@Steve67 First you need to contact Airbnb and explain the situation. Tell Airbnb that the guest really was only inquiring and had no intention of making a reservation and that you cancelled at their request. Hopefully the discussion between you and the guest is on Airbnb's message thread so they can see the exchange of messages.
Second, sounds like your guest is a newbie as well. Unfortunately some guests send a reservation request with questions when they should have sent an inquiry instead. I had a guest, a Super Host no less, send me a reservation request when really all she wanted to do was ask questions before making a real booking. In the end I had to ask her to cancel her request until she knew whether or not she really wanted to make the reservation. Happens all the time, unfortunately. You need to "read between the lines" to determine what guests who really don't understand the system really want.
As I'm sure you now know, cancelling a reservation has serious consequences for a host so you should never cancel on a guest's behalf.
Hope Airbnb resolves this favorably on your behalf!
