Superhost of 3 years left out in the cold by Airbnb

[Kirsten22]

I am a Superhost with 390 reviews.  After 3 years of hosting, suddenly our listings don't appear in the search results for our town.  Help Center says it's because there are over 300 lisitngs in our town and won't help us.

After 3 years of 96%  5-star reviews, our business is being destroyed.  

Our homes are all totally green, sustainable and off-the-grid and provide our guests with an amazing experience along with an education in green, solar living.  Now, we have received just one booking inquiry on our top proerty in a month after having 80% occupancy for 3 years straight.  So sad.

What can we do? https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1385633?preview

Thank you.

Kirsten

[Kirsten22]

@Lizzie

Thanks for getting involved.  We really need your help!

We experienced a situation like this back in the summer.  For a few weeks our listings were not able to be found in any search for any date with no filters.  First we were told there was no problem.  Then we were told there was a technical problem and that it was being fixed.  It then appeared to be fixed for a while.

Then we noticed a sudden drop-off in or booking inquiries mid-October.  As we have 3 listings, it's rare that more than a couple days go by without an inquiry.  I contact Help again, three times by phone and then with follow-up emails.  First I was told it was related to which browser was being used.  Then I was told it was a technical issue that was being fixed.  Then I was told that the new view of us not showing up in the search results for Taos was a permanent situation.  That in this "robust" market that only 300 listings would show up in the search.  That we were outside the city itself and would no longer show up.

The thing with Taos is that it's not a city in the typical sense.  It is a mountain valley that people come to for the culture and food, definitely, but also for the wide open spaces, mountain views, big sky, quiet, howling coyotes at night, dark sky with the Milky Way glittering.  Our listings are right next to one of the top 2 tourist destinations in the town, the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge and the Earthship Visitor Center.  We are also just down the road from the largest, most popular live music venue at the Taos Mesa Brewing.  We ARE in Taos.  

Now we and all of our neighbors, all Superhosts with a combined 700+ reviews, are completely shut out.

Instead, when you search Taos you can find new listings with no reviews and many, many sterile corporate-owned condos. 

But not us.

We do have some existing bookings but all were taken months ago.  We've only had one inquiry on our property with 245 reviews in over a month.

We just started construction of a new house based on the performance of our business for the past 3 years.  We've hired an assistant.  We have made big life decisions based on our success with Airbnb.  

Now it's all in jeopardy and we have yet to receive a satisfactory explanation or any real "help".

I've been a member of Airbnb since 2010.  I travel using Airbnb.  I've worked extremely hard as a host to offer the highest quality experience and our reviews and performance reflected that. 

Until now.  Now we feel carelessly tossed aside. 

On top of it all we are offering truly unique experiences.  The opportunity to live fully off-the-grid for a night or more but with all the modern amenities.  We are all solar powered, all rain water harvesting and recycling, all natural and recycled materials, all passive/solar heating and cooling.  Our guests come away amazed, inspired and educated.  We are trying to change the world for the better.  Please, please help us.

Thanks so much!

Kirsten

[Lizzie]

Thank you @Kirsten22 and @Helen3 for the extra information. I can understand that this is really worrying.

We are feeding this back to the team and I am trying to gather as much information as I can to pass on - as you mention Helen it isn't as straightforward as your listing is not appearing in search, so it really good to have more detail on it. 

Thanks again and do keep me posted and I will do too. 🙂

[Kirsten22]

@Lizzie

Any news from your side?  We're looking at an unprecendented 4 week run without any booking at our main listing.

Very troubling...

[Val20]

OMG. This is terrible for you...and I feel exactly the same way. The way you describe your problem is very similar to what I am experiencing. I made life decisions based on the performance of my business for the past 2 years, and all of a sudden I am getting no bookings at all. Of course I could go ahead and use competitors like vrbo or booking.com... but those sites don't have the same philosophy, they are 100 percent business, they are not about the experience, unique acommodation and connections. I can't run my house like a hotel because it is not. I need to know who is coming to stay, for safety reasons and also to make sure my guests are the right match, that they will be happy with the non-conventional experience. If I can't find a solution for this, I don't know what to do

[Trinity-And-Cristina0]

yup, requests and inquiries had been pouring in nonstop since I started this in the summer, and now there is dead silence (even after making superhost in October)..truly unfair. will probably be moving my listing to another platform 

[The-Arias-Clan0]

Please post any other platforms you find - I am also searching and will do the same.

I know VRBO and I am also re-building our dedicated website and setting up independent booking software. We like Keep Me Booked before we switched to 100% Aribnb about a year ago.

It does feel better that we are not alone in this bizarre shut-out!

Krista

[Kirsten22]

@Trinity-And-Cristina0

Yeah, makes you wonder what benefits, if any, there are to being a Superhost???

[Trinity-And-Cristina0]

@Kirsten22 Really! you are 100% right. I worked so hard for superhost, and it did not nothing for me in the end. Like you had mentioned about retaining superhost status, I only made around 4 bookings since the evaluation in September so I will probably be losing it in Januray 😞 Who knows, maybe its for the better and the requests will come pouring in again if I lose it 😛 by the way, your places look amazing, I saved them for a future trip 😄

[The-Arias-Clan0]

Same story with us. We have been with Airbnb for 7 years, have 5 star rating and bookings just stopped a couple months ago as far as I can tell... It is super frustrating since Airbnb's "customer service" can hardly be called such. They say they are working on it... I doubt they plan to compensate us for our massive loss though (our place is huge and books for $560/night so you can imagine our loss over nearly 2 months now). We did get one booking late last night for January, but looks like Oct - December will be much of a wash. Compared to last year we are at about 1/4 occupancy. It's beyond frustrating into frightening...

[Kirsten22]

Agreed.  Frightening is the word for it.  I remember watching a video about the Airbnb founders and how when they were struggling first starting the company, they flew to NYC and visited EVERY host in person.  Maybe it's time for them to do a similar trip but to some of their smaller, unique markets that have different needs.

[Helen3]

Hi

I would register with other listings to spread your risk.

[Martin346]

Airbnb is great.. but not everyone likes it. Also the demographics of an Airbnb person is different. Much more likely to be short term planner on hosrt term outing ready to take a chance. Opposite of HomeAway and VRBO which have strong biases to/for Europeans. And Trip Advisor coming on strong as they have very big audience.  And they might make you SuperHost, but try travelling yourself thereafter and see how you like getting treated as a common hobo.

[Dede0]

@Kirsten22 As a very minor way of helping your listing appear in a more selective list, go buy some hangers, an iron, and a hair dryer. Check those off in the Amenities section. Also check off "Laptop-Friendly Workspace", as I see a table and a chair in your photos, and that constitutes "laptop-friendly" in my book.

Secondly, and I know you won't like hearing this, and I say it to be helpful, not to be mean, but your listing is hardly "in Taos". Yes, it's in the general area, but it's roughly 8-10 miles from town. A few years ago, as you said, your listing would rise to the top of the "hits" because there weren't *hundreds* of other listings, many of them a lot closer to "Taos". Despite your very high ratings and great reviews, you're competing for attention with hundreds of places, not just a few dozen. You may have to drop your rates a few dollars to show up in more peoples' searches.

As another commenter mentioned, you might try "Sleeping" your listing for a couple of days and then re-activating it. Folk wisdom (totally unconfirmed) is that you'll get a temporary boost in the hit list.

[Zacharias0]

A few things come to mind: nothing lasts forever, don't put all your eggs in one basket and when the going gets tough the tough get going. Your place is unique and you may need to begin marketing it on other platforms- VRBO/Homeaway/EverBooked. You're lucky in that your listing stands out among the crowd, but don't expect AirBnB to remedy your issue.

[Helen3]

@Kirsten22 @Lizzie I have had absolutely no inquiries for over a month now.

Customer support has confirmed to me that it is a technical issue, so nothing like changing photo's, pricing or copy will make any difference. (This was after twitter told me it was because no-one was looking for a place like mine)

Apparently we just have to wait until technical support gets round to looking at it.

Kirsten I would call them so you are on the list.

This seems to be happening to quite a few superhost/long term hosts and BNB doesn't seem to be that bothered.

@Lizzie please can you help us get this resolved. A terrible way to treat long term hosts who have done nothing wrong.

Sorry @Zacharias0 that's not right - this is a technical fault which BNB has admitted. BNB can do something about it, they are just choosing not to prioritise rectifying it.