@Kate147
Kate maybe you can learn to look a little bit closer at the way booking requests are coming to you. I notice you are not using 'Instant Book' so a prospective guest cannot just book without contacting you.
What I do is study the wording of the request, and this will give me a big insight into what this person may be like to host.
If someone comes to me with......."We have seen your lovely cottage and would like to stay for a couple of days to get away from the kids for a while"......I can't hit that accept button fast enough! I don't want to see their past history, they have come to me in a complimentary, passive way and I know they will be good respectful guests!
If someone says........"We are coming to Mt Barker and want to book for ******* is there offstreet parking? What cooking is available? What is the latest we can checkout?"........This is an aggresive approach, and aggressive people do not tend to be good guests! I want to do a lot more digging around, I want to see some good past reviews, and if I do not feel comfortable I would decline the request.
The other thing Kate you are in a pretty picky part of the price bracket. You have a base rate of $216au per night for the first guest and an additional guest is charged at a rate of $161ua pr night. Kate, it is a beautiful apartment but these are pretty big figures....a couple is going to have to pay an absolute minimum of $465au including cleaning fee and the ABB service fee to stay a night in your apartment, $576au for 3 people. Wow, that is getting up there and guests who pay that much are going to feel pretty much entitled to do whatever they want. You are going to attract 'wanabees' who's thought for others is going to be extremely limited. It may pay to look at that pricing structure a bit and try to work your way into a less entitled part of the market. You also have a wonderful lot of 'atmosphere' there but all these things are things that can be broken and it may pay to streamline the apartment just a bit so there is less temptation there!
As far as getting a review removed, that can be a bit difficult if the guests review was based around their perceptions, and from reading both of them that would appear to be the case. These reviews are not slanderous of defamatory, they are just the guests thoughts about the treatment they received from their point of view....they aren't dishonest, just the way they felt. Never say never, it may be worth getting onto ABB but I would not think either of these reviews warrant removal.
I hope some of this can be of help to you Kate.
Cheers.....Rob
