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Someone’s comment in another topic made me realize there are several of us here who are or were in the writing biz.
So now I’m curious how many here consider themselves writers, and I guess to keep it on topic, how do you think that affects your hosting experience?
(Full disclosure, i was a features editor for a computer magazine in London, plus 2 poetry anthologies and a lot of unpublished fiction)
When Airbnb switched to highlighting the photos and making the captions insignificant a little part of me died. Images aren’t my strong suit, I had been choosing my caption-words with such care… sigh. But on the other hand, I feel pretty confident in my welcome letter and my descriptions, and my directions and guest reviews are clear.
… plus I enjoy reading and posting on the forum, which I might not if I didn’t enjoy composing words.
Most of my writing is online these days. I have two main sites, both of which have new articles every day. One is a general magazine site with articles about a variety of subjects. Other writers contribute too.
The other site is one I started quite recently (last year) and that one is specifically about travel - that was, as you can imagine, determined by the fact that I’m a host.
Also on topic, I’ve written a handful of books, two of which are about local history. I have copies of both in the rental and many guests read them (or at lease dip into them) and seem to like them. I also enjoyed writing our house manual which includes the history of the building, places to go so, places to see etc. I encourage guests to take a copy home as a souvenir of their stay.
I also write for clients and what’s fun (or tricky, depending on your viewpoint) is that I write in American for clients and in English for my own sites, even though their main audiences are from the US.
I trained as a journalist and now make my living in marketing and communications which involves writing content for advertising campaigns, the media, web copy and marketing literature.
This is something that I really love! Checking for keyword density, accidental plagiarism, grammar checks, writing for a global audience… how sad am I? But I love it…
Though I’m not a writer by education or trade, I think my writing skills are above average. I think the same can probably be said about many of the regular posters on this forum, and I do think it gives us a leg up on the competition.
It would seem natural that travelers would gravitate towards well written listings that evoke the characteristics and feel of a place. All other things being equal, they might also prefer a listing that features good grammar and spelling, even if they weren’t exactly sure why.
As for myself, when browsing Airbnb listings, I am put off by a lot of misspelled words, lack of or improperly used punctuation and bad sentence structure. If a host can’t take the time or trouble to get that right, then how well will they attend to the details of the space?
