@Don_Michelle0
Don and Michelle, you have a lovely property and from my point of view should not be in a headlong rush to the bottom where your rates are concerned to secure reservations.
I have found every time I have increased my nightly listing amount my bookings have increased.
Firstly, do yourself a proper profit and loss statement to ascertain just what you need to charge to make a reasonable profit from your listing.
My property is less substantial than yours, but my bottom line where profit is concerned is considerable greater than yours because I know where I am going.
Here is the profit and loss I use for my listing cottage......
This profit and loss establishes what you need to charge, don't be influenced by material you will receive from Airbnb telling you that lower prices with bring you better returns.....they won't. It's better to have an empty property than go broke hosting at a loss!
My average gross from my cottage is $2,400 per month and the average amount I get to put in my pocket is about $1,800. Now my power costs are minimal because I have 7.5 Kws of rooftop solar and I have shopping agreements with local supermarkets that keep restock costs down to an average of $7.50 pr guest stay. Most of the cleaning is done by ourselves so this enables us to set a minimal cleaning figure of $15.
Secondly do not offer upfront discounts! Upfront discounts are open to abuse if alterations are made to the scheduled stay.
I do not offer upfront discounts!
That is not to say I don't discount for length of stay or return visits....I do, but I do it at the end of the stay in the form of a refund when I can asses what discount might be appropriate and still see me in the black. If a guest is not going to book because they are not getting a substantial discount you don't want them as guests, trust me! You are much better off with shorter length stays where you don't have to give away your profit.......Don't chase long term business, it's not profitable!
OK, you asked about how you can make this pay with your ever rising costs. Firstly all of America is feeling the pinch with inflation and rising costs at the moment so I would introduce in your listing description a pay for use with your hot tub. If they are reasonable they won't mind.....if they do mind, you don't want them as guests!
You can't disallow guests who might want to work from home but you can stop them from being wasteful. I have set a 4c temperature band on my cottage air conditioning. it won't heat above 24c and it won't cool below 20c. If a guest wants to be warmer than 75f in the winter time or cooler than 68f in the summer they won't do it at my expense. This is an easy alteration for a qualified mechanical services contractor to perform and no guest has complained about the limitation.
There is lots more I could suggest but I hope some of this can help you Don & Michelle.
Cheers.........Rob