Strategy to get more reviews during off season

I have been thinking about increasing my review count to have a moat against guests who leave bad reviews.

At one of my listings, I have a shoulder season from late April to mid-June. The listing is for a studio built a couple of years ago, and I have an average rating of 4.89. The average length of stay is 5 nights, and I keep a 3 or 4-night minimum. Airbnb does not average a review across the number of nights. So a guest who stayed for two nights has the same weight in calculating the rating as the one who stayed seven nights.

Here is my plan:

  • To maximize the number of stays and reviews, set the maximum number of nights to two and a minimum to one night during the shoulder season using a rule set.
  • For two or fewer nights, set the cleaning fee to $0 using the new feature for short stay cleaning.
  • Set nightly rate to half of my high season rate.
  • Switch to simplified pricing temporarily so that guests don’t see an Airbnb service fee. Guests hate the fees, so they will only see one price with the short stay cleaning fee and the simplified pricing.
  • Simplified pricing will also temporarily affect the high season dates, but that’s a hit I will have to take.
  • They will receive the same great service they get during the high season.

I am assuming that since I usually get lots of five-star reviews for long stays in high season, I will also be able to accumulate several five-star reviews during the shoulder season.

I’d like some feedback on how to improve this plan.

Sounds like a huge faff to me . Your approach is likely to encourage more bookings, from bargain hunters rather than more reviews.

If you want more guests to review you talk about the review process in your visitor guides and in the checkout note you send to guests say how important reviews are to hosts and ask if they would kindly leave one.

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If your average length of stay is 5 nights, and your current required minimum stay is already less than 5, further reducing your minimum required length if stay isn’t going to increase bookings.

More bookings doesn’t necessarily translate into more reviews. If your guest isn’t engaged, you can’t force them to leave a review and there is no guarantee the review will be 5*.

You can try your changes but I doubt you will get the reviews you are seeking.

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Considering that Air is pushing folks to all-host fees, I suspect that when you want to change back you won’t be able to do so. At least I wouldn’t trust them no let me do that.

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Theoretically it could work if your shorter stay guests all give you great reviews. However, it seems like a lot of work with no guaranteed result. Much will depend on what might bring people to your area in the shoulder season. Will they be coming and having fun, thus upbeat and likely to be positive. Might they be coming for other reasons like business or family matters that might predispose them to a negative frame of mind. It’s a gamble.

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I’m hesitant to roll the Airbnb fees into the price until either Airbnb requires it and I have to, or the majority of hosts in my area are doing it.

I’m already priced at a small premium above my competition, and I don’t want my base price to appear even higher.

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Thanks for your feedback. I will send them info about the review process. I saw a humorous explanation here and that might be a good one to send.

I offer long stay discounts during high season to encourage longer bookings. I get inquiries all the time from people wanting to book fewer nights but it’s more work so I prefer longer bookings in the high season.

Good to know. I will try this in my spouse’s account first which has only a couple of listings.

Great point. Certainly, something to keep track of and change track if things are not going my way.

I agree with @Helsi that this sounds like a real faff.

If you’re offering great service why aren’t you getting great reviews?

Is this feasible? Do you think that low prices will lead to good reviews?

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I’m getting them but it’s too slow. My high season stays are longer so I don’t accumulate as many. I want to double them so that no rogue guest will have the power to threaten me with a bad review.

I’m inspired by @KKC’s idea in another thread.

I can also monetize reviews. I was able to charge much higher rates this Christmas because I had more reviews. So it’s an investment.

Based on two recent data points, yes. An event got canceled so I rented those dates at a low rate. I got a glowing review out of it. So I want to scale it and get a dozen more reviews, then use that to increase my high season rates.

Listings with high ratings show up on top even at higher rates. I have done that experiment. I raised my rate above the competition but I was still on top since I had 8x 5* reviews in that listing.

Rolf also mentioned this.

Just wanted to provide an update on the experiment.

I harvested 25 reviews using one or two night stays at my minimum price, no cleaning fee. I got 2 reviews that are less than five stars. One is a four-star where guest says it’s a nice place to stay but still gave me four stars.

Another is a 3* from a guest who stayed for a single night, wanted early check in and late check out. I didn’t offer it to him so I suspect he retaliated. He wrote just one word in his review: Okay. It has not impacted bookings though.

So my average rating didn’t really go up but I have more reviews.

This is my high season so I could only do this with the gaps between stays. I hope to harvest another dozen reviews with this technique during the shoulder season coming up in late April to May, and use those to charge higher rates during high season of summer.