attracting more guests

[Grant250]

Dear Hosts,

We have one Airbnb property, we get a reasonable amount of bookings but not nearly enough to make it a profitable business.

Our lisitng is a large 5 bedroomed house, beside the sea and mountains in a popular seaside town, our bookings are nearly all  ones that fill the entire house. We are wondering if we would get more bookings by setting things up so that a couple could stay at a reduced rate for a minimum number of nights that covers our ongoing costs and  gives a profit. 

We think to do this we would have to reduce the access a couple would have in the house, we can do this by locking doors, all our doors have locks, so that they have access to just one bedroom, or if its 2 couples  2 bedrooms and one bathroom, the other bedroom doors and to the second bathroom would be locked. They would have full access downstairs. The reason for doing this would be to reduce our cleaning and laundry bill for these stays and to make sure a large group does not take advantage of  our reduced rates.

Our concerns are how the locked doors would appear to the guests, we think they may not like it and it may detract from their stay. We dont know how difficult this would be to set up on Airbnb and if it would actually increase the number of bookings.

My question to  our fellow hosts is if you have done similar and how it went for you ?

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Grant250 we find our 3 bed does well in the Summer and badly in the Winter. As such we duplicated the listing and created a 2 bedroom version to make it cheaper in Winter with less laundry/cleaning. No complaints whatsoever from guests.

Make sure you link the calendars and block the smaller listing during high season. Blocking one listing does not block the other which allows this to work but if you want to use the place yourself you need to remember to block bath listings.

[Grant250 · Accepted solution]

Thank you Mike and Jane for the reply,  it sounds like a good idea and maybe easier than trying to manage it through just one listing.

Cheers

Grant

[Grant250]

Hi @Mike-And-Jane0 , Sorry to trouble you again but I'm wondering if you know why my new second listing is not appearing in search results. I  was hoping  that when  I search in my location for 2 guests my new listing would appear and if I search for 2 or more guests my original listing would appear. It seems to me that only my original listing appears, do you know why this is? 

I'm wondering if I now need to change my original listing to accepting 4 - 8 guests but cant see how that is done and/or I need to make my new listing the main listing , I think done when attaching calendars? Or do I just need to give it some more time as I've only just made the second listing this afternoon?

Thanks in advance.

Kind Regards

Grant

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Grant250 give it until tomorrow and it should appear. You may need to zoom in to find it as occasionally the blobs sit over each other on the map.