How to deal with Parking?

[Alexandra12]

Hi, 

I just started hosting my first apartment, and while Ive secured 2 reservations coming up soon, I have not had any guests stay yet. 

Our rental apartment is on Miami Beach, and there is no designated parking spot. Our apartment is in a great walking area to restarants, shopping and dining, but I assume some guests are going to have a car.  

Miami Beach Visitor parking is done through an online site where they would have to login daily to my email and generic password, to pay for parking, which is $3.21 for 24hrs. 

Or, I suppose I could login to do it everyday and include the price in their stay, but it would be (in my opinion) kind of a hassel and I would hate to be in a situation where I would be unable to access internet and not be able to login. 

Is anyone in a simlilar situation with parking - and how do you handle it? 

Thank you! 

[Maria-Lurdes0]

Ugh, I hate parking issues!  I don't have exactly same situation as you, but similar.   We don't have reserved parking spots, and we are in an urban area so it's tight for parking.  My descriptions say that we need notice if you're bringing a car, as we need to plan the parking - either get a permit (we have one per family so we have to juggle it) or make arrangements with friends who have garages that might rent our guests a nightly spot.   Despite my asking people for their arrival info, lately people seem to be sending me flight details, so sometimes I assume they are going to take a cab.  Instead, they rent a car at the last minute and then call me as they are in front of our place to tell me they can't find a place to park.  No kidding!    Now we have mountains of snow on the street, so half the parking spots are not available making it an even worse problem.

I guess that I now have to be super explicit and ask every guest if they'll be needing parking as we'll have to plan that 48 hours in advance or else they are on their own.

We didn't use to have such issues as 80% of our business was international tourism and they wouldn't rent cars for their trip, but now we are getting so much more domestic travellers and parking has become a bigger issue.

[Gerry-And-Rashid0 · Accepted solution]

London - zero public parking in our area during the day. So we alwasy ask how people are travelling to us. One couple (based in the UK) said they were driving - we emailed to say there is no parking (unless you use a public car park for 3 days which is not cheap). They didn't read my follow up email and arrived by car. It worked out ok, as a friend of theirs managed to get them a space in theiir building's garage - they are coming back to stay in March and this time travelling by train! You can only warn people of the issue - trying to sort parking for them is really difficult for us, so there is no way we would commit to doing so, other than telling them how much they will pay per day in a car park. 

[Ed-and-Hugh0]

Just make it really clear that parking is not included with the booking. Then, let them decide what to do about parking. Fortunately, we don't have this issue on the mainland.

[Robin4]

@Alexandra12 @Maria-Lurdes0 @Ed-and-Hugh0.......Oh my, thank God for the backblocks of Mt Barker...I can offer my guests an undercover, semi-lockup park 3 metres (10ft) from the entrance to the cottage...But I do visit relations in Sydney often and I fully understand what parking can mean. Some of your guests if they have come from rural areas will, I guess, be like me and just expect to motor up the driveway into the garage, as it were!!

Best to say from the outset as boldly as you can that there is no off-street parking and on-street is subject to severe limitations. You will still get the odd 'Goose' but it should make most of them think about making alternative arrangements. Also great idea of @Ed-and-Hugh0 make it plain that 'car parking' does not form part of the Airbnb agreement and is something you have no control over...... cheers.....Rob

[Kristen4]

You could add it into their nightly price without altering what your Public Profile Nightly Price show.

Here's how:

Go into your Listing's Calendar.  You'll see the nightly price clearly indicated on each calendar day.  Click the day

and in your case increase the price $3.21 or whatever.   You can do this advance.   I am doing this each day that this applies so it's a fair amount of clicking but it'll accomplish, I believe, what you're looking to do.

If any one has additional or better ways to do this, please inform us!

[Robin560]

How does this impact the live in neighbors.