What can I do to improve? Low Bookings in Las Vegas

1

Hi,

Iam a relatively new AirBnB host out of Las Vegas, NV.

Iam having trouble booking weekdays and Im looking for some advice. Ive already dropped prices to $49 a night and it still doesnt seem to be working. I was under the impression that there was decent demand in this town.

Here is a link to my listing:

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Hopefully Iam not asking too much.

2

The number one thing I noticed is that you cancelled on two guests at your previous listing. If I were looking carefully and noticed that I wouldn’t book with you. Who wants to take a chance on that?

Your current place looks nice but it’s far from the #1 reason people go to Vegas and competition is stiff. Maybe you should try to market to people who are there for work.

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3

Hi there, I have a few suggestions based on a quick review of your listing:

  • I highly recommend replacing that giant sectional with something smaller; it’s really just too big for the room and overwhelms it
  • Get professional (or at least better) photos, particularly of the living area. Are the sofa and the kitchen the same room? Is there a dining table? From the photos I don’t get a good feel for the layout or functionality of the space
  • I would remove the word “casita” and simply replace it with “guest house” because most potential guests will have no idea what you’re talking about
  • How many minutes drive is it from the strip? Realistically most people visiting LV will be coming to party, and 7 miles sounds like a lot to me
  • Along the same lines, I’d be wary about telling people how quiet it is, because they may feel like they will have to be quiet themselves (unless you want this in which case leave it)
  • Raise your prices even more for the weekends and drop them for weeknights to preserve availability for people looking for long weekend trips. If your weekends are getting booked up far in advance it’s a good sign you’re not asking enough (or too much for weekdays)

If you make those relatively minor changes I can see you getting better rates and occupancy!

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4

Also, just a couple of spelling corrections to make in your listing:

Under Other things to note: pet = petted
Under House Rules about smoking: aloud = allowed

Consider at least a few colorful décor pillows for the sofa and pulling away each of the Queen beds from the wall.

5

Based on your calendar wkend vs wkdays strategy needs adjustment.

You already sold nearly all High Days (Fri, Sat) to people staying for 2 nights only. This makes your job to sell Low Days (Sunday~Wednesday) far more difficult.

If 70% occupancy is your goal, sell rooms as if Tues, Wed are meant to be unsold but rest MUST be booked.

Demand for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday arrivals are far less than weekends. Unless there is big demand for business travelers in your market you want to avoid this.

Example of how to manage calendar in general. Set different strategies for High, Mid, Low seasons.

Booking Lead time from August 14th 2017:

1wk out (Aug 14~20):
minimum 1Nights, Allow weekend only bookings, Competitive pricing

2wk out (Aug 21~Sep 03):
minimum 3N Fri arrivals, Lower Mon~Wed

4wk out (Sep 04~Sep 17)
minimum 4N Thu, Fri arrivals, Lower Thu

+8wk out (Sep 18~):
minimum 5N, Mon, Thu or Fri arrivals, maintain high rates, offer long stay discounts

Use excel spreadsheet to create Pricing Tiers to make your Pricing structure bit more easy to understand during weekly adjustment.

For example:
Tier 1 $200 High season High days
Tier 2 $180 High season Low days
Tier 3 $160 uncertain seasonality
Tier 4 $140 Low season High days
Tier 5 $120 Low season Low days

Good luck hosting.

6

WOW !!! You guys are the BEST! Ive never seen such good responses so quickly on any message board.

Ive made a bunch of the simple changes already including:

-Corrected Spelling (pet is actually correct, Petted is past tense)
-Changed the Miles to Minutes
-Scheduled a Professional Photographer

Torohost,
Im re-reading your post now to get a better understanding of what you are getting at…I think youve hit the nail on the head! My weekend prices are too low for sure.

How far out do you guys usually open the calendar? Month? 3Months?

-Geoff

7

The great room is actually VERY large and the couch isn’t overwhelming in person …although the pictures make it seem so. I think after the PRO photos are done, it’ll look much better.

What do you think is fair for weekend pricing?

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@geoffw

Leave it as you wish but though “petted” is the past tense of the word “pet”, the verb of the word “pet” is “petted”. Online example: “cats like to be petted”. No biggie.

9

I am totally booked until November 15th. I think my market is a bit unusual.

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Your market or your location…or you?

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One or none of the above?

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12

In both circumstances. the guests requested a cancellation. Where does it say that we cancelled on 2 guests?
Also, this was a completely different location and person managing the page.

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Where does it say? SMH. The fact that you don’t know your own profile inside and out isn’t reassuring either.

If a guest requests a cancellation, don’t do it. Make the guest cancel.
It’s clear it’s a different location but you and Jasmine are on this same account and the listings are linked.

geoff
geoff831Ă—511 46 KB

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These are deep in the review section and there are FAR more positives than negatives.

Tiffany is AirBnBs fault! Their system randomly opened up some dates that we had blocked off like 2 months in advance and we had no choice but to cancel once we figured out what happened.

15

(You might want to look in a mirror…there seems to be something on your shoulder.)

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16

you seem to be booked pretty fine right now. the biggest issue is the location, vast majority of people come to vegas to go to casino and walk the strip and you are far from it. the house itself seems fine to me. go get a pro photographer, it will help a lot.