Why does Airbnb encourage the single night stay?

[Laura2592]

We just can't do single night stays if we wanted to with enhanced cleaning protocols. Its too much for us to get back and forth between guests on such a short turn around. But my suggestions from Airbnb are always that "guests are looking for single night stays" and to offer them. Nope. (Also that I should offer monthly stays. Nope. Not interested in being a landlord with no protection.)

I have friends who are also hosts and they all very quickly learned that single night stays were an attractive option to those who wanted to throw a party without host consent.  Others had difficulty with guests engaging in illegal activity and disappearing or demanding tons of refunds for no good reason. I am sure that many hosts are very successful with single night guests (I think it helps a lot if you are on-site) but this seems to me a very risky thing to push to the general host public. 

I do wonder if there are any metrics on issues encountered and stay lengths. particularly unwanted parties. You would think that Airbnb might collect some of this data. Perhaps it's just my perception that a single night stay poses larger risks, but from what I see on this forum there are many hosts who have been burned this way. Why would Airbnb encourage this?

[Elena87]

@Laura2592 

I think single nights work well for certain scenarios; listing near airports or rail stations, in-transit stops on major travel routes, high demand cities, gap filling in high season, events, sports or concert venues listings, retail or business place listings as an example.

If a host also wants to chase after cleaning fees to make a higher yield, that's a reason too.

Probably non novice hosts have an idea of what their sweet spot is in terms of their best minimum night and whats practical. 

There are plenty reasons too, for not allowing one-night bookings as you rightly say.

Airbnb just recently updated the 'Performance' section for listings, but the provided metrics are useless for any host to make an informed decision on one night bookings without any provided analysis.

[Mark116]

Airbnb encourages it for the same reason they encourage long term stays without informing hosts that at least in the US that will almost certainly give the guest tenant rights, and the same reason they tell you that your price needs to drop by about 30%, they're only interested in getting as many fees as possible.

As far as a one night stay, I would guess it really depends on location, there are a lot of places in the midwest or a 1 day drive from a destination site where a single night reservation would make sense.  But, booking say a giant beach house, cabin in the woods, large house with a pool or any destination/luxury escape type of place  for a single night I would assume is going to almost always be an illegal party. 

[Sarah977]

@Mark116  Yep, I'm in a destination tourist town. I set my minimum for 3 nights from the time I started hosting. Even though I just list a private room for 1 guest, people are still coming on holiday- generally a week or two. Most are international, but even Mexicans coming from other areas of Mexico don't just come for 1 night. It's not a place where people would be coming on business for 1 night, or just passing through. There might be a few tourists or travellers who are staying in Puerto Vallarta, an hour away, who would want to come check my town out for a day and  night, but I doubt that's something that happens with great frequency- they'd be more likely to just make it a day/evening trip and go back to PV for the night.

[Fred13]

Honestly, I do not pay much attention what Airbnb thinks or suggests; conversely, I pay much attention to the opinions and experiences of fellow hosts who are the ones actually doing the hosting. 

[Ann72]

@Laura2592  Like @Fred13 I don't pay any attention to what they suggest about anything.  Wait, yes I do - I roll my eyes.

In addition to all the other reasons listed by @Elena87 @Mark116 @Sarah977, one-nighters are also favored by those who use AffairBnB.  They're not very likely to leave reviews, either...

[Sarah977]

@Ann72 @Laura2592  Let's play "Airbnb says...."

Airbnb says if I dropped my price for my private room to $19/night, I'd get more bookings! I bet I would.

Let's see- so if the guest takes a couple of hot showers, uses up a half roll of toilet paper, some soap, makes themselves some dinner on the gas stove and a few cups of coffee with cream, and has the fan running, in a 24 hour period, that leaves me with about $15 profit. Then I'd have to deduct the hour and a half cleaning time, and washing their sheets and towels. Oh, and the buck or two in gas I spend because I pick most of my guests up at the local bus station. So that leaves me with a negative balance of only a few dollars.

Definitely worth it, Airbnb, I'm gonna reduce my price right now and really feel successful about the never-ending stream of guests I'll be getting.

[Ann72]

@Sarah977  🤣

[Fred13]

This reminds of the stories you hear every once in a while about a well-known company that sells millions upon millions of a popular product,  then out of nowhere files for bankruptcy, because they finally ran out of places to borrow after years of doing so. Why were they offering a product to just trade dollars? I rather take profit over fame every time.