered the price for those dates (before the promo option was available) and it didn’t seem to hold that against me.
I don’t want to drop too low or it’s not worth it (or you get people who don’t really “value” the place and might trash it). There’s more competition popping up so I’m hoping this doesn’t become the norm, but I’m counting on steady revenue and would rather get 80% than 0%.
Isn’t that normal for the Boston area?
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It’s my first year as a host, so I’m not sure. There are plenty of reasons to visit Boston year-round (I get a lot of college tour visits/parents visiting college students, as well as tourists and business travel). But I literally only have one booking right now from December until the Boston Marathon in April, which seems crazy. Even Thanksgiving is still available. From May through October I was basically at 100% occupancy, usually booked 6-8 weeks in advance. And I’m a superhost, my listing shows up in results, etc.
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Where are you showing up in search? Also, are you checking the calendars of competing Airbnb’s? Are they looking slow as well?
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