Families with infants: how to prevent booking?

[Marco842]

Hello dear AirBnB Community !

I have clearly set that my listings are not suitable for infants, however I continuously receive booking inquiries from families having infants. This should be automatically prevented by the system because otherwise I have to intentionally deny those inquiries. As a result now I have gone under the threshold of minimum accepted inquiries, which looks to be 88% in my area, even though I clearly set the parameters for my listings.

Anyway AirBnB is great !!! 🙂
Thx for your commitment.
Marco

[Linda108]

 @Marco842  I don't think inquiries go through any screening, so the potential guest can send anything and ask anything and all you can do it decline 😛  I don't know if it would help since many potential guests don't read the listings carefully, but perhaps you could add a sentence about not suitable for infants in your description.  The only place you have that exclusion is in the rules.  Perhaps, "while our place is not suitable for infants under 2, children are welcome to enjoy..." would be a way to bring attention to your no infant rule.  Just a thought.

[Kelly149]

@Marco842 this really isn't the guest fault. You set your listing to "No" but when the search is being done ABB sets it to "Maybe".

I agree with @Linda108 that something in the text (rather than just relying on the 'rule') may help decrease this.

And it would be better for you to respond to the guest that 'sorry, no, infants aren't allowed bc of xyz' and then ask them to delete their request rather than you declining them. Since now abb are holding declines against us

[Marco842]

Hello everyone thx for your replies and for your hints. Alright, I will state it more clearly in the description that infants are not allowed and for what reason. I usually politely ask the potential guest to withdraw his/her booking request however about 50% of them don't do it therefore I'm getting penalized because I have to deny the reservation, though it's not my fault. Another related topic: does anyone know which are the legal implications for the host in case a kid or an infant gets injured inside the property due to some incident ? (e.g. mishandling of local objects or amenities, ingestion of detergents, injuries because of sharp edges or slips, and so on...). Are children and infants under the sole legal responsibility of their parents ? I hope so. I guess this is a matter which varies from country to country however I'm a bit frightened about it. Any experience or examples so far ?

Of course my property is certified to be compliant with legal safety requiremets and I keep potentially dangerous stuff out of reach of children, but you never what might happen. 

[Cormac0]

@Marco842

Maybe these potential Guest have misread the first line of your introduction

“Italian national living, working, breathing in Switzerland”

As

Italian national living, working, breeding in Switzerland

[Nancy632]

I had a family of 4 2 adults 2 small children I said I don’t have beds the rooms are only for adults they said they can sleep on the floor Airbnb booked them in. What a nightmare I had nearly pulled the plug on Airbnb