Christmas and New Year: to host or not to host?

[Rich-and-Yan0]

Hello everyone,

We are new hosts, having only begun in August 2019, and we have a listing in the Algarve in southern Portugal.

As we've stayed in that area quite a bit, including in some Airbnb homes, we've gotten to know a few fellow hosts who live there. And yesterday, one of them advised us not to rent during the Christmas and New Year holidays, i.e. to make the Dec. 24-26 and Dec. 31-Jan.2 not available for booking. They said that this is "a time when a lot of people want to find Airbnb homes just to party in," and they warned us that people from two particular nationalities (which we will not name here) can be especially troublesome during this period. 

We were thus wondering if any of you had ever had such a problem. This will, of course, be our first holiday period as hosts, and obviously we don't want our beautiful home--on which we've just spent a small fortune renovating, decorating and furnishing--to be trashed by drunks.

For the record, I am a Canadian-Brit who has lived in 7 different countries, including in the U.S., and have traveled to over 40. And I have found that in general, Europeans (our main clientele) tend to be harder drinkers than people from other places (Australia aside, haha).

In any case, we would really appreciate any insights and experiences you could share. Thanks a lot.

[Sarah977]

@Rich-and-Yan0  As long as you trust that these other hosts aren't steering you in that direction to cut down the competition for those holiday times, I'd definitely take what they have to say to heart.

For me here in Mexico, the holiday that brings the most problems is Semana Santa- Easter week. Up to 10,000 people can descend on this little town and it's all about the party. The whole town ends up looking like a trash heap, although locals do their best to try to mitigate that by volunteer clean-ups and making sure there are lots of trash cans and signs about cleaning up after yourself.

The first Easter after I started hosting, I started to get clueless Inquiries from kids who looked like they were about 14 (that's when we could still see profile photos before confirmation) asking things like "So is it just for one person?" when my listing heading says "For solo traveler". Or "So do you know of any places that accept 10 guests?" Or " Can you send me your phone number, I have some questions". All new users, no reviews. After a few of these, I just blocked my calendar for that week.

This year I was lucky- I was just about to block it again when I got a Booking Request from a 60 year old man from Boulder, who sent me lovely, informative and friendly messages and was coming to check out the area, as he was considering moving to Mexico. Had some reviews, all really good. He was a great guest, but if I hadn't gotten his Request in time, I definitely would have blocked those dates.

[Rich-and-Yan0]

@Sarah977 Thanks, great advice. And wow, booking requests for 10 guests??!! That's just so obvious, and too funny. 😄

We're sure that the people who gave us this warning are not trying to eliminate us as competition, as they are in a different part of the Algarve and are targeting a different type of guest. Whereas they are in the centre of one of the main towns, near the beaches and action, and their listing is largely directed toward low-budget travellers, we bought on a golf resort that is quite a distance from all of that and is geared much more towards families looking for a quiet getaway (and in fact, that has been pretty much our entire clientele so far).

Anyway, we do appreciate your words of wisdom, and we shall take them to heart. Cheers!

[Sarah977]

@Rich-and-Yan0  I'd add that certainly not everyone who wants to book in Southern Portugal during Xmas and New Year's would be party hearty undesirables. And since it could be a very lucrative time for you to get bookings, you might try to advertise those dates somewhere that might reach reasonable people, like travel publications for seniors and the like. Airbnb surely tends to attract the party crowd, especially if you have a large listing with "party features" like a pool, jacuzzi, etc.

[Rich-and-Yan0]

Just saw your follow-up message after I had posted a reply to you. Thanks again. Although we do have Instant Booking turned on, we also have requirements such as government ID and recommendations from other hosts that gives us the option to decline any dubious-looking requests, like the ones you had been getting before you started blocking out the holiday. And so if it comes down to a choice between jeopardising our chance for Superhost status or declining someone who we think might trash our home, then obviously we are going to choose the latter.

Really appreciate the advice, @Sarah977 

[Yadira22]

@Rich-and-Yan0 

Just reminding you that if you do not feel comfortable hosting someone who instantly booked you can call Airbnb and ask to cancel penalty free. I have done it a couple of times myself- one had a 2.5* overall and was booking a single room for one night but visiting his girlfriend who lives in London and the other was a local who has 5 properties in the very close surrounding area and rated us 4/5 in location *SMH*. Good luck to you 🙂

[Yulianna0]

@Rich0& Yan1, I would agree with fellow hosts about holidays. As I have noticed last year the quality of guests is lowering down and they tend to have strange expectations. For example, to be able to have public transport working at 5 AM after Christmas night:) (lowering my stars for that, for sure). It was not terrible, no damages, as it is one room renting, but somehow stressful and unpleasant... 

[Rich-and-Yan0]

@Yulianna0 Oh wow, how terrible of someone to do that. I'm glad to hear that your place wasn't damaged, but still, that's really unfair of someone to give you a bad review because there was no public transport in the middle of the night.

Anyway, thank you for the advice. We are still undecided, and that's the reason that we decided to put this out there for our fellow hosts to give us advice. There's nothing like the voice of experience...

Cheers. 

[Rachel177]

@Rich-and-Yan0 I had guests the first year I hosted over NYE and they were fine (I'm an in home host). I've stopped hosting as I found I was getting requests from people who were just in town to party & I was worried about the state they would be in (and the room) after their night out. It wasn't worth the stress so I now block out NYE.

If you were keen on taking bookings during that period I would suggest that you have a minimum stay of a week & have a hefty security deposit. That should deter the party people who only want to be in town for a couple of days over Christmas or new years.

[Rich-and-Yan0]

@Rachel177 Those are really good suggestions. We do have it set up for next summer that no one can book for less than one week, on the recommendations of a fellow host, but I hadn't thought of doing that over the holidays. And we didn't realise that we could raise the security deposit for a specific period, but that's something that we're definitely going to look into.

Anyway, we did increase the price during this period, also on the recommendation of another Airbnb host, but your suggestions make even more sense. Again, this is our first year of hosting, and if it turns out to be a stressful experience like what you just described, then it will most likely be our last year of hosting over the holidays.

Thank you. That really is some invaluable advice. 🙂

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Rich-and-Yan0 

every area is different so I would listen to your fellow hosts.

Every December Zagreb turns into total Christmas madness and it lasts for 5 weeks. There are festivals and fairs on every corner and guests are mainly from our country, region or Europe. We raise our prices during weekends and don't take 1 night stays. We have min 3-5 nights during NY (depends on the day of the week). But, fortunately, Zagreb is not known as a "party destination" like some other cities around the world, despite numerous cafes, bars, concerts, and clubs so hosts don't block their listings.

Christmas period ( December 23-27) is specific, people tend to celebrate with their families, not to party around.

[Rich-and-Yan0]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 Thank you for sharing your own firsthand experiences and observations. And yes, you're probably right about Christmas being more about families than parties. 

Our place has a minimum 3-night rental, as it is quite big and the cleaning cost wouldn't be worth us renting for one night only. As I was just saying in the thread above, we had it set to 7-day minimum rental for next summer, as we'd heard that in our particular area, people look for long-term bookings. @Rachel177 just recommended, however, that we do something similar over Christmas and/or New Year, and I think we will definitely consider doing at least a 5-day booking for the New Year period. That, plus the increased price for the period, plus the "hefty" security deposit that Rachel just suggested, should hopefully be enough to scare away the party-only crowd.

Thank you for your wonderful input. We really appreciate it.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Rich-and-Yan0 

there is just one problem - you can't set different security deposit for NY period than for the rest of the year.

[Rich-and-Yan0]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 Ah, okay. Thanks for pointing that out. Rachel did suggest in the above thread that we could do that, which I was surprised about (and actually said to her that I hadn't realised). But I'm guessing you're probably right, because I can't see how that would be possible. Thx again. 

[Barry-and-Lera0]

@Rich-and-Yan0: We have never had any issues during these holidays. We also boost our rates considerably from our normal nightly rate. I believe our rate for Christmas Eve and Christmas is $180 a night and for New Years Eve $250. Generally the higher prices seem to take the "partiers" elsewhere.