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Hello everyone!
We noticed an interesting pattern with our guests. All of them have no reviews whatsoever. Does someone understand what it could be about our listing that makes it attractive to non-reviewed guests. Is this common? Is there something we can do to make the listing more attractive to reviewed guests?
Thanks for thinking along!
What’s wrong with your “non-reviewed” guests, are they bad guests?
You can change your booking settings to only accept IB from “reviewed” guests, while “non-reviewed” guests will have to send a booking request, that’s as much as you can do within Airbnb.
To be frank, if you’re getting bodies through the door, getting a decent nightly rate and the guests aren’t problematic I can’t see an issue; or am I missing something here?
JF
What’s wrong with your “non-reviewed” guests, are they bad guests? […] am I missing something here?
I don’t think you are missing anything. Maybe just reading into my question a bit more than there actually is.
I was not complaining about the quality of the guests. We simply noticed that none of our guests - or would-be guests - have no reviews, and have very skimpy profile data. Even those who have been registered on AirBnB for a couple of years. So we were wondering what is it, if anything, that makes our place more attractive to guests without reviews. Or whether there is a common way to shift the guest mix more towards guests with reviews.
None that I know of, and if the quality of your guests is fine, I’m not sure I’d be that bothered to try and find one. Heads in beds and all that (© @RiverRock)
JF
I think it’s due to COVID, more newbies staying close to home are booking Airbnbs for the first time since they don’t want to fly anywhere.
I would say that last summer 90% of my guests were newbies and from PA, NJ and NY. Whereas in other years we had lots of folks from Canada.
I didn’t have any issues with newbies that had no reviews. They’re just new to Airbnb. Sometimes I feel they conduct themselves better than the ones with fake 5 star reviews.
How can we know what might be attracting new guests to your listing when we haven’t seen it 
How long have you been hosting ?
What’s your pricing like compared to your competitors?
About 50% of my guests are new to the platform.
These guests are my bread and butter. I don’t care if they don’t have reviews. I go by the communication while they’re booking. Frankly, I’ve had more issues with guests who all have “fabulous” reviews.
Yuppers.
How can we know what might be attracting new guests to your listing when we haven’t seen it
That’s fair. I was hoping to uncover any general advice for such a situation, something that people “usually” do in this respect.
I’m also prepared for there not being any general advice.
How long have you been hosting ?
Close to a year.
What’s your pricing like compared to your competitors?
I think we’re around the 80th percentile. We use the pricing to throttle the interest, since we also live in the property during its downtime, and want to balance occupancy with our convenience.
Out of curiosity, how does knowing these two pieces of information help you answer my original question?
Can you explain what you mean by this? What does the pricing have to do with you using the property yourself? If hosts use the property themselves sometimes, you just block the dates you want to use it.
The question you originally asked isn’t really one anyone can answer, other than what others pointed out about there being an abundance of newbie guest accounts since the pandemic.
There’s a host on another forum who seems to get far more than her share of entitled, demanding guests who make bizarre complaints, like there being a lot of insects in the garden (???) She also gets a lot of inquiries and requests that are unbelievably demanding. She posted one she got the other day where the inquirer wanted her to cancel the guests
she had booked for those dates, or give them the contact info for guests she had booked, so they could negotiate with those guests to give up their booking. When she said she wouldn’t do that, the inquirer messaged back even more outrageously, “I don’t think you understand. We need to book those dates. Make it happen!”
There is nothing about her listing which would be the cause of her getting so many entitled guest communications- it’s a converted old schoolhouse in the countryside in Maryland for 4 guests max, not advertised as luxury or anything.
Sometimes you can figure out why some hosts get a certain demographic of guests, and sometimes it’s a mystery, just luck of the draw.
Can you explain what you mean by this? What does the pricing have to do with you using the property yourself? If hosts use the property themselves sometimes, you just block the dates you want to use it.
Sure thing. It is well known that if you price your property lower than market, you will have higher occupancy than when priced at market rate (50th percentile). And if you raise your price with respect to the market, you will have lower occupancy.
Yes, you could block off specific dates. But then, you’d miss out on the potential additional income and are not using your property efficiently.
For example, I may want to stay at my rental house over a weekend instead of getting $500/night (sample value); but I may be willing to forgo the stay if I had someone willing to pay $1000/night for that same weekend. So we set the nightly price at the amount that would make us reconsider our plans for staying in the property.
So what we do instead of blocking off times, we raise the prices. That makes it less likely that someone reserves that time window. But if someone really wants the property, we’re willing and able to accommodate.
We are of course able to do this only because we’re very flexible. We do block dates off, but do so only very rarely, when we do not have the flexibility. For example, we block off the dates around birthdays, since we’re not willing to move those around.
No, it’s not “well known” as in many situations raising the prices will actually generate more interest and bookings.
I really think that it’s you that’s overthinking this, as said by @muddy, block off the dates you want, then just watch the dinero roll in. Simples really 
JF
No, it’s not “well known” as in many situations raising the prices will actually generate more interest and bookings.
I was lazy to qualify this claim better, so you are spot on to call me out on that.
It is “well known” to the extent that demand elasticity is a thing. And I wish our property was one of those that generates more interest when priced more steeply. But if past experience is to be believed, this is not the case.
I really think that it’s you that’s overthinking this, as said by @muddy, block off the dates you want, then just watch the dinero roll in. Simples really
Not sure I’d go along with that overthinking remark. But I guess if it means I’m outthinking competition, then I’ll allow it. 
On a more serious note, perhaps there isn’t really an underlying pattern. I still consider this a worthy question to ponder.
I shut down my airbnb for 1 1/2 years during covid and re-opened in September. I’m finding that there are a lot of new people just signing up or within the last two years but haven’t traveled.
I live below so I don’t really attract problem guests so I almost always take a guest without a review.
Case closed maybe?
JF
We had the same kind of run this summer @filmil and we noticed the same demographic @Ritz3 describes above. Lots of “2-4 hour drive”, new profiles. We were competitively priced (tad lower than the comps). We did start to notice a trend of problem guests so raised prices & have had better guest behavior.
So for us, I think it was a combo of lower prices and “closer to home” that brought the influx of newbies. Next summer we will start with slightly higher pricing & see…adjust as needed to get the income & quality guest we want.
Experienced guests are more likely to seek out experienced hosts.
Some hosts will swear that lower prices are more likely to attract a lower quality of guest.
Most guests do not leave reviews until their stay was extraordinary or awful. Maybe reach out to them and see how you can improve your offering/request them for a review. It might sound terrible to solicit reviews, but, that is often the one thing that customers look for while booking the rental.
Most guests do not leave reviews until their stay was extraordinary or awful.
FWIW, most of our guests have left a review. We do ask them to, using an automated messages on the evening of their checkout. At least about half of them have done so without us asking, i.e. before the message came in.
That’s not a fact. It may be your experience, but it’s not at all true for many hosts.
