@Chelsea553
Welcome to Airbnb!
Tips from the top of my head:
- Don’t use Instant Book - make potential guests request to book, so you can decide if you want to accept the booking or not.
- Read up on the difference between Enquiries and Requests to Book (search this forum), and how to handle them.
- Don’t use Smart Pricing (yet) - do your research and set your prices manually.
- If you are not desperate to maximize earnings, use settings to automatically block 1-2 nights between bookings, this helps making hosting less stressful.
- Consider which calendar/availability settings suit you, do you want Airbnb to automatically open dates so you always have x months open? If you don’t have, please know that you might suddenly see dates opened that you did not want open (and that you actually tried to manually block!). I prefer ”Unavailable by default”, and manually opening dates.
- Make it clear in your listing that visitors not included in the initial booking are not allowed (day or night), unless agreed in advance with you.
- If you have outdoor cameras, be clear about that. If you don’t have them, it might be a good idea to say that you do - makes guests think twice before bringing extra guests or pets, booking for others, or throwing a party.
- Don’t communicate off platform, make sure you have a record of any important communication, in case needed.
- Scammers target new, inexperienced hosts, so be aware, and ask here if something seems off. If anyone sends an enquiry asking for a video of your listing, it is most likely a scam. Search for threads on popular scam methods here.
- Think twice about accepting longer bookings - at least until you have a bit of experience. Search for threads here on the subject.
Good luck!
