Airbnb vs other OTAs: our competitors on other OTAs are seeing growth, we're seeing a drop on airbnb!

[Samuel596]

Hello airbnb community, 

we have over 200 units in Miami and Miami Beach, building exclusivity and we run our entire portfolio exclusively on airbnb. 2022 ended on a negative note, with 2022 trending downward, and most noticeably, while we were up year over year in the first half 2022, we were down significant in the second half of the year.

That is also when the summer release came out, and many other hosts experienced a downward trend.

Now we're looking at our competitive set and other hotels in the area are up year over year, and they're not on airbnb. On the contrary, they're on traditional OTAs (booking , Expedia, etc) and they are experiencing growth.

So at first we thought this trend was market specific (i.e. Miami being down in 2022 vs 2021) but now we believe there must be really an issue with abb, either supply and demand unbalance, or a horrible summer release and the algorithm messing up or?

Does anyone have exposure to other OTAs and saw growth on the other OTAs (booking , Expedia , vrbo), while experiencing a slowdown on airbnb?

Anyone that wants to share his experience, we'd really appreciate it and we're also happy to help other hosts with our insights.

Cheers

[Lorna170]

@Samuel596   I list on both AirBnB and VRBO.  After the summer release, I had NO bookings from AirBnB from until late September.  VRBO filled my fall calendar.  Currently, AirBnB represents less than 40% of my 2023 reservations wherein previous years AirBnB was 60-70% of bookings.

Summer release = massive fail.  

[Huma0]

@Samuel596 

I'm not on other listing sites as there really aren't any successful ones here for home shares (although I have been told booking dot com does them). However, I can tell you that my bookings stopped for a long time after the Summer Release and my listings were always popular before. There is demand here, but if people can't see you, it makes no difference. 

I have been getting by largely on long term bookings and repeat guests. And I am researching other options. I would not recommend anyone rely on Airbnb anymore.

[Pat271]

  Yes, I think almost all platforms are doing better per-host at the moment than Airbnb. Airbnb may be doing  adequate business, but that’s probably because they have changed their algorithms to steer guests to more far-flung locales, so the number of actual bookings is similar to what they had before. My opinion is that this is the most significant cause of individual hosts suddenly losing all of their visibility and bookings on Airbnb. Only a few listings are being shown that are actually in the location being searched, whereas before, all properties in a searched area were being shown in a much smaller radius. Big difference.

[Scott57]

I've seen several articles about how Airbnb bookings are down because too many people got into the market. During COVID, people bought second homes and now that they are going back to work, they want to list the second homes through Airbnb and others. Now, there is an overflow of listings. 

I personally have not seen a decrease in my bookings yet but I have many return customers so I might be the exception.

You mention that your portfolio includes 200 listings. I will mention that when I look to travel and look for listings, I stay away from hosts with multiple listings. I want the host with a single listing with personal touches trying to supplement their income, not a management company with multiple listings where Airbnb becomes their sole income source. Just being honest . . .

[Sudsrung0]

@Samuel596 

Out here in Thailand Airbnb is booming it was the best low season we ever had and our calendar has been fully booked for a while all Airbnb, we are still booked to the middle of March.

We are on other site this year got nothing from them and BDC usually does well out here

[Pat271]

@Sudsrung0  Sounds like the US a year ago. Maybe it is a delayed effect. Keep your guard up.👍🏼

[Sudsrung0]

@Pat271 

The funny thing was we did have quite a few American tourist last year, 

There was no Chinese tourist last year they were not allowed to travel,

Here the biggest markets are the Russians and Chinese we have had plenty of Russians were my apartment is it's like little Moscow at the moment,

I'm watching whats going on because right now beyond March we have not got any bookings or inquiries, 

I have some back up I am on other sites, 

I can see the views on Airbnb have gone down,

I kick started a old Instagram account, I will start doing some advertising on FB drive the traffic to Airbnb, 

Maybe this low season we will pickup the Chinese market, our experience with them they really do only stay 2,3,4 days,

Maybe go for monthly stay during low season,