Drastic Change in Views - any ideas?

[Tamara682]

Hi All,

I've been on this platform about 2 weeks. My views have been moving along at a pretty good clip with over 270 to date. The last few days have averaged about 30 per day.

Then today there are zero increase in views from yesterday. Any idea what could be wrong? Is there a glitch or something I don't know of?

 I have availability starting in 2 weeks for bookings so I would think things would get more active instead of less.

Also, is it common to have so many views and no inquiries? It really is like watching paint dry lol!

https://airbnb.com/h/sunnysagerivers

Thank you,

Tamara

[Anonymous]

@Tamara682  New listings are temporarily given an extra boost in search results to get off the ground. But after some period of time, that thumb comes off the scale. If you're suddenly seeing a drop-off in views, this could be a reason.

But page views don't tend to be a useful metric to base a listing's performance on, and the numbers Airbnb displays to you can be wildly inaccurate anyway. It's not even worth looking at it. Your listing looks good - nice choice of lead photo to capture a unique feature and view, thorough descriptions. I'm a little confused by the pricing, as it appears to be the same rate for 1 person as for 6, but the House Rules specifying an extra $50 charge for additional guests contradicts this. 

Location and seasonality will always be factors in how much interest you attract, but the first big hurdle to clear is getting a solid base of reviews. A few short stays in the near future would help a lot there, but a Cleaning Fee (which is basically just a short-stay penalty) can be a deterrent for those.

[Tamara682]

@Anonymous thank you for your insight. I think I'm still in the honeymoon phase (less than 30 days) and my listing is still under the extra boost. Barring reviews, I thought the views helped airbnb decide where to put you in the pecking order after the honeymoon ends.
I appreciate your insight into the accuracy and lack of importance views actually have.

Extra ppl $50. I added this in case a guest has someone stay who is not on the reservation. In reading other posts, it looks like if it is not mentioned in the house rules then you cannot charge a guest for bringing in other people. So yes, it would be against house rules but still happened so there's a charge.

If there's a better way to do this, I'm all ears.

Lastly, is there a way to charge less for say 2ppl vs 4ppl vs 6ppl? Is that recommended? The potential of losing bookings for larger parties because a smaller party booked is a downside. On the other hand, so are significantly less bookings because 4-6 ppl are not common (if that is the case).

Thanks again!

[Anonymous]

@Tamara682  I think there is a common myth that stating a penalty charge in your House Rules gives hosts the ability to collect it. This is not true; Airbnb does not back up such charges if the guest doesn't voluntarily accept them. 

What you can do if an unregistered guest shows up is insist that the group accept a booking alteration to update the guest count. If you have an Extra Guest Fee over x (1, 2, 4, etc) set in your pricing settings, the appropriate charge will go through when the change is confirmed.  However you jiggle it, the base price should assume that all 3 bedrooms will be used.

[Tamara682]

@Anonymous Thank you very much for clarifying. I will remove that from my guest info and add it to the price settings. I do assume the whole place will be used which is why price is the same for 1 or 6. 
I guess depending on the circumstances, if a party of 2 contacted me to ask for a lower rate for a 1-day stay or something, I could adjust then if I so choose.

One question if you don't mind: Is there a way to choose to automatically block day after stay for cleaning vs the only options they give which are block day before AND after, or 2 days before AND after? One is sufficient.

[Sarah977]

@Tamara682  That prep day wording is extremely confusing. It doesn't block 2 nights between stays, it only blocks one. 

The " day after" doubles up as the "day before". 

Guest books the 1st to the 5th, checking out the morning of the 5th. The night of the 6th will show as blocked- the "day after". But the 7th will show as available. The 6th will double as the "day before" a following booking. 

Clear? They really should change the wording to "Block one night between bookings", which is exactly what it does. Everyone gets confused by their stupid wording, because of course it sounds like 2 days in a row would be blocked.

[Tamara682]

@Sarah977 haha yes it is confusing. Thank you very much for clarifying for me. That makes ALOT more sense.

[Sarah977 · Accepted solution]

@Tamara682  If you are going to mention penalty fines for rule breaking (although you'll have an impossible time actually collecting, it could be a deterrent), you have to make the fines high enough to deter people from doing something. 

$50 for extra, unregistered guests is not a deterrent. It's less than they would have to pay to go get a hotel room.

If there's a $1 littering fine for throwing garbage out your car window on the highway, people are still going to toss their pop can out. If the fine is $500, they'll take the pop can home or put it in a garbage can.

[Tamara682]

@Sarah977 very good perspective. I used to be a landlord and no one ever got their deposit back because they always left me at least a month's worth of dog crap to pick up when they left.
In the beginning, I was just trying to help people stay above water in the recession and was not objective at all. It cost me a lot with only 2 bad tenants.
I appreciate you reminding me of this. If I ever go back to being a "landlord" for leases and such, my perspective is entirely different.
I wasn't applying my adjusted perspective to short-term rental. I will moving forward because you are exactly spot on.

[Sarah977]

@Tamara682  Yes, for the first few years I was living here in Mexico, I was just renting places to live here and sstill owned a 4 bedroom house in Canada. I rented it out on year long leases for 4 years to various people and I think only one family got their damage deposit back. No major damage, but what was astounding to me is that somehow people thought that leaving one day to pack up their stuff and clean a 4 bedroom house they'd been living in for a year would be adequate time management. 

One time I went over a couple days before the tenant was supposed to be out to see how things were going and there was no evidence that she had even started packing to move. She assured me not to worry- "I have lots of friends coming to help me". Okay.

So I wander over in the early afternoon of moving day and sure enough, there's lots of people. They're sitting around in the yard drinking beer and smoking doobies. Boxes and crap all over the yard. Boxes and crap all over inside the house, not one room emptied out or cleaned yet. I ask where my tenant is.

"Oh, she's really sick. She's at her new place sick in bed. We're here to pack the house up." 

I called her and fair enough, she did sound sick, but I told her to get her butt over there because there was no way that house was going to get packed up and cleaned by the end of the day at the rate her "helpers" were going.

Oh, and after she moved out, I found that the boyfriend she had originally moved in with, but had split up with shortly after, had had a marijuana grow show up in one of the bedrooms and drilled holes through the bedroom floor to put wiring through and screwed around with the electrical panel.