This forum is dedicated to connecting hosts with other hosts. Sign up to get the latest updates and news just for AirBnb hosts! Note that we are not affiliated with Airbnb - we are just passionate hosts!
Hi.
I’m wondering whether anyone uses an image of some of their more descriptive reviews with their other photos. I tend to point people towards reading our reviews and it invariably leads to a booking, meaning (incredibly) they probably haven’t already read the reviews. Based on that i’ve taken some selected reviews, presented them nicely and intend to add to the photos. Good idea/Bad idea? Am i missing something?
Cheers
Martin
You could do that if you like, @martinp , or you could use phrases from the reviews as photo captions. I did that for awhile, and still have one of them up. With the photo of the sleeping area I put: “I had a very cozy, deep sleep in the woods, beyond the reach of modern technology…”
It was much better than me saying, “You will be in the woods where there is no wifi but it’s nice,” so I let that review do the talking.
You could do the same with the nicest parts of those descriptive reviews maybe? Let previous guests do the talking about how wonderful everything is? Then those words are there with the photos, but not a photo itself.
As a guest, I would see a host’s photos of their reviews and think it redundant. I see your point, of course, in highlighting them in this way. I don’t think you are missing anything.
I have also captioned my photos with phrases from reviews. Today as I was looking at some of my local area listings, I saw someone posted a “private note” from a guest as a photo. I would not do that as the guest put it in private feedback, not the public review.
Much appreciate Lawre, I think I’ll give that go, much better use of the reviews I agree.
@martinp This is a great idea, I think! Many seem to be struggling with a dip in bookings, and I have heard that tweaking the listing may help. I have done everything I can think to do. I have been tempted to include photos of some of the sweet notes left (in a public guestbook) by enthusiastic guests. Maybe I could include snippets of these notes as captions to some photos.
Airbnb’s photo policy formerly prohibited text appearing in photographs. There were instances of listings being removed from Airbnb.
I searched the photo guidelines & how to articles. It appears that is no longer a requirement. So some text is acceptable in photos like “no cleaning fee” (@house_plants ) or highlighting features.
However text that encourages a guest to book off platform is prohibited.
Airbnb’s off platform policy . BTW the off platform policy changed at some point. This one is more strict about encouraging current or past guests to book off-platform than what I thought. In other words, under this policy if you have direct booking business cards in the listing & the guest reports it, Airbnb can de-list you.
I think it’s fine, and good marketing strategy. However, if I were going to do that, I would ask the guest’s permission to do so. Yes, the phrases are in a public review, that anyone can read, but technically it seems like the content belongs to the writer if you are going to copy it and use it for marketing purposes. Just as Airbnb will remove a review or response if requested by the writer.
Aside from any legal question, it just seems like a respectful thing to ask the guest.
Thank you, @Annet3176 for your due diligence. I have not been as thorough. You may have just saved my bacon. I have a brief message on the back of my House Manual prompting guests to visit my social media page. I completely blew past the implications of that in the TOS.
I wonder why a guest would report you if you are offering a fee free booking opportunity?
Direct booking access is offered to all my good guests and now only about 10% of my bookings come from OTA’s. The reduced stress from those no reviews is amazing
Thanks momovich. I too noticed a slight dip in bookings, oddly i found that a very slight tweak downwards in price made a big difference. Which i don’t think relates to guests spending limits but more to how the airbnb algorithm works, but i may be wrong.
All good points. For my particular property (sleeps 10), repeat bookings are few and far between. And guests can be spiteful when caught out.
Thanks muddy, i did wonder about that, i took the view that the review is in plain sight I’m just adding a spotlight.
Some people enjoy being a jackass. Also if they want some kind of retaliation against a host send Airbnb a picture of the off-platform promotion so be delisted.
My conversation with good guests is pretty basic.
Do you travel here often?
Please save my number and let me know if you are coming again so I can check my availability, sometimes the online calendar isn’t accurate…;
@Debthecat Oh, I don’t think anyone would report it. I’m just paranoid. I am cultivating non-OTA sources of interest like mad and would love to be out from under the twitchy thumb of the overlords. There are positives and negatives to both models, but the consistently inconsistent OTA has me fed up to my eyeballs.
I think this is low risk. Knowledge is power. Now you know so can protect yourself.
I’m thinking dual sided business cards. One side Airbnb, the other direct contact.
I always ask guests for their email address so I can send them the map to my place before they arrive. So all my guests already have my email, and I have theirs. As a homeshare host, I just tell them before they check out that if they ever want to come back, or have friends who’d like to book, they can contact me directly, or if they feel more comfortable booking through Airbnb, that’s totally up to them.
And of course, we all have a guest’s phone number and they have ours.
