Second waves are being announced in Europe and sadly in some countries such as the US, Russia and Brazil it never really went away 
:cry
Will this change your approach to STRs or will you carry on accepting bookings?
No, it never really went away.
As far as my B&B effort goes, I haven’t been open to bookings since mid March, and I don’t expect to re-open until next year at the earliest, if we are still here.
As far as moving to Portugal, I can’t see that happening in the next nine months either, although we may manage to sell the house before then. Who knows? But we plough on regardless with the refurb.
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Figures released this morning show that in Spain we had 1163 new infections. It’s been steadily climbing now for the past few weeks.
They are mainly in the north east, Aragon and Catalonia, but Madrid is up there as well.
Locally, we again seem to be avoiding the large spikes, but have seen an increase in both infections and hospitalisations. That said, it now holiday time and so far our guests have all been from either Madrid or Barcelona 
There may come a point when we will close off again, but we’re not there yet.
From our perspective we are taking precautions. Check in is done with mark and gloves, and whereas previously when taking guests to the parking garage one of us would simply jump into the passenger seat and direct them, I now use OH`s bicycle and get the guests to follow me.
Check out is contact free, apartment keys and garage remote are left in the letterbox and are retrieved with gloves then sprayed with sanitising solution. Check out instructions include leaving all windows and internal doors open and neither of us enter the apartment for at least three hours, although in practise we’ve been leaving it for twenty four hours and when we do, it’s masks and gloves again.
We have a sanitising gel dispenser as you enter the property and one of us sprays disinfectant on the door handles to both entrance doors a couple of times a day.
Unlike the old days, we pretty much avoid contact with our guests now. They’ve got our (work) mobile number to contact us, and our personal numbers for emergencies.
Now that the UK has reinstated the quarantine and France is making shaky noises about visiting Spain, all our bookings (bar one in Oct) are domestic. So far they’ve been great, they understand what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.
We would survive if we had to close down again, it’d mean a few luxuries would be forfeit, but we could get through it. Unfortunately, many others wouldn’t so unless it was a decree that closed us down, there would still be STR’s operating here, it just wouldn’t be us also if we felt the risk was at an unacceptable level.
JF
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I think that whole house rentals are the only way to travel right now, no guest/host interaction required. 24 hours between bookings. I have been open, and I have taken one trip and stayed in a whole house AirBnb
RR
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I think the issue here in Europe @RiverRock is that for many of us the majority of guests come from abroad and as we still have restrictions that bans travel from many high risk countries including the US, it has meant massively reduced bookings (apart from our coastal resorts and the Lake districts which are popular domestic tourist spots).
So yes we need to factor in type of accommodation and cleaning but we also need to factor in, that if we go into full lock down again. Airbnb is likely to extend their EC policy for the virus and put in place blocks for our listing so we can’t accept bookings if government restrictions for STRs are brought in again.
What are your bookings like @RiverRock compared to last year, are you still getting bookings from abroad or are they mainly domestic.
There is a private school here which is now closed/virtual so my bookings from parents coming from abroad are not happening. But my bookings from places 2-3 hours away have skyrocketed. I am as busy as I can be, grateful for the day between bookings otherwise I would be back to back booked all the time. June and July have been my best months ever, I raised my prices and minimum stay from one day to two days. I may try 3 days but I feel like that is pushing it.
RR
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Hi @RiverRock so glad to hear you are doing well. I have a minimum three nights and leave a day in- between bookings.
I have had about four bookings since lock down was lifted here on 4 July but all for only three nights and one in August.
I fear this latest news will make things worse in terms of booking confidence.
Still closed in Massachusetts. We have let a handful of repeat guests know that we will open one of our three homeshare rooms (has a separate bath) if they really need it. However, if they are in states that are still out of control or passing through them to get here, we still say no. So far, their reasons for coming here have all been disrupted so we’ve had no one. One poor guy used to come see his dad and told me that he actually wonders if he’ll ever see him again.
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We shut down in March and April but since our place is separate from the house, opened back up. Have had a steady stream of grandparents visiting grandkids and people using the apartment as extra space. We now have a couple who wants to use it indefinitely (in two week increments), and they seem to be using it solely as an office/laundry. They’re here about four hours a day and wear masks in and out. It’s also NO work for me. I think we’re all happy with the situation, and they’re paying about what I’d get if I were open at a normal time. Once they decide to leave, I’ll open it up again and expect to be full on weekends, at least. I do miss the excitement of bookings and getting the apartment ready for guests, but c’est la vie.
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Whereabouts are you based @rmiriam?
Glad to hear you are still getting the bookings you need and haven’t been affected by the drop in overseas guests many hosts have experienced.
As I’ve moaned about before, TripAdvisor are still sending me bookings, despite being closed via Lodgify.
If I was accepting bookings, in theory I would have been more full than I’ve ever been in the last three years, and with 7-14 day domestic bookings.
In practice, things would probably be different; as we all know, people don’t read and think we are an entire place to rent, not noticing B&B…
The corker was " I’ve looked at the photos of your lovely property, but I can’t spot a sitting room, only a dining room. Is there anywhere for guests to sit in the evenings".
I just about managed not to ask if she could read.
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Closed in March, hope for reopening next year, but probably not before international control and/or a vaccine. We are being very cautious due to my other job in health/social care and the fact that we also are farmers with meat production.
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We were closed in March, April and May. We reopened to guests that had a reservation and still wanted to come. We contacted everyone to let them know our county situation and give them our personal contact information in case they had any concerns. A lot of guests contacted us back and we worked with them - either rebooking, cancelling or reassuring - whatever made them comfortable.
We are an entire house, in the countryside, with -0- contact with the outside world being possible. All of our reservations have been from people within 300 miles away, and have been families. We have booked primarily to repeat guests and neighbors / friends, which has been nice. We know them, they trust us. For this reason, we remain open, but monitor the news and numbers in our country each morning.
As much as I disagree with travel right now, people are going to travel, and the hotels in my location are open. We remain open as a safer option. Most of August is direct book, yahoo!!!, and most of our summer was filled by 8 coworkers and 3 neighbors wanting a safe place to take their family.
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I’m in Austin, TX. In the year we were open before COVID, we had very few international guests, and lots from other cities within Texas, coming to enjoy our music and food. Now we have less coming for entertainment (because there is none!), but turns out people still want to come for other reasons.
I went from 2 days to 3 days and it was a good thing. With a 3 day minimum stay there is less wear & tear of luggage going in/out, fewer guests to keep track of, less communication required, etc.
The downside is now that I am leaving 24 hours between check out/check-in to follow CDC recommendations so germs can fall out of the air, I’m basically renting only long weekends. I cannot have more than one set of guests in a week
Everyone’s situation is different. For me, guests for less than 3 nights need to stay at a hotel. After all, hotels are built for it.
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The house I manage has been slammed with guests since the beginning of July. Lots of pent up demand. Its usually three day stays, to get away and golf and sight see. The owner who was going to let me go changed his mind this week, as he ‘suddenly’ had too much to do to AND take over the management. He gave me two more months of work. And its work too! So many inquiries and bookings. Like nobody is concerned about Covid anymore - lets get out and play!!
I’m currently open but with restrictions such that I’m not getting any bookings in my market. But I could get some. I took three bookings two weeks ago and they were a mixed bag. I’m increasingly thinking another lockdown even more severe than the first may be in store for some states. We should quit thinking of the US as a country for purposes of CV19. The response is a state by state one. Increasingly I’m seeing lists that break out states and compare them to nations of the world. There are 13 states at the top of the list with the most fatalities internationally.
Herman Cain died of covid today. He was prominent Republican who ran for President in 2012 and was a Trump surrogate. He attended the rally in Tulsa without a mask and generally mocked mask wearing in June. Within 10 days he has symptoms, he was hospitalized in early July. More deniers are testing positive and ultimately more will get sick and some will die. That’s the only thing I can think of that might turn things around in the US prior to having new leadership in Jan.
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As for the people are going to travel and so may as well stay open…I agree with that as long as precautions are taken. No one should be doing things like home share with shared spaces given what we now know about airborne transmission.
That said I won’t be surprised if there is another hard lockdown because people won’t voluntarily stay home and if they won’t this won’t be controlled.
Edit to add: Due to my age I am limited in some of the things I can do in response to the political situation in the US. Like I’m not going to any protests, I won’t volunteer to be a poll worker and so on. One thing I can do is keep the Airbnb open which gives me money to donate. That’s the best justification I can think of to stay open.
You should have let him have it back, the writing is on the wall you are expendable. Let him manage it awhile himself and then when he comes back tell him you need a raise.
RR
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