Problems with 'new program' still not resolved. Tried several experiments...Nada...Anyone else?

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I don’t think you understood the analogy because you’re misapplying it and taking it out of context.

My point was that even though the update is affecting bookings, IT DOES NOT EXIST IN A VACUUM. The update is not the only problem. It is not singular. It is additive.

There are too many airbnbs in a lot of places. No matter what happens with the update, hosts need to be prepared to be competitive. And it is not possible that inflation is affecting everything except for airbnb bookings so add inflation to the equation too. Add in changing travel patterns and guest frustrations as well.

Even if airbnb reversed the entire update tonight, a lot of hosts are still going to have trouble booking. Personally, I think it’s foolish to put all of your concerns on a singular point when there are many. That’s what I meant by “wake the fck up” and that is all.

When hosts started complaining about not getting bookings a few weeks ago, I was concerned so I started researching and started tracking 7 different markets, checking them every day and taking notes. In 5 of the markets, there are 1000+ listings available 3 weeks before any weekend but on the Wednesday before that same weekend, there are only 440-530 listings available. And the hotels in the same area seem to have a similar percentage of bookings. The 6th market is smaller but similar in that is 300+ listings 3 weeks out to about 109 the Wednesday before. The 7th market is also booking but does seem to be slow (though it is in a different season, but I don’t know if that’s why or not).

But from 6 of 7 areas, I can extrapolate two things: One is that a ton of hosts are booking, at least 600+ of them in the 1000+ markets. Two is that there are too many airbnbs in a lot of areas. I chose the markets based on hosts in the community center and on here that said they weren’t booking.

For reference, my market is a 300+ market and on the Wednesday before a weekend, there are 20-25 listings available and a red-lettered warning that says, “There aren’t many places left in CityName so now’s a good time to book” and by Thursday night there are about 5 listings left. I believe that those numbers are why I am booking normally because my whole market is booking normally and is not as saturated but I also know that there are 204 new listings that didn’t exist last summer because I keep track of those things.

My post obviously inadvertently touched a nerve in you but there was no namecalling and nothing personal. I spoke only of hosts as a group and business owners as a group.

It’s clear that you didn’t care for the opinion I expressed in my discussion with Muddy but it’s not clear why you’re attacking me with a wall of text over it.

I am wholly empathetic about anyone not booking as much as they’d like. I also understand it. When they took away the pet filter last year, my bookings decreased by 88%. My views dropped to “3”. Not only did they not inform guests about how to find pet-friendly bookings after removing the filter (adding them to the guest list dropdown menu) it took them 2.5 months before they added the pet option to the guest list dropdown menu on the app.

And guests are still complaining that they don’t know how to filter for pet-friendly. It’s been 9 months and only 25% of my bookings have dogs now when it was 75% for years. So don’t tell me I don’t understand because you don’t know me, you’re just taking your frustrations out on a stranger on the internet who wasn’t even addressing you.

But when did the WiFi speed test for it to show on my listing, my views went not only back to normal but higher than normal. So I am prone to believe Airbnb when they say that people are filtering for fast wifi because it changed my number of views entirely. I didn’t want to do it and I swore when they started the speed test thing that I would never ever do it because I don’t want digital nomads, guests staying in all day, etc, etc. But I am running a business and I was losing money so I adapted.

Business owners have to be flexible and adapt to changes, it is inevitable and is the deciding factor for which businesses survive and which don’t. And I understand why people don’t like that, especially hosts because we’re vulnerable by having strangers coming into our homes. However, hosts are not exempted from the way businesses work.

universe where it’s acceptable for business owners to stomp their feet and throw fits instead of being flexible and adapting to change or making business decisions.

I stand by that 100%. And I’d prefer to spend my time on here being useful and I felt attacked by @muddy when that was indeed what I was trying to do. Your post literally talked about experiments to get more bookings and I offered you one to try. You even said you might try it. It seemed like an totally awesome interaction to me.

Still not sure why it invited wrath. It’s a forum. Advice will be given. Take it or leave it. And I will continue to post ideas about getting more bookings and anyone who doesn’t like it should just scroll on by, because there are plenty of hosts who do want to do something other than complain.

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As I was told by 4 different people the first week I was on this forum, this is not a support group.

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I never said that JJD doesn’t post helpful advice. I agree with and appreciate a lot of her posts. As I said, it’s fine to offer opinions as to what hosts could do to increase views and get more bookings. It’s that it has been offered as a a response to hosts saying their views and bookings dried up as a direct result of the update that is disrespectful.
And she also did this regarding hosts who were upset about it who posted on the CC. She wrote here that she looked at these host’s listings and they were fully booked for the next couple of months (disregarding that they have been in business for years, know their market and view history for various times of the year, and that those bookings were made before the update), or that the hosts were too new to have any booking history to extrapolate from, or that the host had a few negative reviews and that must be the reason why they aren’t getting booked.

Most hosts are not stupid, and they can see with their own eyes if their view graph went from hundreds a day to less than a handful overnight with this new roll-out, and know what sort of booking rate they get at various times of year. Plenty of hosts might have the first 2 months of their high season booked well ahead, yet get bookings rolling in at a certain amount per day for months in the future, and now they are getting none at all. There is nothing normal about that, nor did 1000 new listings pop up in their area overnight exactly when the new update took effect.

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@KCC I had someone on mute and now they’re not. I keep putting in the users name, the time frame and it doesn’t get accepted. I’m clueless as to what to do.

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Are you using the button under the blue message button (on a computer) ?

It has a drop down menu with normal, muted and ignored?

My interface might be different since I’m a mod. I can’t really use the feature since I need to read what everyone is saying.

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@KKC I’m on a Mac, I go to preferences, users, mute user, type in the name and the time period.
The user name disappears every time. I’ve done it repeatedly.

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I am sorry that you’re having so fewer bookings and are so frustrated.

@JJD’s advice might be accurate in your situation or not. I don’t know about you but when I read her posts and especially the one below in response to your post here I am blown away by her expertise and what she casually ‘tracks.’

But let’s suppose that what she suggests as possibilities in your situation turn out not to be possible. Well, then unless someone else comes up with a suggestion, all we can do is empathize. It might make you feel better but does nothing to help your business.

But suppose that one of the possibilities is a real possibility in you situation. Then maybe there is something you can do. @JJD did give you that one suggestion two days ago. Have you put that in place?

If what is happening to you happened to me I would re-read @JJD’s posts again and again, and see if I could start tracking my market like she does. Regrettably I wouldn’t have last year’s data points but it would be a start to figuring something out, what’s happening and whether there might be some actions you could take. I would love to have @JJD as my coach as I try to work that through.

Have you ever had the experience that the person you thought was your enemy becomes a very good friend? Well, it’s deja vu all over again. Good luck. You have a gold mine in @JJD. We all do.

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Why is it disrespectful? I don’t understand why it matters why bookings have dried up. Perhaps we have philosophical differences. When I read a post about bookings drying up, that is my takeaway. Bookings have dried up. That is all that matters. And then I think, what could help?

You attacked me for giving someone advice. It was good advice, she said thanks and that she would try it and it was a really nice forum interaction until…well, I’m still not sure what the problem was, which is it:

  1. You didn’t think it was decent advice?
  2. I shouldn’t give shadowint advice?
  3. Shadowmint shouldn’t be taking advice?
  4. No advice is allowed, only complaining

Which is it?? You told me I was missing the point but the title of her post is literally, Problems with new program still not resolved. Tried several experiments…nada…Anyone else?

I am part of “anyone else” and I have experimented and had some success with one of the experiments so I answered her post and told her about an experiment that helped me with my bookings.

And I never said that anyone wasn’t booking because of their listing, I never addressed anyone specifically, I am not even thinking of anyone specifically. What I have said and is true is that changing your listing can increase views, ranking, and that anything you can do to be more competitive will help. But that’s airbnb 101, not news, just a reminder.

@muddy please answer the question. You are talking about me as if I am not here. It is cruel playground behavior. I really want to know why it was disrespectful to give shadowmint an idea for an experiment when the title of her post literally asked if anyone had some? @muddy

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If you go to a user’s profile do you have this option:

zilla
zilla1258×421 46 KB

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@KCC Don’t see that on mine. I think what it didn’t like was when I tried to mute for 2 months. When I did it for 2 weeks it worked.
Thanks

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34

Unfortunately, Chesky’s redesign has many parts to it. One was to increase overall utilization by, in so many words, “spreading the wealth”. He stated earlier this year "the holy grail is actually pointing demand to where we have supply because there’s no one night any time in our history where we’ve been even close to sold out on Airbnb… And so, if we can point demand where we have supply, that is actually the equivalent of adding millions of more homes. "

I suspect there was more tinkering with search results to achieve this, and properties that book well on AirBnB may be pushed down. Vrbo has stated “the more nights you have available for booking on our platform, the higher up in the search results you will be”. It doesn’t make a lot of sense if someone is searching with dates, but it does if they search without dates.

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I have quite a bit of August unbooked. In seven years that had never been the case.

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This is really enlightening, thank you.

I thought Airbnb has stated that as well? But maybe it just seemed like it. I notice in my views and wishlist additions that they both go down after the next 30 days or so fill up and they go up again and so on. It’s always seemed that drop after getting a few bookings.

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It might because a good percent of the searches for your area are for dates in the next 30 days, too.

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@shadowmnt Your response was on point and you deserve to express everything you are going through, and we as Hosts, should be supportive and compassionate to each other’s unique situations. As much as I have anxiety over everything that has been happening, I am trying to stay a little positive. I, too, have started to consider leaving the STR business altogether, but I am going to try to hang in there just a little longer as season will be picking up here in S. Florida again soon. If things don’t change by the end of the year, then I definitely feel that AIRBNB has created a situation to drive out the average host.

I obviously don’t know all the reasons, but it’s been a suspicion of mine for a while now since the rollout. Everything you described in your initial post, including everything you did, the changes to your listing trying to improve on your bookings is so relatable. I thought at times I was the only Host going crazy. Several of us in my area have dropped our prices a few times, but that has only led to really bad guests booking and/or scammers–some of us being scammed by the same guests days after each other.

It is all a waiting game now. Waiting for the complaints to be heard. Waiting for the improvements. I just pray that some of us can keep doing what we came to love once upon a time :pleading_face:

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I understand the decrease in bookings:) I average about 2 views a day. I’m sadly disappointed and surprised at the decrease. I was able to keep the summer booked by lowering my price to $99 . It’s a three bedroom luxurious condo fully stocked. I did it just to stay up in the search rankings. Fall is our high season and I don’t have one booking:(.

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@Snowy That is heartbreaking to have to lower your price for such a beautiful accommodation. It is very nerve-racking to have NO future bookings and it seems that there are so many Hosts in that predicament right now. I have hope that things will improve for most of us :pray:

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Better to be heartbroke than broke-broke :wink:

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Just a few thoughts - and I apologize if someone has mentioned them. If your traffic is solely generated by Airbnb search - you are very vulnerable to the nuances of their system. If you haven’t already - I’d start working on a social media strategy immediately. Start a basic website - use Wix to keep it cheap for you. Set up a Facebook, instagram , and tik tok account. Post about the surrounding areas with regular drips about booking with you. Post content specifically highlighting why your place rocks. Get a cool domain name that points to your airbnb listing. Create posts with pictures of previous 5-star reviews to lend credibility. Look for local marketing platforms ( magazines, groups, chamber of commerce, etc etc ). Find online business directories that list vacation properties. Reach out to past guests from a year ago around the same time - and offer them a discount if they book in the next 90 days. Join FB groups where you’re allowed to promote your listings. Basically go ham on trying to get as much exposure as possible. I’m not saying this will completely fix / resolve your issue - but unless you’re definitely walking away from your property - these are some things to try. These are all things we do with our property.

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I’m not surprised there are bad effects for mis-categorized individual hosts, and I sympathize. Quite a blow especially if this is how you are paying the mortgage on your future retirement home. I agree with the advice to diversify platforms.

Airbnb corporate does not care about an individual host. That’s not because they’re mean; it’s because they are a profit-making business. The company is expecting more booked nights and gross revenue increases from their revised search functions, pushing demand to less-booked areas and accommodating the higher volume of week+ and month+ bookings, some non date-specific, that they have seen in their stats.

Also, like many tech-based organizations, they are having the users be beta-testers to some extent. At my recent Airbnb stay as a guest, the algorithm had slotted the property as “Lake View,” because there was a picture of the Atlantic Ocean beach a couple blocks away. The actual view was of a parking lot, some construction containers, and a dumpster. The algorithm will improve over time, but that won’t restore your lost bookings.

The only other suggestion I can make is to tweet and/or post on their facebook page every couple weeks about your missing category. Don’t expect much – I have been facebook posting monthly about my accessibility feature photos being “in review” for 8 months since that Airbnb category was “improved” last year. The replies are prompt but consist only of saying they are forwarding my issue to some team and thanking me for my patience. I expect that when enough correction tickets for my property pile up at some unknown point in the future, it may get addressed, but I am not counting on it.

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