Should I approve this booking request?

[Christopher64]

Hi, Kind of new to hosting, I have a new listing and so far things are going well. I'm sure this question has been posted countless time already, but I have a booking request (4 nights) from someone with an empty profile: no photo, no reviews. This makes me a little nervous. She did write a brief, oddly worded message saying they were passing through town and want to see "the beautiful city and all the history."  What more info should I ask for? I would think this is an automatic decline. How should I follow up? Obviously it's my own gut, but just wondering from more experienced hosts. Thanks for any guidance.

[Emilia42]

@Christopher64 

I had your post open on my computer, stepped away for a minute, my mother overreads your thread to which she comments out loud "oh, that's scary." I then had to show her that about half of our guests have faceless profiles with no information whatsoever; one that I am currently hosting right now. Unfortunately, that is Airbnb and you are going to get booking requests/inquiries from empty profiles over and over again. (Note that all guest profile photos are hidden before a booking is confirmed.) I 100% go off a guest's communication and how they phrase their request. A host on here said once that it makes all the difference if the perspective guest addresses you by name. "Hello Chris, I would love to stay in your home" vs. "Can I stay here?" Don't be afraid to start a conversation. Ask some questions. Get a feel for the responses. You have 24 hours before the booking needs to be accepted or declined. 

[Kelly1321]

Personally, I like to play it safe. Much less stress. 

[Emilia42]

You're right @Kelly1321. I don't have any stress either. Whatever works!

[Kelly149]

@Christopher64 we all have different tolerances for these things. @Emilia42 gave you a good answer. Another good answer is to do what you want.

I had a guest today who started their inquiry asking me if they'd be cold in February at our place. I told them to have a nice trip and choose a hotel. But maybe I'm Covid-grumpy.

In my book life's too short and too complicated to make it worse with iffy people.

This isn't a marriage proposal you're declining, it's just a couple days in a hotel, they'll find somewhere else if not with you.

[Mark116]

@Christopher64  I find that poor communicators are almost always poor guests, but if you wanted to get a better feel, you can send them a message along the lines of....I see you are new to airbnb, so if you have any questions about how it works or the listing, don't hesitate to ask, as a host, I have found that it is helpful to know a little bit about my guests  and their trip plans to help ensure everything is a good match.  I noticed your profile is blank so if you wouldn't mind, maybe give me a little background on yourself and your travel plans?  Something along those lines.  The response will tell you whether or not you want to host them.

[Debra300]

@Mark116,

I don't agree that all poor communicators will be poor guests.  I get many guests that are either or a combination of being younger than 40, English isn't their first language, or come from areas that I know have lower education standards.  There have been times that when I recognize that a person has poor language skills, I have called them, and usually they are very polite speakers with very good manners ("Yes, Ms. Debra", "Yes, ma'am", "Thank you").  Ironically, I tend to reject the people who write a dissertation when inquiring/requesting to book or during our correspondence.   This is a red flag to me that the person will be too needy, or trying to get into the friends circle to ask for things that aren't offered.  

[Sarah977]

I wouldn't consider it an automatic decline at all. What has the guest done wrong, aside from send a message, which wasn't at all rude or anything? And if they are new to the platform, of course they don't have any reviews, nor do many guests realize that filling out some profile info is a good thing to do to introduce yourself to hosts. And you don't know if they have a real profile photo until a booking is confirmed. 

If I get requests where the guest doesn't offer much to start with, I just ask some questions and let them know what I require in order to feel okay about accepting. In my case, I might say "Hi XX, thanks for your booking request. I'm wondering if you've read thoroughly through my listing description and are aware that there is a dog and a cat on the premises, and that it's a 20 minute walk to town and the beach from my place? (depending on their answer, this lets me know whether they've bothered to read the info). Also, I only host one guest at a time, so I assume you are travelling solo?  Hosts can't see a guest's profile photo until after a booking is confirmed, so also want to let you know that I require a clear face photo of guests, in case you haven't uploaded one yet."

That sort of thing. Some hosts ask what brings the guest to the area, but in my case, that would be a silly question, as I live in a destination tourist beach town, so that's why pretty much all guests are coming.

It might not be true for all hosts, in fact I know from reading posts here that it's not, but I find that sending the guest a friendly, somewhat chatty message prompts them to answer in kind, being more forthcoming. 

Of course we all prefer guests who have nicely written up profiles, several good reviews and who send a polite, informative message right off the bat, and I'm lucky in that I get a lot of those, but I find that younger guests who've grown up in the texting era tend to send very brief messages until prompted for more info. I've had guests whose first message was "Arriving around noon" when I haven't even accepted their request yet, but the answered my reply message satisfactorily and turned out to be totally fine guests.

But it's also true that hosts should follow their intuition- if something seems iffy, it probably is. I think it's good to at least give guests a chance to message you in a more complete and mind-settling way before dismissing them entirely unless you have so many guests wanting to book that you don't want to bother with the ones who create more work for you trying to get them to give info.

@Christopher64

[Christopher64]

I completely understand your points about not judging an empty profile, but it's not really just that. I will be out of town these dates, and if I am going to take a small measured risk with a guest who is new to the platform, I'd rather at least be present on site. In addition, her messages were oddly written, I asked her to maybe update that or provide a Facebook profile, and she ignored that. It just felt a little off. If I were able to be here on site however I would probably go for it. Thanks for the comments.

[Christopher64]

Well thanks very much for all the input. All great comments. I decided to decline this request for a couple reasons. The guest did supply more details about their trip, but it was worded oddly, and not in a grammatical way. Just a feeling. I mentioned the empty profile and she said she'd "try to update a profile..." Just strange. But mostly, it's because the dates were over Thanksgiving, and I will be out of town Thanksgiving week. I'm not comfortable hosting a questionable guest while I m actually not here. If I were here, I might take the risk. I will read all your comments again and learn from this, and thanks again.

[Andrea-and-Glenn0]

@Christopher64 go with you gut and you will rarely be wrong. 

[Cave0]

One has to wonder why, having elected to use the Airbnb platform, a potential guest wouldn't wish to create a profile.  After all, anyone wanting an annonymous experience is more than welcome to use a hotel.  Airbnb makes a great play of the fact that it's a "community" and one might "stay like a local" so there's no excuse for annonymous requests.  Unless it's all about price in which case who wants that kind of guest?

[Emilia42]

@Cave0 It is because Airbnb puts no emphasis on creating/updating a profile. Many guests probably don't even know they have an "Airbnb profile." Even when looking at yours . . . You have a photo and you are a host but there is no completed "About You" section and it doesn't say what part of the world you are from. 

[Christopher64]

That's a great point. I've never had anyone question me on that however. I think people mostly go off reviews. If there are a few 5 star positive reviews, then that gives me confidence to host someone. I don't necessarily need to know their bio. Put I would agree that Airbnb should put more of an emphasis on the bio, I think that's a great idea. It does reinforce the community aspect, and puts a little life and reassurance into this random stranger staying in your house.

[Cave0]

My profile is my listing, that is what I am offering to the guest and I ensure it is complete and accurate and that is what is relevant to the guest.  What is relevant to the host is somewhat different.