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You are correct when you search a location you often get properties outside of that location coming up.
However I don’t agree price is the main factor . It’s likely to be immediate availability.
If you’re using other channels then your calendar will show limited availability on Airbnb and therefore you will go lower down the rankings .
I’m really seeing this right now. I have a direct book guest that has booked 4-5 days every other week from Oct through Aug. It’s a cushy situation so I’ve been lazy about opening up my calendar and for the first time I’ve seen my listing drop down many pages.
What’s really unfair is this business of allowing a guest 24 hrs to pay. If Airbnb is going to drop one’s search ranking because of blocked dates, that shouldn’t include counting blocked dates due to “awaiting payment”.
This just happened to me. There was a guest who wanted to book, but she had had a few questions first, so sent an inquiry. We had exchanged a couple of very friendly messages, and I had also asked her a question the answer to which would determine whether I would pre-approve the inquiry.
While I was waiting for a response, I got a request which overlapped the dates she was interested in. I accepted that request, only to have it sit there “awaiting payment” for 23 hrs, and then marked “request withdrawn”.
In the meantime, the inquiry guest had responded, answering my question, now wanting to book, and apologizing for not responding sooner, that she had been somewhere with no reception, and saying she now saw some of her dates blocked.
I explained that I had gotten a request that I had accepted, that it was not confirmed, but awaiting payment, and I’d get back to her as soon as I saw it confirmed or not.
By the time the “request withdrawn” appeared, she had already booked another place, as she was down to the wire- her check-in was in 2 days.
So I lost both the request and the inquiry. And I would have much preferred the Inquiry guest, who had 20 wonderful reviews, as opposed to the Requester who was a newbie.
How Airbnb thinks that giving newbie guests 24 hrs to verify their payment method and collect the $, blocking the calendar to other guests who have their ducks in a row and whose payment would go through immediately and the booking confirmed, is really stupid. Not only do I now have unbooked dates, Airbnb lost out on a service fee.
Furthermore, this request was made 3 days before check-in, within the time for my moderate policy to pay me for a cancellation. An accepted, then retracted request that blocks the calendar within the cancellation policy being in effect should count as a cancellation, as far as I’m concerned, because it has exactly the same effect.
A few reasons:
-When I’ve tried looking up my listing on a different browser, it sometimes doesn’t even show up. I first contacted Airbnb about this because it wasn’t even showing up when I zoomed all the way in on a map. They had no answer.
-My bookings fell off a cliff after last summer so it didn’t feel like just a slow down or fewer people traveling. (example down 35% in bookings).
-When I’d open a date in another browser loads of (not great) listings would pop up…I’m talking no thought, time, money put into them and they would have 4.2 ratings…yet were on the top of the page and the thoughtful, highly rated listings with hundreds of reviews were buried three pages in, or not showing up at all.
Things like that made me wonder/realize something was way off with the platform.
THIS is what is most upsetting to me. I put my gd heart and soul into building this business with Airbnb and this is how they treat their money makers?? By taking all our business and handing it over to lesser competitors who didn’t do anything to build up this website??
That is reprehensible. Why not just open my wallet and take it straight from there-feels about the same.
I was planning on opening another listing this summer (and already $$$ invested). But now, what’s the point? It’s as if the past decade of hard work has been for naught. Should have invested my money some other way.
I’m sorry that you’ve had such poor experiences with Airbnb algorithms and practices.
Although I have not experienced this I know I must add, not experienced that yet.
So let me share with you my approach in case you find something in it that might fit with your strategy. I’m working to offer a direct booking site (this presupposes that I’ll get enough Airbnb and VRBO guests who will want to direct book, which could be a discussion in another thread).
To facilitate direct booking, I’m getting on OwnerRez.
After that I will look at other opportunities, like Direct Booking Sites: The Key to Making More Money - #12 by jsoulo
This strategy has helped focus me on my customer service objective, which is not merely a five-star rating and an effusive review but also – actually, MAINLY, a desire to come back and book here. Everything else is a ‘given.’
I guess that’s the question.
Since you say you’ve ‘already $$$ invested’ you might need to move ahead. You might want to collaborate with members here how to make your new listing most distinctive and present to your target market. We can be a little hyper-critical at times and more than blunt, but you’ll find a lot of knowledge, detail orientation and a diversity of views (that diversity is really is what you want; and when the group is almost unanimous you know it’s a ‘must do’).
Yes, and this is a factor that I wouldn’t be able to find on others’ listings to complete my quick and dirty study.
Not only has there been an explosion in the number of short term rentals in my area, but the new listings tend to be next level, with expensive, professional decor and many (some impractical) amenities. They look very corporate, as if they’re probably owned by large investors. We’ll see what this end up meaning for the little guys. We will have to somehow differentiate from those investor-looking properties.
Thank you. Have been in the STR game since long before Airbnb was invented and have thousands of reviews on their website as well, but always open to suggestions.
Our grievance is legitimate as this is akin to a business partner absconding with cash, when both parties were invested. However in a world of Madoffs and Ponzis one always must stay vigilant, and make decisions predicated upon the assumption that multi-billion dollar MNCs will not give a crap whether or not you lose money on your investment with them.
Have many of these in our region as well, but the bulk are from new listings where there is zero investment, low rates, few amenities, low reviews and yet somehow are on the first page.
Can answer that question from our listing. Exclusively on Airbnb so blocked dates were not the reason for our downturn in bookings.
…but they will be now.
Well, I’m the originator of this topic, and I’ve had several bookings since I posted it/ we dropped our price and turned on instant booking and allow stays up to 10 days. I agree the market is temporarily saturated, but smart people who aren’t in love with doing it (hosting) will probably start dropping out-
Here’s what I don’t get- who travels someplace to stay in some “professionally decorated” place, so they can what, stay indoors all day and ooh and ahh over the cold grey walls and nondescript paintings? My guests love our in home just for them unit, but they rarely hang around indoors all day.
I can’t imagine choosing an Airbnb because it’s all kooky or unusual or fancy, I choose a place because it’s clean and near the place or people I want to visit.
I think Airbnb has gone overboard on their “special” categories.
It’s confusing and superfluous in my opinion.
Margi
Oh, plenty of guests prefer a homey place to a souless, monochrome, generic-looking place. When a friend asked a guest who pulled up in a shiny new Lexus why he chose her funky, eclectic studio in her old house, when there are high-end hotels in town, he laughed, said he travels a lot on business and prefers to stay at places that feel like a home, not a corporate, faceless hotel room.
There are also guests who have been burned booking those property-managed, investor listings, experiencing lack of communication, poor response to issues, a refusal to refund anything for legitimate issues impacting their stays, and while they may look great in photos when they are new, all sleek and shiny, they tend to start getting low cleanliness scores after awhile. Those guests will be looking for listings in the future with hands-on hosts with good reviews, who are actually attentive to their guests and take some pride in their rental and how they host.
Of course, hosts have been asking Airbnb to separate these corporate-managed properties from real-hosted properties in search for years, but they have covered their ears to that.
Airbnb has no emotional attachment to any host, their property or their money. As far as they are concerned, your heart and soul and $5 will get them a happy hour beer. Two bookings from a lesser and lower priced competitor brings them as much money as one booking from your place.
repeat…Airbnb doesn’t care about your feelings and they don’t have any.
I messed with the stock market for years. Now that was painful. At least with a property you can always sell, rent or live in it. Stocks aren’t anything.
Solid. Gold. :
Here is an article from today regarding Maui’s tourism. It’s funny…some folks call it “recovery” while others wish it away.
This is in response to chore lists and extra fees conversation.
We are our cleaners… We choose to pay our own taxes, they are rolled into the price and that is stated on the listing if guests read. We keep our cleaning fee but it is 49$. We might roll that into room total before Airbnbn rolls in all the fees together. To me it looks like the Airbnbn fee, the usual silent culprit, and the taxes they collect are the unknowns to booking guests.
Nowhere on my listing is a chore list except inside a guest book. I think it says “tidy the kitchen and throw wet towels on the patio.” Hundreds of guests and no comments. Often they ask what they need to do, due I think to having encountered long lists at other strs.
re: Hotels, they seem to run more expensive than original price, things like resort fees, high taxes etc.
My most recent homeshare guest said she just finds it easier to ask how each hosts want things done, or left before check-out.
I’ve had some guests bring down any empty bottles from their room and put them in the recycling box, as well as emptying the garbage can in their room and bathroom, and while I certainly appreciate that, I really don’t care if they do anything.
I can tell if towels are used or not, because I don’t put any out on the towel racks- they are folded up on a shelf. If they are used, I find them on the towel rods, the unused ones still folded neatly as I left them. I must get unusually respectful guests, because I’ve never found a wet towel wadded up, left on the floor, draped over a chair, or on the bed.
I send a message the night before checkout saying I hope they enjoyed their stay, make sure all is turned off, lock the front door, key in box and have a safe trip home. I really don’t ask them to do anything and no one throws wet towel on the floor.
And trying not to acknowledge the part of my brain screaming, “WTF; they stole the F’ing LAMP!”