Curious- who else is experiencing slow season

[Yadira22]

Hello All,

hope you are well.

this month has been terrible for us, anyone else? 
I still have people looking but no  much luck with actual bookings- have changed settings to make it easier to book (IB is on), updated the listing itself, spent time in the photos, etc. Anything you found helps this? 
given my location, saying it’s due to increased competition and also a bit due to brexit and season (it’s not really peak season in London) but also Christmas just passed and this is obviously a very expensive time for anyone. 
Any ideas/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. 
thanks,

yadira 🙂

[Juan63]

Not knowing pricing in your area I can't comment on that but I would suggest giving your spaces more of a unique theme or personality. Then have professional pictures taken. I think that's what will attract guests because that's what they first see on the listing page. That along with your great reviews, should get you going a bit. You can see one of my spaces and how I have given it a persona persay.

https://www.airbnb.com/h/essexmoderncity

[Sarah977]

@Yadira22  I don't know if it would up your bookings, but looking at your photo gallery, I have a suggestion. I get that it's minimalist, and I appreciate no clutter myself, but all those bare white walls and bare wood floors don't look all that cozy. If I were you, I'd put some textiles or art on the walls and a few throw rugs to warm up the space and some splashes of color. Especially in the winter, you don't want your place to look "cold". 

[Yadira22]

Thank you @Sarah977 And @Juan63 will look into these suggestions- personally my style is more boho chic/vintage, think colour, plants etc create warmer tones for a home. Honestly, I need to get permission to buy soap, imagine a painting or change in colour palette 😉 but not my house, not my rules. I advise heavily and carry out any changes but That’s it! 

BTW- the photos were taken by Airbnb! Not my favourite photos as I think the space could be made to look cosier (which it actually is in person- lights are warmer, and it is minimalist but more so practical) but I did not pay for them so I can’t complain (Via the superhost bonus). It’s funny, as Airbnb still recommend I get “professional photography” done on the spaces they did themselves. Still grateful for their help, I suppose.

As I suspected it’s both competition and pricing. Doing a quick search I found in just a one block radius about 30 other listings on Airbnb, some pricing theirs as cheaply as £18/night (for London in particular this is insanely cheap). Truth be told I can’t compete with that pricing, in no way is it sustainable and traditional renting is better and something I have considered suggesting but we’ll see. 

Thank you everyone! 🙂

@Trevor243 @Jocelyn369 @Ute42 @Helen3 and all I have not tagged! Have a lovely Sunday x

[Trevor243]

@Yadira22I see the same over here with other owners pricing low.

We have a normal minimum 3 night stay, and minimum 7 nights in school holidays. We list properties on 4 OTAs. Some owners prefer to manage their own properties, and they have only one listing, normally AirBnB, minimum 2 night stays and low pricing. Naturally, they do get bookings, but they have to do much more cleaning than we do and earn less than we do.

Last night I stayed up very late updating my systems. I took the opportunity to do some statistics. So far, I've only counted the booked income (after fees) for the calendar year across multiple properties. The results are:

TripAdvisor: 7.16%

AirBnB: 11.21%

HomeAway: 16.79%

Booking.com: 24.49%

Direct bookings: 40.35%

Some of the direct bookings are 14 days. I haven't yet counted the number of bookings per OTA or the number of nights booked per OTA. (I have built my own web systems but not programmed these parts yet).

It's also very early days - we're only 3 weeks into the calendar year.

I would suggest looking on HomeAway and Booking.com to see what competition there is in your area on those OTAs.