Why bookings have dropped dramatically:

Ok I started a thread awhile back asking if other hosts were experiencing a sudden lack of bookings and a lot of you said YES! Well I found an article today that explains some reasons/
Apparently we had a pandemic boomlet which has now subsided- but besides that. There are a glut of new listings which I am just going to ride out.
I’m also putting up front on my Airbnb description page: “TOTALLY CHORE FREE PLACE TO STAY”- because the biggest gripe I read about from other Airbnb’s is “why am U paying a cleaning fee if I’m doing most of the work?”- anyway, here is the article:
(It won’t let me forward it but Google this)

As mentioned on your previous thread it’s worth you checking local conditions that may be affecting your booking

  1. Are you in low season
  2. What is supply and demand like for your sort of listing in your location - many hosts are now operating in oversaturated markets
  3. There is a major recession which is affecting bookings in many part of the world
  4. Are you using all available channels to market your STR business ie all relevant STR channels and having your own direct channels which you market.
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I’d be interested in hearing how the “chore free” push works out. I’d love to hear if your bookings pick up, and if the chore free guests end up being neater and easier to clean up after, or if you end up with some real messes. I could see it going either way.

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Or is the market completely glutted and STR’s have hit a plateau?

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Yet Airbnb keeps trying to solicit new hosts to glut the market even further.

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readable without paywall:

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Great idea! My listing says up high in the copy, “We do not ask you to do any chores at check-out but appreciate common courtesy.”

The good manners standard I was taught is: Yes, your host has a housekeeper, but you don’t leave anything in the guest house that would make the housekeeper want to quit.

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Personally there is no way I would want to promote a ‘chore free checkout’ after seeing the filthy mess some guests leave listings in @Margi1

Does your market research show you a chore free experience is the key reason most people chose your sort of listing in your location?

I do promote as part of my copy that we have a relaxed approach and just need guests to turn off lights, use recycling and wash dishes/turn on dishwasher before they leave.

Promoting it as chore free I think sends out the wrong sort of message to guests who abuse hospitality. And as importantly I know being chore free is NOT a key factor when booking my location. Guests book with me because they love the house and my hosting style (not being vain this is what they say in most reviews), I have great reviews and ratings and am in a really convenient location with great local food and music venues and public transport facilities.

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We live above our unit and I purposely did not have a kitchen sink installed when we were building this unit. I do, however, provide a lot of free breakfast food and drink, full sets of silverware, plates and bowls, cups, glasses, etc.- A 5 gallon filtered water dispenser, hot, cold. Room temp.
We also have a heated bidet toilet, heated bathroom floor, double shower and a million fluffy towels. That way, I have the guests feel like they’re in a luxury suite, so luxurious in fact that I have them leave their dishes on a table in the hallway so that I wash them every day which means I also bring them in and put them away while they’re out, every single day they’re staying.
So they know ahead of time I’m going to be in the unit every day which, along with the place being spotless and completely tidy when they arrive has so far prevented them from wrecking or trashing the place.
The worst thing that’s ever happened is 2 people from the same town we live in stayed over night “to get away from roommates” and they gave themselves black clay face masks and ruined 2 pink wash cloths, which I made them pay for through the app.
Maybe that’s why “no chores” works for us. I’d never have a random property out there somewhere for people to stay on- can’t afford that and I’m glad lol
Margi-

I had the same thought myself. I wouldn’t want chore-free to be my selling point. There are so many better reasons to choose one of my listings.

I’ve never given chores yet every guest does their dishes and nearly all take the trash and recycling to the outside bins. Guests are, for the most part, decent and thoughtful people.

There are just a few who go online and moan about “chores”. I saw one recently say that they just don’t want to do dishes on vacation. It’s such an odd position to take and they are really inconsequential fringe and I see no reason to market to them.

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Geez. You had them pay for two wash cloths?

Perhaps:

“CHORE FREE BUT PLENTY OF NICKEL-AND-DIMING IN OTHER WAYS PLACE TO STAY”

:rofl:

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I never go in the guest room while guests are out. When I offer guests clean sheets and towels, I started out by asking if they would like me to change them or do it themselves, and after every guest saying no problem, they will do it themselves, I don’t even ask anymore, I just hand them a stack of clean towels and linens. Guests obviously prefer their privacy.
Maybe you aren’t getting bookings because you tell guests you go in their space every day. As a guest, I would pass on a listing like that.

A friend with an in-home suite with no kitchen sink, but a set-up like yours, snacks, mini-fridge, dishes, has guests put the dirty dishes in a tote outside the door. She washes them and leaves the clean ones in the tote back outside their door. No way would she go in the guest space to put them away.

I would never advertise No Chores. I do not have any chore list at all, but my guests are respectful, clean up after themselves in the shared kitchen, and leave their room usually very clean and tidy. The last thing I’d want is to attract guests who expect me to clean up after them, with “No Chores” listed.

The recent data about guests disliking being given check-out chores has more do with over-the-top expectations, like stripping beds and starting a load of wash. And hosts who don’t make check-out instructions clear in the listing info, instead springing it on them after arrival.
Expecting guests to clean up their personal mess and wash their own dirty dishes where feasible is perfectly reasonable and what I find most guests do without being asked to.
Advertising “NO CHORES” is just a good way to ensure that guests become even more entitled and resent being asked to do the most basic of cleaning up after themselves in the future.

And I would never charge guests for ruined washcloths, even if they offered to pay. That seems so petty- it’s just considered normal wear and tear.

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I’m really curious why you did that. Others have been in a situation without a kitchen sink, but since you were ‘building this unit’ I would have suggested that you put in a kitchen sink. That definitely is a big ‘plus’ in a short-term rental. Is it too late to put one in?

Sounds very nice!

I agree with others. I believe most guests would view this negatively even if (and this is a ‘must’) that you disclose you do so.

Some kind of mechanism like this is, IMHO, far preferable to your entering the unit.
Maybe you can give them a choice?

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I tried that when I first started my airbnb. (I don’t have a kitchen sink). I provided a plastic bin for the dirty dishes and told them to leave the bin on the table by the front door and when they returned a clean bin of dishes would be in front of their door. Guests almost never brought out the dirty dishes and I ended up with gross, encrusted dishwater and the potential for bugs. I now provide disposable dishwater (which I hate). I do provide real wine glasses.

I don’t quite understand. Dirty dishwater? Why would you have guests deal with that? Where was the dirty dishwater coming from if there was no kitchen sink? What is "disposable dishwater’? Did you mean disposable dishes?
My friend just has them put dirty dishes in the tote, there’s no dishwater involved, she puts them in her own dishwasher, and she never had issues with guests not complying.

So that approach didn’t work.

@Margi1 Note: @Lynick4442 's disposable dishes approach does work, and another approach is what @muddy suggested, providing a tote or something where the guest could put their dirty dishes, and which would be replaced the next day.

Dirty dishes.
x0x0x0x0x

That didn’t’ work for me. Guests did not leave the dirty dishes and I didn’t think it was a good idea to enter the STR

If you can get away with asking guests to do chores, good for you. But this is another reason why I don’t stay in AirBnBs. Usually.

AirBnB’s market research DOES show that asking for chores + charging a cleaning fee is a combination guests do NOT like. I sat in on the meeting with AirBnB staff where this issue was discussed specifically and at length.

Anybody who is struggling with bookings ought to consider ditching both the cleaning fee and the chore list.

Cleaning up one’s personal messes and washing the dishes they dirtied isn’t “chores”. It’s a daily part of life responsible adults expect to do, whether they are on vacation or not.

I wouldn’t even leave a mess in a hotel room for the overworked, underpaid cleaners to deal with.

And the only way to ditch a cleaning fee and remain financially viable is either to have minimum night stay that makes that feasible (for instance, I have a 3 night minimum, and my average stay length is 1-2 weeks, so the hour and a half- 2 hrs of cleaning spread out over that many days is a reasonable expense for me to not have to charge a separate cleaning fee), or raise the nightly price to cover the cleaning.

Or do you think a host should pay their cleaner for 4 hrs of cleaning a 4 bedroom house out of their profit margin?

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