My bookings have dropped off a cliff - thankfully BDC is keeping me going

Introduction
1

Since the beginning of this year I have only had about 13 bookings via AirBnB when the most of my bookings used to come from them. I am averaging about 20 days/month occupancy with the rest of the days coming from BDC so my revenue stream remains profitable.

I have no idea why since if I had a choice I prefer AirBnB. This is because (probably already disussed before)

  • they pay you the day after. BDC in my part of world only pays me the following month for all bookings the previous month
  • BDC charges me more - AirBnB charges the client but I understand that might change
  • I canā€™t review guests, reject them nor look at their history
  • the insurance is not as good (been lucky so far)
2

What insurance is available through b.con please?

3

I hate BDC, the guests are terrible, leave shitty reviews, and one stole from me.
AND they also charge you for payouts, which is rude as they take a month to send the money.
You canā€™t review guests so there is no incentive for them to behave well.
the whole site is set up for hotels (and actually as a traveller thatā€™s when I use it), not unique farm accommodation

Iā€™m glad you are able to fill in the gaps with them, but I hope I donā€™t have to resort to that too. for now we are doing fine, although this past week was super slow.

4

Only liability I can see. Which is why I said AirBnB is better :frowning:

5

I must be lucky or itā€™s my property but I have never had a bad guest and bad review. The worso so far was a guest who spilled red wine on my brand new carpet but 1) it cleaned out completely using a commercial cleaning company and 2) guest offered to pay all charges with hesitation. I have an apartment in a building that has lots of STR apartments so that might influence the type of guests I get.

6

after my 2 awful guests Iā€™m of the opinion that many bdc guests have bad reviews on ABB.
one of mine was a 3rd party booking, sheā€™d been gifted the night, hadnā€™t read the listing, and then complained about things missing that werenā€™t ever offered as part of the listing, in a review that she was allowed to write even as a third party guest. Also, she was rude and awful, Iā€™ve never had guests like that via abb.
the other 4 guests were non-communicative and gave us low scores on silly things like ā€œcheck-inā€ and ā€œstaffā€. We are on a farm, the point is to relax, we have self-checkin and we leave people alone. Iā€™d had enough after 6 experiences and cancelled my contract with bdc.

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7

The experience with BDC, of terrible guests, no shows, theft, etc, seems to be common among str hosts here in Mexico, too.

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8

I would prefer AirBnB but I have no choice. My occupancy (pretty much all BDC) is at my target level of about 20 days/month from November through to Feb and March only needs a few days to reach that level. So I canā€™t complain I guess

9

We probably just donā€™t hear from the highly satisfied, lol. Iā€™ve had good luck over ten years. Bad ratings have only been about stupid things that I canā€™t control like traffic noise. Weā€™ve made some great friends.

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10

You canā€™t rely on guarantees or ā€˜insuranceā€™ from listing companies @lchiu7 you neee your own home insurance for STR.

If you use the search function on this forum there are lots of posts talking about a drop in bookings so worth you having a look?

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