Frequency of bookings

[Michael7112]

I would like to know whether other hosts have experienced a falloff in booking? We have seen a decrease from ~$60K in 2021 to less than ~$40K in 2022. Our standards have not decreased. We just received our 4 quarter super host badge for the second year running. We have heard that AirBNB is increasing its fees for guests, which makes staying at an AirBNB considerably more expensive. We also heard that it is possible to disable (or opt out) of these AirBNB fee increases, which would  make staying at our home less expensive and thus more attractive. Can anyone verify this? I would appreciate any views on these two issues. Thanks. 

[Sudsrung0]

@Michael7112 

It's a trend in the USA bookings are down in certain areas lots of host in  the same boat,

Where did you hear airbnb are increasing their fees? I do a lot of research on the STR industry almost everyday and I have never seen or heard anything, 

If you have any link to that story please post, 

[Michael7112]

I have no specific source for this information. It is hearsay in our community. But I thought I would check the community to see whether anyone else has such evidence. The decrease in bookings is pretty remarkable. COVID years were our best years, so I am wondering what is happening to the VHR market.

[Huma0]

@Michael7112 

I have also heard that guest fees have gone up, but I'm not sure what the source of that information was. I can check though. 

Re your decline in bookings, did you notice this throughout 2022, or for certain months? I'm asking because the Summer Release (which rolled out in May) had a huge impact for a lot of hosts, myself included. I saw a sharp drop in views and interest from guests directly after that and everything had been going well before.

[Michael7112]

I am not familiar with “The Summer Release.” But this date, May 2022, does coincide with an abrupt fall off in bookings. We were totally unbooked during the summer, July through September, and only recovered a bit when we had only three or four bookings for the rest of the year ( October through December). Can you tell me what the “summer release” was and why it was announced/ imposed, and your own consequences? 

[Huma0]

@Michael7112 

The article @Pat271 linked above will give you some insight into what the Summer Release was all about but, bear in mind, that article seems to be drawing most of its information from Airbnb and how Airbnb want to market those changes, which a lot of hosts were very angry about.

If you search this forum using key words 'summer release' or 'categories' (and there is the 'winter release' too!), you will find a lot of information and discussion on this.

I am not surprised that your bookings dropped off after May. It has happened to so many of us.

[Huma0]

@Michael7112 

Try this thread for starters:

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Airbnb-updates/Host-questions-answered-Airbnb-s-Summer-Release/m...

By the way, a couple of months ago, the Community Centre was redesigned and posts now annoyingly appear in reverse order, so you might find this thread easier to digest if you start on the last page and work backwards...

[Huma0]

@Michael7112 

As for my own consequences, to give you an idea of the impact on my listings, I have basically had as many bookings as I can manage since I started listing the rooms in my home in 2016, with the exception of some lock down periods during the pandemic, when Airbnb blocked the calendars of home shares in the UK.

By late 2021, things had picked up again and got back pretty much to pre-pandemic levels. Then, in early May, Airbnb rolled out their Summer Release and, for me (and many other hosts) it was an overnight disaster.

To give you an example, one of my rooms received approx. 2,300 views in the month directly proceeding the Summer Release. It received approx 230 views in the month directly after. Yes, the views dropped by 90%. The views continued to go down until they were only a handful a month. I mean literally a handful. At some points, I was getting zero views for the entire month for some of my listings.

Naturally, with so little views and my listings very hard to find in searches, not appearing on the map unless I zoomed over my own home etc. the bookings and enquiries stopped. Things eventually seemed to improve later in 2022, and then, in November, Airbnb introduced the Winter Release, and my enquires/booking requests have stopped again although, bizarrely, the number of views looks okay... Now I have no idea what is going on.

[Pat271]

@Michael7112 @Huma0 @Sudsrung0 

Read something very interesting on Pricelabs yesterday, from this article here:

https://hello.pricelabs.co/airbnb-summer-update-and-its-implications/

We all suspected some of these reasons why the Summer Release negatively impacted many hosts, but it is interesting to see it in writing. For those who don’t want to read the article above, here is an excerpt, and note especially the bolded bits.

_______________________

Airbnb’s Objectives for releasing the Airbnb Summer 2022 Update

The updates work toward two big goals for the company.

1. The primary goal of the new update is to encourage travelers to get back to exploring the world. The new updates are in line with the new era of traveling that involves longer stay duration and more people choosing to work while traveling. 
   
   Airbnb has reinvented vacation rental search by automatically stringing together two separate listings for people looking to stay for a longer duration. It has also introduced AirCover which insures the guests against unfavorable circumstances, making them feel more secure while traveling. 

“We think people are ready to dream again,” said Chesky. “A lot of people have been sequestered at home for two years. Many people haven’t taken that big trip for the first time. And so we want to encourage people to get out of their house and venture into this big world.”

1. The second goal is more focused on the well-being of the business. Airbnb acknowledges the role of hosts in the overall growth of the business. Some new updates are created with the goal of providing big and small vacation rental owners and property managers more visibility.  The feature updates include category search and split stays that provide hosts from all corners of the platform better visibility regardless of them meeting the exact specifications of a user’s search.

I think this last phrase has had the biggest impact of all, and is why some hosts get the entire state when they search for their property, and sometimes don’t even see their property.

Perhaps in the end, most guests will not be swayed by being redirected away from the places they want to visit and out into locales unknown, and will zoom into their desired area on the maps to give themselves more choices. If they do this enough, perhaps Airbnb will return to showing guests what they want to see. We can always hope.

[Pat271]

Also note the objective of AirCover!

I see - so it wasn’t created to protect hosts at all, just guests.

[Huma0]

@Pat271 

Very interesting. Thanks for posting. There is a lot to unpack here, so I will come back and comment on the article in more detail!

[Daniel7370]

We have also seen a marked drop off in bookings over the past few months. It is not because of increased competition, at least not locally, since other hosts in the area are also seeing little or no activity. Also, when I say that bookings are down, that is relative to what we would expect for these months based on many years as Airbnb hosts.

I wondered about the "Summer release" issue but when I search our area for listings, our listing  comes out near the top like it usually does. But we live in a small midwestern town with few other Airbnbs nearby. When looking for places for us to stay when we travel, I have seen some weird things. I recently searched for Wrightsville Beach Airbnb listings on my phone and got a lot of listings for the nearby town of Wilmington, where rates are lower, and almost none for Wrightsville beach. I thought that there must be more than that and checked that I did not have any filters engaged, I did not. I tried zoning way in on the map, still nothing. Then I checked the same area using the Airbnb site on the web browser on my desktop computer and found scores of listings for Wrightsville beach. (but note that I was also using the web browser on my phone). Since I could not find those Wrightsville beach listings on my phone, even when I was specifically trying, there is something funny going on with how Airbnb shows listings on the phone.

But, as I said, that does not seem to be the problem for our own listing.  I checked the rates at the local hotels and found some that had similar or even lower rates than us when all fees are included. They are not great hotels, but not terrible either, still I think we offer a better place to stay. Also I have no reason to believe that the hotel rates have recently gone down. So I am still not sure what has happened to recent Airbnb bookings.

[Michael7112]

Daniel,

Thanks for posting this well researched response. I suspect

many of us got used to the busy times in 2021 and early 2022. Many people in our area have witnessed a drop off in bookings (my pool guy has almost 50 clients locally and all are saying the same thing). Still I wonder whether the VHR sector is now over subscribed. Again, thanks for writing. It is very helpful.

Mike Congdon (A fellow Hoosier from Ft Wayne)