Lack of bookings

Natasha-and-John0
Level 10
Cornville, AZ

Lack of bookings

You cut most of our bookings in half with your new website. 

10 Replies 10
Sudsrung0
Level 10
Rawai, Thailand

What ever they did is working for us heree in Thailand, we have been full all year with some great bookings, normally this is our low season,

Already we have been getting booking for high season Dec/Jan,

You are the first person that I have heard of that has actually had a boost in bookings. At least one host might survive...

 

The rest of us are wondering when Airbnb will be closing it's doors after their massive screw up. Because, as the op said, the website is an absolute abortion, full stop. Aside from all the new bot implementations, which essentially block the guests from booking at all.

 

We had two days about a month ago where bookings came in like normal and then a abruptly stopped. Maybe they turned the bot off for a minute?

Aundrea3
Level 2
Hot Springs Village, AR

What is going on...this has a dismal year for bookings.  My 2nd year in the Hot Springs Ar area.  The natural state is a mecca and guest come to enjoy the hiking, lakes, and hot springs.  But this year my bookings are down 2/3 from last year 2021.  Strange!   I looked at the website from a travelers perspective and it's not user-friendly.   Plus the user must be determined to drill down to have specific dates and location entered and not rely on "the experience wanted".   I'm not sure what my options are at this point.   I'm only aware of Vr bO and the E volve platforms as other marketing services.  Any one using them for your host on site guest space.  Feedback is appreciated.  

Zero Bookings. 

Safe Haven has had no bookings since Sept 30th or so.

Sweet Dreams has had no bookings since Oct 3 or so.

 

Is anyone else having this problem in or around Salem, Oregon?

 

Thanks.

We are having that problem in Tahoe, it seems to happen more often this time of year. Sure it's a slower time of year for traveling but we feel that airbnb alters our search rankings when they make changes to their operating system. It seems we have to dig into what they "want" from us each year. When we dig it helps.

 

I'm finding that we did not read all the new articles in the resource center, some articles have a completion button to click, this may be slowing our results because their system knows we didn't read this information yet! That is pretty messed up, but we are now reading the articles. That's how I found this page actually. They have me wasting a whole Sunday on this, hahaha.

Sudsrung0
Level 10
Rawai, Thailand

@Aundrea3 @Priscilla150 @Natasha-and-John0 

 

I have seen many people in the same boat as you guys both here in FB,

All I can suggest is get yourself listed on other OTA's maybe pick up some business.

Trip Advisor,

Agoda,

Booking.com

VRBO, 

 

All the sites are different so a bit of a learning curve

You would have sync all the calendars together 

Mostly I host Traveling Medical Personnel. I signed up with Furnished Finders, who charge a flat fee once a year in place of taking  a %.  This is a professional site, mostly for Traveling Medical Personal and other professionals.  Sadly, the funding for Traveling Personnel has stopped.  I have had many bookings, only to be notified that their Contract was cancelled.  It is a shame for both the medical profession and us.

 

I will be looing into Agoda, Booking.com and VRBO.  Thank  you for that information.

Helen3
Level 10
Bristol, United Kingdom

I think the problem for many hosts both in the US and elsewhere if that unfortunately they don't do their market research in terms of supply and demand in their area before starting an STR business .

 

often not getting bookings is because hosts live in over saturated markets . There is falling demand in many countries in Europe and elsewhere as the cost of living bites hard. @Natasha-and-John0  @Priscilla150 @Aundrea3 

 

one of the first things people cut back on are luxuries such as holidays .

 

I've had one of my best years since I started six years ago but Im an established host, live in a city and most of my visitors aren't travelling on holiday. 

Tish8
Level 1
Navarre, FL

I agree! What is going on? I am a super host with a space 10 minutes from the beach. We have NO bookings this month or next!  The ones we do have are from VRBO.  This is unheard of.  I have asked friends and relatives to look at my listing and most of the time they give up before finding it. Other towns and non-super hosts are listed before mine!  Why, when you search for a specific town, do other towns come up first?  This is so frustrating. 

Same thing happening here in Tahoe, the have made more hoops for us to find and are definitely lowering our search ranking. Very frustrating, they want us to do more and learn more I'm finding. It's always something new each year that we have to dig for. 

 

I am finding I did not add check out instructions yet, they sent a reminder that 260K people have added them. So we just added them, then in the resource center there are articles that you are supposed to read. Some of them come with a button to click when you have completed your learning lesson. I feel they reduced our search ranking because we had not done that yet. Pretty messed up as my father passed and my life was difficult this year.