Hello all,
I am a superhost in London with nearly 10 years of hosting under my belt.
I can usually fill the room 365 nights a year, but it has gone dead for me too.
Hopefully this lull will end soon.
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So it’s not just me, thank you for your reply Mar!
Fortunately, my place wasnt booked this week. Had a water leak inside my bedroom wall. I repaired it, but I had to remove a big section of drywall that will need to stay out while it dries out, but that’s the subjuct for another post.
I would like to hear from other hosts who are either experiencing bookings as usual or where they have dropped off dramatically.
If any of you have been in my position and turned your bookings around, please share what you did.
On another Airbnb forum there are quite a few that are complaining about bookings dropping off since this January.
Also, on that forum there are countless new Airbnb hosts. Really can’t imagine starting new as a host now, market seems to be flooded.
We are in Palm Springs. And starting since July 2023 we’ve been having our worst year to date. We have been hosting this house since 2017. We are Guest Favorite/Super Hosts and have consistently been one of the best performing higher end houses in Palm Springs. For our market, it is a combination of the economy, lower demand, combined with a massive over saturation of holiday homes in the city.
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I’ve been hosting my spare room since 2014 in London. I’m a Superhost/Guest Favourite. My bookings this year are virtually none and my views have fallen by 66%. I know 2 other hosts in London who have experienced the same thing. When I look for my own room, I put in the actual road and my listing still doesn’t show up. I’ve spoken to AirBnb about this - they are virtually useless. They say it’s showing up and that I should look at discounts and reducing my nightly rate. I don’t want to do that. My room is good value and slap bang in the middle of what others charge in the area. It’s not so much the bookings as the drop in views that worries me. I just don’t understand it.
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You say you don’t understand it, but you answered your own question. Airbnb uses search ranking to pressure hosts into reducing prices, using Instant Book, accepting long term or last minute bookings, accepting pets, and all the other stuff they want hosts to do.
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Thank you Muddy. To what end??? I’ve earned AirBnb really good money over the last 10 years, notwithstanding Lockdowns. My 240 reviews encourage new guests to book or old ones to rebook. I’m a cash cow for Airbnb! I have found that the less I charge, the more difficult the guest (weird but true). I rent my spare room so I don’t consider instant book particularly safe. It feels really unfair if I and other hosts are being punished by being pushed down the search ranking for being diligent, professional, reliable and successful hosts.
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To what end? Airbnb wants bookings to come in as fast and furiously as possible, so they can collect their service fees. They couldn’t care less about how much money individual hosts have put in their coffers over the years, whether hosts get bad guests because they’ve dropped their prices, or because they have succumbed to using IB instead of being able to vet guests through requests, to try to up their search ranking.
It feels unfair because it is. And it is obviously the path that Airbnb has chosen, like many or most billion dollar companies. Profits over people.
Welcome to the instant book hotel booking model that Airbnb appears to be heading towards
Hosts pay all fees
Instant book
Little to no vetting…
I think they are trying to starve out those who won’t play……
Well, it seems to depend on one’s location, the amount of competition in one’s area, the type of rental and I’m sure many other factors.
I have hardly ever checked my search ranking, but this has been my most booked season ever since I started hosting in 2016. So I must be fairly visible. And I don’t do any of the things Airbnb urges me to do. I don’t use IB, don’t take last minute bookings (I require 2 days advance notice), don’t take long term bookings, don’t accept pets, don’t have a flexible cancellation policy (I use moderate), don’t offer discounts, and have never used Airbnb’s price tips.
But I also live in a destination tourist town, don’t have a lot of competition in my category (private room homeshare with private bathroom and full use of my kitchen, for 1 guest), and have a fairly low nightly price for the area. And I’m sure the solid 5 star ratings and that my guests tend to leave very nice, thoughtful reviews helps a lot.
But I’m sure my search ranking goes up and down quite a bit, too, because sometimes I’ll get a whole rash of bookings in a few days, and other times I don’t get any for a couple of weeks.
I turned on instant booking, lowered my nightly rate, went through my entire listing to update all of my descriptions. My photos were professionally taken. I allow dogs, I allow last minute reservations. I have great reviews. I too have noticed that a super low price seems to invite guests who don’t take care of my house as well. I allow extended stays, without limitation. I give steep discounts in various categories. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to test whether it would help for very long. I’ve just been diagnosed with cancer (hoping it’s treatable, further tests will tell) A couple of weeks after making these changes, I had to block all future dates until I know my prognosis. Not looking for sympathy, just letting you all know that making these changes did not have an immediate effect.
Hi there,
we’ve been hosting for 3 years now. SH status for both studios on our property where we live.
When we started we signed up with Airbnb and BDC. Airbnb took off like a rocket and we were booked out and received SH status as soon as the following evaluation period ended. This went on for one year with occasional guests from BDC. Then in 2022 Airbnb dropped of a cliff. Literally no bookings anymore and out of the blue BDC reservations came in non-stop. It literally reversed our booking situation and despite the fact that we cannot review BDC guests we were happy it worked out like that.
After a while we did get suspicious about the loss of traction on Airbnb and reached out to them. We were told that this was a global phenomenon and that they were aware of it yada yada yada. But nothing really changed.
Last year we did see a little decline in bookings on BDC but according to local numbers this has been effecting all hosts in our area.
Since a few months Airbnb is picking up a little bit but nowhere near acceptable reservation rates that we would like to see.
We would like to diversify more but we already tried Tripadvisor and Expedia which didn’t get us even one reservation.
Maybe there are other places to look into?
Best of luck to you though!
Sorry to hear about your diagnosis. I wish you all the best!
I have a feeling that any changes that we make won’t result in a quick response of more bookings. If you already have great reviews and professional photos it should basically sell itself. Especially if you allow dogs, offer discounts and last minute reservations. What else could a guest ask for?
To me it seems that Airbnb just has lost a huge market share to their competition. Just look at the monthly traffic BCD is getting compared to Airbnb. Then I’m not surprised anymore.
Furthermore, we strongly believe that the fact that guests cannot be reviewed on BDC is one important factor for some guests to choose them over Airbnb. In fact, our prices on BDC are even higher than on Airbnb and this doesn’t seem to have an impact on the reservation numbers.
Also the location of the accommodation has to be considered. We’re somewhat in a metropolitan area (not a huge city, close to airport, train station etc. - but still) so it’s also more likely to get bookings than something out in the boonies.
Again, best of luck!
A reminder to everyone - people do not browse looking for nice places with good reviews (alone). Dates available, location, location, and location, and did I mention… location? are the factors most travelers use to decide on where to stay.
If a potential guest is not going to be in your area on specific dates, they will not book. You can be charging $10 a night and it still will not be considered - many factors are in play besides how nice your photo of the kitchen is or your 'Superhost (lol) status - because it is about the guest’s specific needs.
Do not stress over what you might have ‘missed’ in setting up your perfect airbnb… it is not your problem to solve. If travel is down in your area, then perhaps it is time to reevaluate what you expect from a booking platform vis-a-vis your needs.
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As some perspective, I’m in the final process of booking 33 nights in Peru in 8 locations. 90% of my stays were booked through bookingdotcom. As a consumer I can say that I will book based on value, which is a combination of amenities, location, price and reputation, often airbnb prices are always higher, sometimes as much as 50% in some cases and I always find airbnb reviews to be basically over-hyped too filled with AWESOME! but nobody mentions they had to wear earplugs because of the barking dogs, or that parking meant having to shuffle cars every time you wanted out.
I find the bookingdotcom reviews to be much more realistic and informative which is what guests want to know about a property behind the pretty pictures. The Pros & Cons format of their reviews lends itself to guests presenting information in the Cons column that helps understand the realities of the stay.
Granted bookingdotcom is still more hotel oriented and some of my stays are 1 or 2 nights in and out being travel days where a hotel is just easier, but even my 14 day stretch in Cusco the stays through airbnb were much higher with a lot of properties with either few reviews or just unhelpful reviews and as usual the parking information on airbnb is always a struggle so that 14 day stay was not booked on airbnb either.
Airbnb might need to stop digging so deep in hosts pockets for their profits. With the higher prices combined with the amount of negative press and weird glee on social media to skewer airbnb stays I think the platform is feeling it.
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??? Airbnb charges hosts 3%. Guests are the ones who get charged the majority of the service fees and who Airbnb profits from.
Yeah, that’s what I thought. BDC charges are higher fees for us than Airbnb, therefore we price our studio on Airbnb lower.
Last I knew, BDC charged hosts 15% commission on every booking. It might be a higher percentage than that now. And last I heard, AirBnB charges guests 15% and hosts just 3%, unless the host uses simplified pricing, which is analogous to BDC and about the same percentage.
So that’s not a reason to be more expensive on AirBnB than BDC. Must be some other reason. Maybe the hosts don’t like the guest-centric attitude of AirBnB so they “push” guests to other platforms with pricing.
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Yet another comment wondering what on earth you’re talking about.
If you were a host (I’m going by your username here) and you’d not used an OTA you’d know that Airbnb is much, much cheaper for hosts than going it alone.
The 3% that Airbnb charges is tiny when you consider the fees that non-Airbnb hosts pay for credit card handling, advertising, marketing, website hosting, search engine optimization and much, much more.
If a host can’t work that 3% into the annual costs to determine their nightly fees, then they need to get a new accountant;.
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Pros and Cons formats just encourage guests to find something to complain about, even if it wouldn’t have occurred to them to list any “cons” otherwise. And that guests don’t get reviewed on BDC means hosts have no idea whether the guest has been booted off other platforms or been a bad guest at other properties.
Have no idea what you mean about Airbnb reviews not being realistic or informative. The reviews my guests leave certainly are, as are reviews I see of other listings.