[POLL] What is the average length of your bookings?

[Sybe]

Hey everyone,

As we’re slowly coming closer to the end of spring and the start of summer, lots of people are finalising plans and making preparations to take a small break away from their everyday lives. While some might go away on a short break, others could be planning a few weeks' holidays or even take their work and laptop away somewhere for a longer stay and a change of scenery.

The type of guests and length of stays you get depends on many different aspects, such as your listing type, location, amenities or even local legislation.

What is the average length of stay for your guests and why do you think that is? Was what you expected when you started hosting, something you were aiming for or perhaps that changed over time? Fill out the poll and let us know more about your experience in the comments!

Thanks!

Sybe

[Jennifer2682]

Two to three days, and I'm at 95.8% occupancy, which means those stays occur both on the weekends AND during the week.  Which is why this whole "Stay a Weekend/Stay a Week/Stay a Month" thing is so off-base.  (For many hosts and guests alike).  But does Airbnb even care?  Even your poll is skewed toward longer stays, jumping from 1-2 days to a week, when there is clearly an in-between.  

[Denny70]

Are you an in town unit in a city? 

[Jennifer2682]

I'm not, so my experience is going to be different from other hosts.  Which, I guess is my whole point... we're all different, and I wish Airbnb would quit trying to pigeon-hole us.  

[Denny70]

I’m in Florida where we get a lot of winter guests who want to have longer stays and we have several guest that return a couple of times a year. I hate declining bookings for the January to April months but I’d hate a two day guest who plans way in advance to break up a month for my winter guests who haven’t yet booked. I wish Airbnb allowed me to change the length of stay by the months, not just have one that applies to all months. I’ve declined two bookings and had to email one longer term guest who’s stayed 6 times to see if he planned on coming next winter to plan that now. That’s weird to have to do. And he did book. I wonder if declining changes my susperhost status. (A moot point right now because they took it away from me because I had to cancel a booking 5 months before their stay. I have 40+ 5.0 reviews.)

[Debra300]

@Denny70,

You can customize length of stay.  First, be sure to enable Airbnb's Pro Tools:  https://www.airbnb.com/help/topic/1489/professional-hosting-tools

Then you will be able to make your change: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/880/how-do-i-set-the-minimum-and-maximum-number-of-nights-a-gues...

[Denny70]

As far as I can see it only provides different pricing for different dates. What I want is if you try to book three nights in January thru April it will only allow one week or greater bookings. 

[Debra300]

@Denny70,

I think you are responding to my post.  It is best to tag a person to ensure they are aware of your post.  To tag an ID type @, and a list of recent posters will pop up, or you can continue to type an ID until the one you want appears.  Select the member's ID, and it will appear in red text in the post.  

Customizing length of stay

1. Pro Tools must be enabled to have the ability to customize length of stay.  In the Pro Tools link that I previously shared, click Using professional hosting tools.  Then click the Account Settings link on the next page.                                                                    

   Then click the Account Settings link on the next page.

    
2. I am already using Pro Tools.  After you've enabled Pro Tools, you can Customize trip lengths.  
3. On your dashboard, select Pricing and availability.
4. Scroll down to Trip Length, and you will see Customize trip lengths.  Click edit.
5. The Customize trip lengths field expands.  Click Add another requirement.  
6. The Customize trip lengths area displays the fields to add the new requirement.
7. Duration field - click the arrow to select the periods or dates for the new rule.  
8. You may enter specific dates if the pre-defined periods won't suit your requirements.  

9. Be sure that your new rule doesn't conflict with your default minimum and maximum stay trip lengths, or you will receive an error.  

   
10. You may make multiple customized trip length rules, but not for the same dates.  In this example, the error message popped up because the displayed default dates for a new rule overlap the prior rule that was just created.  You can override this error by selecting different dates.  Or, click Remove if you don't want to proceed with the new rule.                                    
11. Click Save when you are done creating your Customized trip lengths.  
12.  You will see the new Customized trip length rules 

[Denny70]

@Debra300 

thanks for two lessons, the @ symbol drop down and the rules. I looked through the customization rule but this wasn’t obvious so thank you, thank you, thank you. Others will find this useful, too, I’m sure. There’s probably a tutorial I could find, too! 

[Gordon0]

I'm 3.4 nights, and given the current couple who've struggled to secure the front door (it was wide open on their first night) and close the widows when going out for the day, I'm very pleased their four nights have now come to an end. 

[Andrea-and-Glenn0]

We are fairly new hosts with just over 60 stays so far and we average 8 nights per stay. We have a 3 night minimum and have thought about making it longer after a month last year when we had nine X 3 day stays.  

[Andrea-and-Glenn0]

@Sybe  Will you be posting some kind of results from your poll ?

[M199]

@Sybe 

For us, we are seasonal from April to October. From prior to April we require a minimum 3 night booking, afterwards, depending on bookings, after April 1, we may drop down to 2 nights minimum to backfill open dates.  Never do we do single nights, it just breeds a ton of extra work and bad guests. We have a strict 14 day max, but that hasn't never happened.  Our current average is 3 to 4 days.  However, compared to previous years we are seeing an increase in the number of 6 day bookings.

[Sybe]

Hey everyone, thank you so much for contributing in the poll and the comments! As requested ( @Andrea-and-Glenn0 ) here are the results of the poll so far:

It's a very interesting mix though the majority seems to vote for short term stays. 

[John5097]

@Sybe  Airbnb used to provide this info under Insights and Opportunities. (It used to be Performance tab.) When I started over 2 years ago the average length of trip was 4 days, that dropped to 3 days about a year later in 2021 the last time I looked at it. (So I couldn't respond to the poll that excluded 3-6 nights)  Our city gets 8 million visitors a year. 40% from 300 miles or less. That's the way its been for many decades, same as Disneyland, and with inflation, high fuel cost, the 2-4 nights is by far what guest are searching for. They are also perfectly fine traveling on weekdays, but can't find that either when they are directed to week long stays in 2023 with the new search format. 

Hope that helps! 

[Debbie-And-Arnulfo0]

Our average stay is 4.5 days.  We have a minimum of 4 days and receive a large group of guests from California due to crossing the border and getting cheap flights flying in from Tijuana.  This new search of weekends or weeklong has significantly dropped our bookings.  It doesn't make sense financially to only allow 2 night stays. We will need to look for another avenue to list our properties.