SOS, Mayday, mayday. Bookings crashed.

[Mazen15]

Business has been slow since November.

Currently empty calendars.

Prices reduced to bare breakeven points and still no bookings.

Perhaps a suggestion that Airbnb needs to do a promotion themselves to stir up more business?

Perhaps a timeframe where booking fees are free to get users back on airbnb?

And remain competitive with the listing fees?

[Pat271]

@Mazen15  I doubt Airbnb is intending to further develop their traditional host base. According to this, as an industry, short-term rentals are doing great.

https://www.airdna.co/blog/airdna-market-review-us-december-2022

It is many individual hosts that are suffering; not the business as a whole. That’s because of many factors, but the main ones are saturation and Airbnb repositioning itself to develop a different type of business model. Many of us here won’t fit into the new business model, at least not at the present time.

Rather than belabor these points, do a search of this community - there are lots of discussions about the lack of bookings hosts are experiencing, and why.

[Fred13]

@Mazen15   Airbnb is doing quite well, this means they are not going back to the old way of doing business, and doubtful they will work too hard to re-gain something they may not be so interested in any longer.

    The original Airbnb model was bound to change because it was/still is a very high-maintenance model which it is hard to sustain with municipalities and the powerful hotel industry constantly fighting them politically and with their 'economies of scale' ability of lowering their prices while  providing better amenities (aka value).

The one way the hotel industry can't effectively compete with Airbnb is offering 'unique' listings or something personal which is really outside of the ability of the hotel industry by their physical reality; hard to offer something different or unique with 50+ units all being the same. Airbnb's recent emphasis on their unique listing (which they have an incredible inventory of) is probably their future, and it appears is what is exactly what they are attempting to do. Smart play.

Today's thinking by the 'old guard' of small individual hosts then perhaps should be:

Think of ways to be different, to offer amenities somewhat unique that local hotels in your area can not.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Mazen15 interesting to see you have slashed your prices. When demand is weak it may be that there are only a few guests out there. Will a reduced price stimulate more demand? (I doubt it) but it will definitely reduce your income if the few guests out there do book with you.

[Helen3]

Hello @Mazen15 ]

What market research have you carried out to try and understand why demand is falling for your STR business.

Are you in low season?

Are you in a saturated area with more listings than there are customers wanting to stay?

Are you in a recession with falling demand?

The important thing to understand is why you are experiencing falling demand then you can make sure you up your marketing to help drive traffic to your STR business whether that's setting up direct bookings, third party promotions, marketing to previous guests or advertising on all relevant platforms.