Our Reservation Requests seem to have stopped coming in?

[Jay76]

We recently listed our new ski chalet, and had 3 requests come in but they were'nt suitable for the building/space - so we had to decline them. Now the reservations requests have stopped.  Is there some sort of algorithm that is preventing new requests or pushing our listing out of the search results BECAUSE we declined our first few requests?  HELP!

[Karen-and-Brian0]

Hi @Jay76 There are algorythms at work for sure, but I'm not sure if that's what's going on. I found your listing easily after putting in some price parameters and see you share the page with several other New Listings. You have lots & lots of competition in Whistler, so that makes it much more challenging to get noticed. One way to get your listing bumped up is to do edits every day - even making very small changes seem to help keep it on the radar. Best of luck, your place is awesome! Karen

[Scott58]

Airbnb claims that you are never penalized for declining a guest. It does however ask for a reason ( point and click) so I do wonder whether if your reason is that the calender was not up to date for example, that it might start changing you place in the listings, but have no specific proof of this. I try to keep my calender current to avoid having to not accept for this reason, as well of course a s courtesy to travelers. Regards and good luck

ps not that you were asking, but I always advise new hosts to start out with a lower price for the first few months, as a good way to get some reviews under your belt. In the long run it is an inevestment, and also an empty house/chalet brings in nothing, so half price is better than that. You can even put that in your listing heading  " New listing, introductory bargain rate"  and of course set specifc prices for specific days in the manage your calender section. Good luck and hoping for snow

[Roya3]

Mine too wonder why.

[Sandra126]

You are very low down, and this will be in part because of the declines. You have not had any booking, just declines and this tells the algoritms that you are not as keen as others who accept. Which is why it is awful when guests ask for impossible things and you have to decline!

Also, recently all Whistler listings were gone (I am surprised to see them back) as the legal system is a present issue for you, fines of $1000 per day or something, there was posts about this recently. 16/12 I think is the date for fines to begin. Best look that up, I wasn't paying very close attention.

[Kayla395]

How do i get my listing back up in the rankings? our reservations stopped.. I had a couple requests that were not possible and the renter and i had a good conversation but i forgot to respond on the request so i think its penalizing me for that. 

[Huma0]

@Kayla395 

When it is an enquiry, you just need to respond to the message within 24 hours to keep your acceptance rate up. If it is a booking request, you really must accept or decline within 24 hours. You can't just leave it, one your response rate will be dinged. If you do this too often, yes, probably it will push you down in the search results.

[Kayla395]

Yes that’s what happened. How do I fix it

[Huma0]

@Kayla395 

I'm afraid I don't think you can fix it. Those are the requirements on Airbnb and if you missed those, well, there's not really much that can be done. All you can do is to make sure in future you accept or decline all booking requests within the 24 hour window.

It is a bit harsh, but I'm afraid that is just how the system works.