Private Room listing

[Tagny0]

I  am very excited about the new format for Room only rentals, especially the new host passport that  guests can view before booking.  I have listed two new separate private rooms but for some reason they are put under the heading "Place to stay".  I have tried everything so that the algorithm will place my listing under the new listings category but no luck. It's very clear that they are private rooms in a shared house and that I will be living  in the house and sharing space when the guests are there. 

Is there anyone else having problems and can give me advice?  

Thanks! 

[Bhumika]

Hi @Tagny0 ,

It is so great to see you excited about the new format and thank you for sharing your excitement with us!

I wanted to share this article that outlines private rooms: What is considered a private room?

If you indicate that your listing type is a room but it doesn’t meet the requirements outlined in the article, your listing may not be displayed as a room to guests—in search, in the Rooms Category. Instead, it would be described to guests as a ''Place to stay'' and may be found in search results for any type of place.

If you have made the necessary changes to your listing, you might also like to get in touch with Airbnb Customer Support for further information!

[Tagny0]

Thank you Bhumika.  

I have looked at the requirements over and over and my listing  type matches the private room category.  I will be sharing the whole house and patio with guests and I want to bring back the old Airbnb style of hosting that I always enjoyed when I first started hosting and  renting a room in peoples homes 12 years ago.  

When I look at other listings now under the private room category in my geographic area  I see some that should not be listed because they are hotels. 

I wonder if the algorithm is a little "buggy". When I called support I was told to wait 72 hours for the algorithm to sort through the new information for the listing.  I have waited that long and not seen any changes to my listing category. 

[Pam1301]

This makes me learynto sign on to Rooms until all the bugs are worked out

[Vincent1299 · Accepted solution]

Hi there @Tagny0 . I was having the same problem, so I called and talked to a lovely person named Trish who recommended I include the term "private room" in my listing description. (I added "Private room in Warner Robins." to the start of my listing description, and then used "private room" in a few other spots.) Apparently the algorithm looks for keywords to tag your listing. It looks like your listing is still showing "place to stay" and the description doesn't include "private room," so it might be worth adding that in. She said that it could take up to 24 hours for the system to recognize the change. I'm still waiting to see if it fixed my problem, so fingers are crossed!

[Bhumika]

Hi @Vincent1299, Thank you so much for sharing this information with us!

Please keep us updated on how it goes. This is surely a valuable tip for our members.

[Vincent1299]

So I tried to do exactly the same changes on all 3 of my listings, and ended up with a 66% success rate! Haha, not sure what went wrong with the third one, there must still be some discrepancy in the description, but the first two now show as "Private Room"! I'll have to keep tinkering with the problem child, but this was definitely a promising solution! 

[Thierry1096]

Hello, has this issue been resolved. I am experiencing the same problem almost one year later

[Anne12670]

My listing also doesn't show in Rooms and no bookings since this started.  Meets all the requirements.  Customer Service said would escalate it but it's still no appearing.  Am in despair.

[Helen3]

The listings you have are both whole listings so would not show up under rooms so rather confused by your post @Anne12670 

As you know we are in the middle of a major recession in the UK and Europe so demand is falling for STRs. Coupled with lots of new STRs starting up this is leading to over saturated markets.

Can I ask why you want to show up as rooms on Airbnb when you have whole listings?

Are you listing your STR business on other platforms and taking direct bookings. If not consider this. It's never good to rely on a single marketing channel for your business. 

[Anne12670]

One listing is for a room and ensuite in my flat - of course it should be listed in Rooms as that is where people who want that would look!

[Dan18198]

I'm having the same exact problem, and zero bookings or inquires since the change. Customer Support here is horrible, and zero response rate. He said he escalated it to development. However I wonder if that is true at this point. 

Here's my listing and nothing is wrong on my listing, and it will not populate in rooms category. 

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/809561584784595281?source_impression_id=p3_1683647111_WZse0%2Fs87NfWoib...

Report it to Customer support as a bug, only if several people do it, will they actually do something about it. 

[Vincent1299]

Hey @Dan18198 . I called and talked to a lovely person named Trish who recommended I include the term "private room" in my listing description. (I added "Private room in Warner Robins." to the start of my listing description, and then used "private room" in a few other spots.) Apparently the algorithm looks for keywords to tag your listing. It looks like your listing is still showing "place to stay" and the description doesn't include "private room," so it might be worth adding that in. She said that it could take up to 24 hours for the system to recognize the change. I'm still waiting to see if it fixed my problem, so fingers are crossed!

[Elizabeth2579]

I'm experiencing the same thing.  Several reach outs to customer service haven't helped either.  I hope it gets sorted soon!