How are you preparing to stay booked for the winter months?

[Glenna16]

Hi there, we are Glenna and Dan ** and are in our sixth month of our Airbnb!  We have met some of the most amazing guests, love to visit when they choose to, and our guest book they sign gives us great insight as to how to accommodate our guests or just how much they have enjoyed their stay.  It was exciting to reach Superhost back in Just after only being open since March 31st, and our chocolate chip cookies seem to do the trick....of course mine have several signature items in them :-).  Would love to know how others are preparing to stay booked as we enter the winter months.

Glenna

**[Name hidden - Community Center Guidelines]

[Huma0 · Accepted solution]

@Glenna16 congratulations on gaining Superhost after your first quarter.

You seem to have two listings showing the same place, for the same number of rooms/guests. Is this intentional? I assume you have blocked out dates so that you don't get double bookings?

I am afraid that I am not hopeful of getting new bookings for the winter months. I used to be fully booked year round, but the Summer Release back in early May has pretty much decimated my views and bookings.

Fortunately, I do have one very long term booking (I only host long term stays) that will keep one room totally occupied. I don't have any bookings for the other two from early/mid October onwards, but I am hoping some dates will be booked up by repeat guests.

Other than that, I will be looking at different ways to market my listings outside of Airbnb. Unfortunately, there are no real competitors here for homeshare stays, so I'll have to get creative about it.

Apart from a time during the height of the pandemic when it was not possible to host, I've always gotten as many bookings as I needed via Airbnb, but sadly it will be soon be time to part ways. The Summer Release has proven that traditional, small scale hosts like me are not a priority for Airbnb anymore.

[Helen3]

So sorry to hear this @Huma0  you are just the sort of individual host that Airbnb needs. Your home is beautiful, well priced and you have great reviews.

Under the summer release my bookings plummeted at what should have been my busiest time of year and I didn't get any new bookings for a few months. But then I got bookings for September and October about a month ago. Now it has slowed right down again as it shows the first date I have availability is December, when in fact it's September. 

I think for individual hosts like you and me it's a combination of the disaster fest that is the  summer release combined with the forthcoming and price rises for utilities which has put people off booking holidays.

[Huma0]

@Helen3 

Thank you for your kind words. Yes, it's sad. It's been an interesting and (more times than not) exciting and rewarding experience, but I fear it is coming to an end, unless Airbnb suddenly goes in a drastically different direction. I am not optimistic about them suddenly changing direction after already doing such a drastic change as recently as May.

Sorry to hear about your bookings slowing too. That stupid date search with 'any week' etc. is obviously hurting a lot of hosts. To be honest, I've really never experienced such a lack of interest before. Even when the pandemic hit, people were still trying to book with me (just a different type of guest, i.e. more local). 

And then we have the increasing price of utilities, as you mentioned. So, Airbnb is looking less and less economically viable to me. Meanwhile, since I switched from long term lodgers to Airbnb, rental prices here have soared and my rents used to be exclusive of bills (bills calculated monthly and divided between me and my housemates) which encouraged people to be more energy efficient, as it was coming out of their own pockets.

I do not wish to return to that set up for various reasons, but fear that might be the only way to go.

[Huma0]

PS @Helen3 

The glitch with the Superhost stats is just another factor to add to the frustration. My reviews/ratings say that I am eligible at the next assessment, whereas the stats on my dashboard say not. 

After a lot of frustrating back and forth with CS, they eventually admitted it was a technical glitch that is ongoing and that they were already aware of but can make no promises to fix before the next assessment. On top of that, if they do not fix the glitch in time, I will not make Superhost, even though I have earnt it.

I am really starting to think the stress of dealing with Airbnb, its glitches, host-hostile policies and mostly incompetent CS is just not worth it. This is my home. I want control over it, which is precisely the reason I decided to use Airbnb in the first place. However, since then, Airbnb introduces policy after policy and change after change that takes that control away from me.

As we Brits would say, "How very DARE you?"

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Glenna16 there is some sense in shutting down for winter as revenues are low and costs high.

[Sudsrung0]

@Glenna16 

I guess living in a cold countries in the winters would obviously increase your running cost with heating and guest not going out as much you would get more wear and tear on you property.

How could you increase your rates when it is already low season? Difficult to say the least.

If you close down could you then lose your Super Host status?.

Try listing on other platforms 

Good luck