My wife and I have been running an Airbnb for a few years, but we’ve faced challenges with how the platform handles listings for properties with multiple rooms. We operate a guesthouse with several rooms and live on-site, so we don’t rent out the entire property. Unfortunately, Airbnb’s setup isn’t well-suited for this type of arrangement.
There are two main ways to list rooms, but both have significant drawbacks:
Separate Listings for Each Room: This approach is difficult to manage, as each room requires its own listing. It also means that if a group of, say, 12 guests is searching for accommodations, our property may not show up because the rooms are listed individually.
Listings with varied my: This involves creating a single listing that accommodates the maximum number of guests and increasing the price based on the number of people. While this works to an extent, it causes problems with odd-numbered groups and leaves spare rooms unbooked if, for example, 6 people book a property with a capacity for 12. On top of that, the cleaning fee doesn’t adjust automatically to reflect the number of rooms being used.
To work around these limitations, I’ve had to create multiple listings with different guest capacities so that we show up for larger bookings. However, this is cumbersome and far from ideal.
It would be much simpler if Airbnb allowed hosts to create one listing with multiple rooms and automatically adjust availability as rooms are booked. This would make managing guesthouses or similar properties far more efficient and reduce the current complexity.
