Not Getting any more Inquiries and Bookings

[Fela1]

I have a 5Bedroom Apartment where all rooms are listed seperately, I used to get at least 5 or more inquiries daily but It has declined drastically in the past week. I think i have only gotten 1 or 2 in the past 1week.

I called Airbnb and they said inquires and bookings tend to reduce during this time of the year as people are not traveling as frequent as they were in the summer months. I have been a host since May so I have not experienced hosting during this time of the year/ winter months.

Anyone else has this issue? I have done everything possible, reduced prices and minimum number of days.

Would really like to hear from other hosts that have experienced this, thanks

[FrancescoandOksana0]

Hi Fela,

I have a similar problem. I do think it depends on the season a lot, but not only. As I understand, Airbnb adds new features and changes the algorithms to show the ads to the clients. 

I suspect if you don't have Instant booking activated,  recently introduced flexible cancellations within 24% without penalties etc. your ad may go down a lot in the search engine and nobody will see it. 

I assume they are moving up the most 'flexible' hosts.

Try to experiment with those features and I am sure you'll have results. 

Regards, 

Oksana

[Fela1]

Hi Oksana,

Thanks for your Reply, Yeah I don't have Instant Booking turned on but I might have to change that soon

Also I haven't heard or seen the Recently Introduced Flexible Cancellation you mentioned, I'm confused, what's that about?

I'm willing to try different measures and options to see if it makes any difference.

Thanks again

[Terry136]

I just did instant booking today , having same problem

[Terry136]

Still nothing even with instant bookings

[Nadia325]

Hi Oksana,

Thanks for your advice! I have changed cancellation policy to flexible and it helped. Also if you have blocked loads of days on the calendar that stops reservations as well.

KInds Regards

Nadia

[Zacharias0]

One thing with ABNB I've learned is to not get use to anything. Once you start noticing a pattern or upward swing of bookings the pendulum swings back the other way. Turning on Instant Booking will surely increase your booking percentage though, but may have undesired consequences ie: guests will not read the entire booking and ask endless questions, they wont communicate with you after they've booked, they will ignore ALL of your house rules saying they NEVER saw them. Trust me. I've been where you are and it comes with pros and cons. Best of luck.

[Pia-And-Ben0]

Hi,

We are in DC and reqests and booking have slowed down.  I have a friend who does Airbnb here as well and she has faced the same trend.  People don't travel as now as they do during spring and summer time.

[Terry136]

I started in jam 2017 had bookings till September nothing now so my winter months after the holiday were good 

[Coln0]

@Fela1

I am just guessing here.

Try to response your inquiry as fast as possible. I believe airbnb has the algorithm to move the fast response host to the top of the list in order not to disappoint guest.

If you block too many day of your calendar, you may get push down in the list.

Instant Booking is just a filter, it may help to improve the booking but should not affect the search result. Try to turn on and set to only guest with good review can make the instant booking. Then you no need to worry some random new guest will book your place instantly.

[Fela1]

Thanks everyone for chipping in, I truly appreciate it.

Update: I changed all my 5bedroom listings to Instance Booking and i got 1 reservation.

Still keeping an eye on it, will do another update one i notice any difference, thanks again

[Rosemary12]

Fela

I agree that it might be Instant Book. My listing is usually first for my city but suddenly it doesn't appear at all (out of 300 listings). Further investigation showed that all the listings were Instant Book and I refuse to use it because I want to approve my guests as I live alone. When I removed the Instant Book filter, up came my listing.  If you don't mind using this system it's fine but for those of us who want more security, this is becoming a major issue and quite unfair to hosts.

[Fela1]

Thanks Everyone for your input, so I think i solved the case and I'm putting an update here to help anyone else going through this dilenma.

I got in touch with Airbnb after noticing all the prices for my listing (On the listing page) were showing way higher than I set and they came back to me saying the Formula for Search Function is: 

Nightly rate for dates + (Cleaning Fee + Extra Guest Fee / How many nights being booked) = Price shown in Search

So due to the additonal cost i added for Cleaning fee + Extra guest it hicked up my price hence not getting any bookings

Below is an example of what the Airbnb rep explained

Room A Search: 

Dates: 11/14 - 11/17 
Nights: 3 nights 
Guests: 1 

Price showing in Search Results: $80 

Listing Page: 

Nightly rate for 11/14 - 11/17 : $68 
Cleaning fee: $35 
$68 (nightly rate) + ($35/3 nights) = $68 + $12 (rounded) = $80 

Room B Search: 

Dates: 12/9 - 12/14 
Nights: 5 nights 
Guests: 2 
Price showing in Search Results: $67 

Listing Page: 

Nightly rate for 12/9 - 12/14: $60 
Cleaning fee: $35 
$60 (nightly rate) + ($35/5 nights) = $60 + $7 = $67 

Room E Search: 

Dates: 2/17 - 2/28 
Nights: 11 nights 
Guests: 1 
Price shown in Search Results: $61 

Listing Page: 

Nightly rate for 2/17 - 2/28: $58 
Cleaning fee: $35 
$58 (nightly rate) + ($35/11 nights) = $58 + $3 (rounded) = $61 

I started getting bookings again after i took off all the extra fees like cleaning, I plan to leave it for now since the winter months can be slow and add it back in the summer months. I guess getting some sort of pay is better tha nothing. I hope this helps others out there. I also turned on Instant book for some of my rooms and they are getting more reservations for sure.

[MaryJane2]

Hi,

Thanks for posting. I'm in palo alto and we are renting out temporarily - we rented out May June and August fully booked all the time, and now I'm not getting even one inquiry.  It feels like they are forcing us to do instant book?  In some ways I'm glad because I don't want long term housing taken off the market for airbnb, but for short term it is one of the only options these days. I post on craigslist and get no replies any more for short term housing.  

Anyone else local have issues?  Any ideas other than instant book?  

Warmly

MM

[Raj23]

Hi,

Same issue here, I recently started hosting airbnb and first couple of days it was so busy for inquiry and bookings. Just in 2 days there were almost 30 days bookings for two months...but after 2 days I have not received any single inquiry, it's already 10 days.