Low location rating and guests returning next week

[Rebecca658]

We live just outside of Vancouver, in a closeby suburb that allows AirBnBs. Our listing clearly states where we are, and lists the average time to get to different places. We put down times on the high side, as we'd rather have guests arrive places in a shorter amount of time, rather than it taking longer. Of course, they also see our place on the map. We also obviously have our price point MUCH lower than those that are right in Vancouver. 

Today I recieved a 3 star rating for location. There were no written comments. Another guests recently gave us 4 stars because they complained it took 30 mins to get downtowh. Our listings says it will take 40 mins. I believe people are booking our place to save money, and then complain about it being far away from downtown. 

Anyways, the people that gave us 3 stars today on location, have already booked to come back next week. As they departed yesterday, they also requested to drop their bags off early. Of course I obliged, only to get that three star location rating today. There's not much I can do about our locaiton. It's very frustrating. If people don't like the location, I wish they would just not book our home. I work very hard to ensure that our guests have an enjoyable stay, and then it feels like a slap in the face to see 3 stars in any category. 

What should I do? Leave it? Send a message asking how we can ensure they fully enjoy their stay next week? I'm sure another 3 stars is waiting for us in location after their stay next week. 

Any suggestions welcome! Thank you! 

[Alexandra316]

@Rebecca658 Location is a thorn in many hosts' sides. It often happens that guests book a lower priced listing then complain it's far away from the downtown or whatever attraction they want to visit. However, location doesn't really get taken into account by Airbnb in terms of metrics: it means virtually nothing. Annoying, yes: harmful, no. You are obviously doing everything right in terms of being honest in your listing, which I think is super important. I do the same, and yet I sometimes still lose stars because I'm not close enough to Niagara Falls: it happens to all of us. And you know that if I were right beside Niagara Falls, other guests would complain about the location because there were too many tourists or it was too misty or the water made too much noise at night.

In terms of what to do with this particular guest, if you're bothered enough by it that you don't want them staying again, I would contact Airbnb and ask them to cancel penalty free, stating that you're not comfortable with the reservation. If they were otherwise good guests and you had a decent rapport with them, I would suggest bringing it up casually: maybe explain that Airbnb sees anything less than 5 stars as a fail and explaining that your pricing is lower due to the location being outside of the city centre. Remember that Airbnb doesn't really explain reviews to guests at all: they just expect them to know what to do. A little education could go a long way to helping the guest and their future hosts.

[Jody79]

@Rebecca658 As Alexandra said above, the individual star ratings don't really mean anything.  What you really want to pay attention to is the overall star rating.  Because we are not downtown Chicago, we often get a star knocked off on location as well, however it hasn't affected our overall star rating (so far).  We've gotten to where we pay attention only to the things we can control such as communication, cleanliness, etc.  As we can't up and move our place downtown, we are pretty much ignoring it as long as it doesn't affect our overall rating.

[Sarah977]

@Rebecca658  I'd suggest you start explaining to your guests that what they are rating when they rate the location of an Airbnb, is that it was described accurately in the listing, not whether it was close to downtown or any other places they wanted to visit.