Lots of views but no bookings!

[Ha21]

Hello everyone, 

Warm greetings from Vietnam!

My name is Hà. My husband and I started hosting about 4 months ago. We did reasonably well for first three months but things have slowed down a bit as we're approaching the low season here in Vietnam. Despite that we have noticed that the views of our listing dramatically increased and remained constantly high compared to the average but we have not received any bookings for the past 3 weeks. Any advice on our profile? Anyone experiencing the same thing?

Here's our listing: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/30356497?s=51

Thanks in advance!

Hà

[Sarah977]

@Ha21 I think your place looks great and the listing description is good and your friendliness and care are evident. I'm not sure what you could do to get more bookings- I certainly wouldn't reduce the price- it seems super reasonable, even too cheap, but I don't know your market.

I do think you should rearrange your photos a bit. Some are redundant- I think you could get rid of photos 9, 10 and 11, as those don't really show anything that  the others don't. And reorder them so that all the bedroom photos are in series, then the bathroom. Put the foodie photos at the end.

Also, your last paragraph, under "Other things to note" has 3 places where it says "Website hidden by Airbnb". You can't put links in the listing info, as they get hidden, so reword that last paragraph without the links. You can send those links to confirmed guests or leave the info in the listing.

[Ha21]

Thank you Sarah for your advice! Will take onboard all your advice. I ve certainly been reducing the price in a hope of bookings but seems like that is not main factor behind the slowdown. Yeah I agree with you on those photoes, I just put there so that the profile gets updated on regular basis. Maybe i need to do another round of photoshooting. The foodie photo I put within the first few photos so when people go through the listing, even though they might not book the apartment, they might still find something useful for their trip to Vietnam. Im not sure if how many people actually looked at that pic though. 

Many thanks once again!

[Ben551]

Hi @Ha21 - I just wanted to add - I did some checking on where you are placed in search results ( often the critical factor in the low season ).  You are currently rank 68 among "Entire Home" listings in your area, for appraoching dates in your calendar.  This isn't bad in a market where there were *gulp* 17 pages of highly competitive, quality listings all with availability! 

Being on page 4 isn't bad.  In addition to that, you have earned the "Rare Find" tag, which means you have been receiving some bookings and I see your calendar isn't all free (in fact it's mostly full).  I think you're doing quite well to be honest, but the tips @Sarah977 has given you will help.

Keep it up!

[Ha21]

Hi Ben,

Thank you for your encouraging words! Ive never quite got the airbnb ranking system. it seems to come out different for people in different location. Yeah i do sound a bit like im overly stressed out over the current booking rate but my calendar has been at the current state for nearly 3 weeks so it does worry me a little bit. from your experience, do you know how far in advance do they usually book their stay?

Many thanks,

Hà

[Ben551]

@Ha21   according to Wheelhouse pricing, my own "booking lead time" (the number of days in advance people book) should be 40-50 days in the low season and can be 100-120 days in the high season.  At the moment I have a much higher number, so it tells me my pricing was too low.  I have raised it now, using this pricing engine, and my lead time has reduced down to a more sensible number.

I don't think you should worry too much about having 3 weeks without bookings.  Your market appears to be well flooded with unbooked listings so it will take time for some of that business to filter down to you, especially in the low season.

[Ha21]

Has anyone also experienced the same kind of thing? Im struggling to get my head round it really. Ive checked some of the listing around my area and found that theyre getting bookings really far ahead (April, May even June). To be fair, theyve been on Airbnb for quite some time with 50+ reviews but still it still feels a bit frustrated really.

Ha`