I am interested, how it will change a reservation pattern for me. Does any one has an experience of going from one night to 2 nights minimum reservation? It will be my second summer of doing Airbnb. Last summer I had 1 night minimum stay.
How many of your bookings last year were for one night?
Last year I was opened only 3 month and there were 45 days of reservation I excepted and there were 17 reservation only for 1 night. I also declined a lot of reservations because I physically could not do all of them. I just needed some days off between guests. Also I remember one weekend, when there were different guests 3 nights in a row. I was just stressed to clean everything on time.
Balancing the workload of lots of short stays against the increased revenue associated is not easy.
We rent an entire apartment in the centre of Copenhagen. When we first listed it on airbnb we had a two night minimum stay - we were pretty much fully booked for the first few months but we found that we just couldn’t fit that many change overs and cleans in around full time jobs - so we increased to a three night minimum stay and now we are on a 4 night minimum stay.
Our occupancy rate has remained pretty much the same, although we do end up with some 2 or 3 day gaps in our calenders depending on how the bookings fall but we are happy with this as it generally gives us some time to do a little more maintenance.
Our average stay length is actually 7 days, but this is impacted by a few long term bookings, if we remove them it is still 5 days - so there is demand in our city for people coming for longer stays and this length of stay gives us a good revenue/effort balance.
A high proportion of your guests were only booking for 1 night - if these all disappeared would your business still be viable?
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Last summer I had 25 reservations and 17 were booked for a single night.
I am not sure, how many reservations I would get with 2 night minimum. I did not have many international travelers, I had people from New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC, a lot of professionals who just wanted to get out from big cities and relax. My house’s location is in a middle of an Amish community.
I would love to have one night bookings but it hasn’t happened yet. As long as guests stick to the check in and out times (it takes me about 4 hours to prepare the apartment) it would be great as I’d get the cleaning fee just for one night 
If you don’t feel there is demand for longer stays then it sounds like you have answered your own question and need to keep the one night minimum.
I believe there is a setting where you can leave a day or two between bookings to allow for turn around time, maybe this would help with your cleaning stresses?
Copenhagenhost, I would like to have 2 days min stay on weekends at list, but I am not sure that I can make such setting.
That sounds like an optimum setting. Someone booking a single day on Saturday or Sunday really narrows down the field for filling the other half of the weekend days.
I get a lot of 1 nights because the everglades and the keys but I also get multiple nights as well. I don’t mind so much except this week I have three back to back but for the most part the one night booking don’t really that much of a mess for me and I keep the studio pretty clean.
In the beginning (amost 4 years ago) I had a two night minimum. I have gotten so many more guests as a result of eliminating the minium. …yes, it’s more laundry, cleaning, etc. but worth it! I also get 2-5 day stays so it’s worth it to me to get the “one night’s” in between! P.S. I am 20 minutes from LAX so I get a lot of one night lay–overs–okay by me…in late, early departure=easy guests!
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I just went abroad for 8 days and put 2 days minimum. The occupancy immediately dropped 50%. The other thing with 2 or more days min. is that you don’t come up in a search everyday.
For me it doesn’t work to not have only 1 day stay available. I am near airport and cruiseport, I get lots of layover people which I don’t mind at all. 50% of them I never met in person. They come late and go early. Everyone’s happy:)
Thank you everyone for your input! At this moment I just put 1 day minimum stay and I will see how busy I will be this season. I already put my price higher then last summer.
Do you schedule a turnover day?
Turnover day? What is that?
Some people choose the setting that blocks a day between bookings for cleaning.
aaaa… thank you! I do not have such day! I am closed for a winter time and reopen my bnb at the end of April. I will see, how many reservations I get and I might put such day into my schedule. Last summer I started my bnb only in July.
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There are two things you can do.
- Have two listings. One is your main listing (you can turn Instant Book on if you wish) and you set a minimum stay of 2 or 3 days. Then, when you get gap days in between bookings, you can either have a rest (nobody can book it, yay) or if you want someone to book, put those onto a separate listing as a special deal. This will stop people booking a single day in the middle of an empty week, which is really annoying and creates gaps in your calendar. Your second listing you MUST make sure never has the same dates available as your main listing! You can check for overlaps on https://www.airbnb.com/calendar/index
- Simpler - set your cleaning fee higher and your nightly rate a bit lower. This will encourage longer guests and discourage single night stays a bit. Then you don’t have to touch your minimum stay because you will probably not have singles very often.
I had a 2 night minimum stay for the longest time, and stayed booked up just fine (with occasional gaps days)
I recently increased my minimum to 3 nights, and don’t notice any decline in bookings or revenue, and no increase in gap days.
In both cases, when there are gap days that I know will be easy for me to clean/turnover (mostly weekends) I manually override the minimum stay and put the room on the market for 1 day. I think this is the best option, as it gives priority to longer stays, but when quick turnover is not an issue you can still get that extra revenue.
As eliel said, having a higher cleaning fee “penalizes” shorter term stays, and used in conjunction with the manual method, its a good balance of convenience and revenue.
Hi copenhagenhost. It’s been really interesting for me to read through all the posts here. I have recently set up a company in Copenhagen providing Airbnb turnaround services. It’s great for me to browse forums to hear the present day problems and issues (good and bad) that experienced hosts like yourself come across. (I managed holiday homes in the French Alps for over 10 years however I’m looking to increase my “Airbnb” knowledge to give hosts the best service)
I believe my company ManageMyAir.dk will be able to help busy hosts like yourselves, who may be away or working hard and don’t want to hassle friends to do key meets, cleaning and laundry etc
I’ll be following the forum but if you have any hints as to what would be useful as a host in Copenhahen, I would appreciate it.
Many thanks, Cheryl (Founder ManageMyAir.dk)