I’m knocking my head against the table trying to understand why I suddenly lost all bookings and inquires. I’m a SH with more than 300 reviews, my price is a bargain and still nobody asks me a thing. It is low season here but it is definitely MUCH MORE quiet than what I though. Looks like If I were delisted. I’m star thinking if there might a different issue on the site this days (might be in the payment process, in the verification, etc). I have seen the availability of others fellow hosts in my area and I’m surprised of how empty they are when they used to be full. Is this happening to you too?
Where are you Monica? It’s dead season in a lot of places. School is in and spring break is over. Summer traveling has not started.
I’m in Hawaii, the Big Island. Everything comes to a screeching, thudding halt right about now. This has been the pattern for years now. So I prepare and am not worried. Frankly if I had the means I’d leave here during the summer too. It’s hot, humid, buggy and rainy. The weather stinks. It’s the low season!
That’s right!!! California is still on a traditional school year! All of our spring breakers returned last week!
Have you had any drops due to Zika worries? It’s all over the news about Brazil’s crisis. We just survived a small dengue outbreak. (Fingers crossed, no new cases in about two weeks)… but Zika could get here too. We’ve been working like crazy here to promote awareness and be proactive about eliminating breeding sites!
It was brought in by a traveler from Brazil. It wasn’t acquired locally. We don’t have it here. Yet.
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We’re on the Gulf Coast of Florida – Fort Myers. Just started Air Hosting on Dec 1st. We were half booked in January and booked 100% in Feb and March. By March 20 we did not have a single booking for April or later. Then we got bookngs for half of April. But the last guests leaft Sunday and we have no bookings at all to follow. Still We expected a drop – out of Season, after Spring Break etc. In a month or so the rea will get he annual influx of European travelers – lots of Germans and Swiss, who come to bake at the local beaches.
Still, from reading this site, it seems as if this May is unusually low in bookings for all sorts of people all over the globe.
I just spent an entire day correcting a glitch in ABNB program.
By accident I found 4 inquiries which had not been pushed to my email…2 had expired. They were in my messages but not passed on.
It was finally fixed, but the girl who called me about it(after a dozen emails back and forth) let drop that it was their glitch and it had affected half their users.
I would suggest that everyone chek ther messages.
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My last resort is to think that there is a glitch on Airbnb but after experiencing so many bugs since I started hosting I can´t exclude this thought. I have to deal with every type of bug you can imagine: messaging, payments, visibility. You name it, I faced it. I will always start thinking that it is my listing, low season, whatever but I would never discard the possibility it might be an error from their side.
As like @KenH my last booking was made on March-15th which is too much for what I’m use to. I use to have 2 bookings per week (high seson), 1 per week (low season). 1 per month isn´t normal at all! In my Reservation page I always have around 30 reservations in the coming days. This is consistent across the entire year but it might drop to 20 in low season. Now I’m having just 6 reservations coming and no more. I will exclude myself from the ecuation to say that I’m seeing total bargains in my area and it is truly hard to believe that no one has booked with them. They are selling themselves at the cost of the local rental (no furniture) just to cover the costs. So, if you tell me that half of their users are experiencing messages problems I would believe you.
Oh, by the way: Right now there is new bug in some listings that add a 3% to the price and to every money item you have in your listing (deposit, cleaning fee, extra guest fee). It happens sometimes (not always) and I have seen others with the same problem. I haven´t seen this bug yesterday on my listings but I can assure they have fixed it.
To be clear, there were inquiries in my message folder on the site, but they were not emailed to me.
This was scary because I cannot go looking 10 times a day for messages I dont get.
What was your experience on Craigslist? I am getting tired of depending only on Airbnb.
Craigslist is kind of dead here as well as the others. Airbnb ate all the others and today you can rarely survive with your Bnb if you don´t suceed on Airbnb. I have my listing published on Flipkey, Wimdu, 9flats and I’m not getting a single inquiry but based on the amount of reviews the others have is seems they aren´t havng to much activity to consider.
I love Airbnb but lately is becoming kind of a dictator. To get bookings they suggest you to set IB, take their suggested prices, relax your cancellation policy, answer every message in 10 minutes, accept infants, reduce your minimum stay, etc, etc,etc. My feeling with them is that I lost my freedom. I don´t feel myself in control of my place. Instead I believe I need to follow orders to get reservations. Some of them are ridiculous like opening my calendar to avoid losing ranking every day even if there is nothing to change in there.
Maybe families are focused on finishing up school?! Enjoying the change of weather and not as desperate to plan their trips? January and February had me hopping responding to booking requests. Now it is dead. Two bookings this month, for one night only, and, a cancellation for a three night stay. I know that it is in part because I’m booked but I do have a number of week-long openings.
Then I remember that I started last June and had my fill for the summer - so, I trust their are more to come!
Hang in there everyone!! The hospitality industry is nothing if not cyclic!
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Too much competition! You have a leg up by being an experienced host. Try posting on multiple sites like flipkey and homeaway. Avoid Wimdu if you can. I also list photos/descriptions in different cities Craigslist accounts so people maybe thinking about a trip somewhere can see it!
KenH my family has always gone to Fort Myers during the summer months when my kids got out of school and we might take advantage of our slow season to go and have a nice vacation for a few days.
We always stayed at the pink shell when they had the little cottages. You might have a lot of Miami folks that tend to go at that time of the year. At least my Cuban friends all went during that time.
Hola Carmen!
You’re right, we get a fair amount of “cross state” summer visitors as well as Germans and other central Europeans. We’re about half an hour from the Pink Shell, which is on the far north western end of FM Beach/Estero Island.
Come on over! There are a lot of beaches closer and less crowded than FM Beach itself.
What happened with Wimdu? I’ve had one guest and it was great. Several more are booked this summer.
Ken please send me your listing since both me and hubby are dying to escape Miami and would love to have a weekend to ourselves since my adult son lives with us until he can finish his masters. Talk about hating college debt!
I think this will work. Let me know if it doesn’t. All I see is the Preview…
We are called Poolside Cabana with Gourmet Flair and are in The Villas south of downtown Fort Myers.
It would be great to have you visit.
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