OMG I finally got a booking!

[Huma0]

So, the Summer Release rolled out back in early May. Since then, my views have dived and I've barely gotten any enquiries, let alone booking requests, and I've had no bookings at all except for a couple from returning guests.

I have recently been in contact with CS about this. After a bit of back and forth, I was told that there was an engineering team working on fixing some of the glitches related to the Summer Release (this was vague, so I don't know which specific glitches they were referring to) but there was really nothing they could do in the meantime to help me. I am not knocking the CS Rep who, as it happens, was pretty decent compared to most I've dealt with in the last couple of years. It just wasn't within his control to do anything to help me.

Then, all of a sudden, I get an enquiry. No big deal, I hear you say, but it's the first one in a month and for a listing that used to be my most popular but that seemed to drop off the map completely after the Summer Release. Then, today, I got a booking request for that same room and, after a bit of back and forth, accepted it. That is literally the first booing in two months.

Maybe it's a complete coincidence, or maybe something has happened.

[John5097]

@Huma0 For me It is different on each browser and search engine. Even after clearing cookies there are different options between Google and DuckDuckGo. But even from the main landing page with the catigories once the destination is selected the categories disappear. 

I hope they quit applying search filters by default as guest don't know they are only seeing listings with 7 days availability. I'll probably be fine as a lot of guest still search by dates, but wait and see. I'm planning now to take vacations for dates that don't book. 

[Huma0]

@John5097 

Yes, the categories do seem to disappear if you put in a destination, but not if you use the map view and zoom in on your chosen destination. I am not sure how many guests will do that though unless they want to search in that particular category.

What I also found when I was doing some searches is that the categories don't necessarily disappear when you enter in other filters. Sometimes they automatically default to whatever is the first category on the list (happened several times). For a while, that was islands and now it appears to be barns. At leats that's what I'm seeing anyway.

I think I will just try to do some decorating/home improvements for dates that don't book, especially anything I can do in the guest bedrooms while they are empty.

[John5097]

@Huma0 It seems like they are trying to sort out all the problems and bugs, so by the time we post screen shots its changed again. 🙂  It also gives some insight in how the search engines and browsers can each show different priority of listings. I always wondered how they were able to ramp up views right after a cancellation while I didn't notice any changes in my listing priority on my end. They kind of distribute the priority among all the different devices and search options. Although think by scaling the Categories back has increased booking overall, although may just be sorting out bugs or no longer zooming out and offering listings hundreds of miles from selected destination. I always noticed it defaulted to Any Homes or whatever and not a specific category. Not sure who would be looking for a barn in London, although maybe still trying to divert searches to the country side? 

The only thing I really liked on old Airbnb search was how it ramped up views when someone canceled. So far I haven't seen any indication of that in the Summer Release. Weekdays are the only dates in entire calendar that don't have a search option except searching for individual dates. It has Week, Month and Weekend. A cryptic filter is applied to default for Week so only listing with 7 consecutive days show up, and guest have all these other places to click and search, where the default filter is still applied. And the week discount is also displayed so that if guest search less than a week they are hit with higher rates, in addition to the fees they were already complaining about, so the update further misrepresented the "total price".

Thanks for the good luck! I'm watching my phone now hoping for a "Congratulations.. " 

Sometimes I get an invite to a zoom meeting and offer feedback that are fun! 

 

[Carmen-and-Ben0]

Thank you sharing these details, very eye opening. 
So here is what I see and suspect:

1. For 7 years I have been at 90%+ Occupancy. It had been this solid streak which lead me to expand from 1 to 5 units. As we added more units the same level of booking persisted. 
Except for the 3 initial pandemic months of 2020 April, May and June. 

2. Now our units range from 32.3% to 68% and for the first time ever we have 0 bookings or inquiries for an upcoming  weekend. We have never been empty on a weekend. 

3. Airbnb has gotten into owning units in “selected” markets with high demand.
We are in one of those markets (MIAMI). In our immediate surroundings brand new short term rental properties have opened. These are newly built units, decorated professionally and the owners are a company, which bought these properties. They demolish and built new units at lightning speed. Budget does not seem to be a concern for these builder/developers. As soon as properties are finished they are occupied by short term visitors. I suspect the new release masks preferential treatment of Airbnb owned rentals.

Airbnb can tell me that’s not true, it’s all fair to all hosts. Yet, I have called Airbnb asking them for analytics of how my listings are being promoted. RESPONSE- They don’t have a team who handles that. 

[John5097]

@Carmen-and-Ben0  There have been several business articles that have detailed some of Airbnb ventures into owning short term rentals. In my area only a handful multi million dollar beach houses were featured on the Amazing views that never changed. They also displayed the first five night available and then first two nights while the rest of us all have had random week many months away. They are now gone and catigories are now just sane as regular search. So it’s been changed dramatically. The only explanation is that it wasn’t working as invisioned. 

@Huma0  Just wanted to clarify that when I said I didn’t want humans to mess it up or pick and choose which listing gets priority, I meant that this should be a review based platform. The listing priority should be based on the reviews from customers. If there is some bug it needs to be addressed but hist shouldn’t expect a boost in views by contacting CS. Although would agree that host should have ability to request a catigory and that would need to be approved by a human with specific training. As it is now host are using photos of nearby attractions for their cover photo and that view is not from the listing location. I just want it to be fair as I work extra hard to clean etc. 

[Huma0]

@John5097 

I agree with you that it should be a review based platform and the listings with the best ratings should be prioritised in the search (surely that is what the guest would want too?). I was referring to the categorisation of listings. I'd rather have a human being make that call as clearly the AI isn't doing a great job of it. And how on earth is the AI supposed to decide which images are 'front page worthy'? 

[Wende2]

@Huma0   Hello...same here, I'm in a nice location here in that states.  I had no problem being booked over summer. now you've mentioned views, I did mean to check mine out.  I just got a booking yesterday, just who I expected would be booking regardless of the changes....hunters, that also a big thing in my area.  Not like I have enough of those to fill half a month.  So no "real" bookings yet from someone who is doing an actual search.  I hope yours, well all of ours pick up.  A friend recently said she's on her listing adding things, she thinks that helps, me...not so much, but I guess it's worth trying to see what happens.

I am going to put my place on VRBO, I'm guessing they're in the UK too.  I got some great advice here the other day.  Those who are on both, have IB here and request there, so they can be in charge of their calendar.

[Huma0]

@Wende2 By adding things, do you just mean tweaking? A lot of hosts believe if they keep updating the listing, it pushes it up the search results. I used to do this too until Airbnb put up an article here about how the algorithms work, and it said that making changes to your listing doesn't make any different to placement in searches, so I stopped and it didn't seem to affect my bookings at all at the time.

If she means she is adding key words etc to try to get into categories, the community managers did suggest that was one way to go about it, but now that you can request CS to add you to a category and it's not just dependent on the algorithm, I would try that route first.

We do have VRBO here but it doesn't cater to homestays. There really isn't a serious competitor for those here in the UK. As I host long term stays, I think my best bet would be to try to market my listings to universities, hospitals etc. as travelling academics, doctors and nurses usually make great guests. 

Are there any organisations or websites where you could specifically market to hunters?

RE VRBO, you can synch your Airbnb and VRBO calendars. I don't know if it's fail safe though as I haven't tried it myself, but I know that a lot of hosts do that.

[Wende2]

@Huma0...I just read about asking to be in a category.  I'm just 5 minutes from a wildlife refuge and the Harriet Tubman museum, both are considered National parks, so I'm calling to get into that category.  You have a good idea there letting professionals know about your listing, traveling nurses come to this area often.  Now that you ask, I'm sure there's some places I could look into to get the word out to hunters, thanks for that. 

I stopped facebook in '15, but I asked my daughter to put me on some pages there, photographers have a page she mentioned she could share me, not sure if that's just for our refuge.  One of her friends, and mine bought the house next door to her own, it's been on here for several  years,  she kindly shared me on her facebook page, and she's just around the corner.  Fingers crossed it'll all help.

[Huma0]

@Wende2 

I have never tried to market my listings in any other way than Airbnb because I was getting enough bookings and happy to pay the 3% to them for that and the handling of the payments, even if customer services wasn't always great.

But, when I decided to switch to focusing on long term stays, I created a post here asking for advice and there were a lot of useful suggestions: https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Attracting-Long-Term-Guests/m-p/697467#M164398

Which is where I got the idea of contacting universities and hospitals etc.

I never ended up having to do that. I just changed one of my rooms to a 28 night minimum, and then another and then the third, because the long term bookings came in on Airbnb.

However, now I might have to put that back up plan into action and also think about creating FB and IG pages for the listings. Problem is that most of my photos were taken by Airbnb hired photographers and I believe are therefore the copyright of Airbnb, not me. So, I would need to get my listings re-photographed to use them to direct market to other sites. On the other hand, maybe they are okay with that if those sites are directing them to book via Airbnb?

I am not sure about that, so if any other hosts know, do please share the information.

[Wende2]

@Huma0...I think you may be right about the copyrights.  This is my listing.

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/27527191?adults=1&children=0&infants=0&check_in=2023-05-03&check_out=20...

I used my phone for these photos, honestly can't say which, but I'm pretty sure back then I had an LG.  Just wanted to share before you go spending more money, well if they charged you.  I'd use the phone, upload some and see what you think.

[Huma0]

@Wende2 

When I first listed, I used my own photos (taken with an SLR camera) and I got bookings. Then Airbnb sent the photographer round. This was free (don't know if that is still the case, but I think not) for the first session. After the photos went up, my bookings rocketed, so the professional pics did make a difference.

Plus, recently a guest commented that one of the photos on the listing (one I actually took myself) stood out for being lower quality than the others. Oh dear... I wasn't bothered actually, as it's a photo of my cat and I just wanted to make it crystal clear to guests who don't read that I have cats.

I don't mind paying a photographer actually because I think it would be worth it, plus I've been meaning to do it anyway as there have been changes and updates to the house since the Airbnb photos were taken. However, it only makes financial sense if they can photograph everything in one session and that's difficult when I have guests staying.

Push comes to shove, I can just take my own photos for now. Like yours, they won't be bad, just not as good as a pro's. 

[Wende2]

@Huma0...I'm wondering too if by using their photographer, if that could boost you in search.?  I too need to update some photos, I did add 1 last night, which I do think helped.  Something else, I did an anywhere search, just hit search when asked particulars, and it took me to my town.  As I have 2 tourist places 5 minutes away, I hope people just skip by that and find me, another 45 minutes away, a few 90 mins.

[Huma0]

@Wende2 

I am not sure. It is possible that the Airbnb photos boost you in search but, even if they do, I am pretty sure the photos themselves helped with the bookings.

It's quite hard to take photos that convey the space properly if you don't have a wide angled lens. Sure, the photographers can go a bit too far with that sometimes, but it's difficult to get a lot of the room in otherwise. Also, they obviously are better with the lighting than me. They used natural light too, but they know how about F stops and shutter speeds and whatever to adjust to the available light. You wouldn't think those photos were taken on a very gloomy autumn day.

Another advantage is that the photos then get tagged 'verified by Airbnb'. I think this gives some guests some reassurance. A friend told me once that if he had found my listings on Airbnb at that price (the price was a bit lower at the time), he would have thought it was a scam! It has only happened to me a couple of times, but if a guest says that the listing doesn't look like the photos, e.g. I had one weird guest who kept insisting she had booked the 'pink room' when I don't have a pink room, you can reply that the photos are verified by Airbnb.

Anyway, that's not to say that we can't take decent enough photos ourselves. I just think the professional ones are better, but then I work in a job where photos are REALLY important so I am very picky about it.

RE the search, remember if you are searching on your own computer or device, the cookies and browsing history will have an impact on what you see. To get a more accurate picture, ask a friend to have a look. I did this recently with a friend who is a former host. He did find one of my listings, but he said the visibility wasn't great as he did have to zoom in quite a bit for it to show up.

[Mariann4]

My views also tanked, @Huma0 . Now they are back up to about half the numbers as normal, but I do see them going up slowly now. I also blocked all of July due to travelling myself. I have had three bookings since the release. One came yesterday and I had to use about 30 hours to get them to read the houserules. It was like puling teeth with toothpicks: how to be insisting without potential guests getting annoyed? I too have a hidden something in my houseruls that I ask to be present in their first message...

I only have my season from mid April to mid September. My booking yesterday took me above any earnings before, so I should be happy. But I was cruising at warp speed before the roll-out. Us Europeans are travelling at the moment like we're afraid to be locked in again soon... So we'll se what August and September brings... They are pretty empty for now, but many of my guests book while in the road. A week's notice is not uncommon for me.

I'm going to Paris tomorrow myself. First time flying in 4 years. Used to fly every 6 weeks for work... I look forward to it! 😊