Bookings Way Down in 2023

[Sherry189]

My bookings are way down this year. I’ve been a superhost for years and my bookings have steadily increased year over year, but not in 2023. I’m down about 30%. I have a few theories: traveling is normalizing post-pandemic and people are going back to hotels, too many short term rentals on the market, airbnb is too expensive. Meanwhile, the costs to run the airbnb keeps going up. I’m wondering if others are experiencing a similar situation and finding ways to combat it? 

[Lorina14]

@Sherry189,

You may want to consider reading the thread by @Michele511 whose title is almost the same low bookings in 2023.

We got the Airbnb community manager @Rebecca to have eyes on that thread and to pass it to the appropriate team for feedback (they have not heard back yet; and the community manager is a support person who flags posts and submits links for helpful articles but does not address the issues directly as that is not their role, their role is to moderate the boards here and pass the relevant threads to the right teams).

It is concerning for all, and disappointing that Airbnb has not addressed it in a message to the hosts. I’ve heard of many hosts leaving this platform, going to others or considering or selling off some STR listings. 

I’m in my first slow season so I book out 2-3 weeks instead of 3-4 months like in the summer (I started in June and it’s been fun to meet and host guests to the area while helping to pay for our son’s preschool and daycare costs). I do check other listings and see how to improve, what makes me different, pricing of things (I had no idea a Taylor swift concert in the area skyrocketed nights to $400/night so my $119/night during the summer was a steal to the guest even with dynamic pricing on; of course this was before I learned about price labs and airDNA for more data).

Hopefully @Rebecca can pass this thread to the same team and encourage management to address this as hosts and super hosts have been frustrated and exasperated by no response and a severe decline in bookings. 

[Lorina14]

Sorry the thread I was mentioning above is titled: Suddenly no bookings 2024 started by @Michele511 

[Rebecca]

Thanks for tagging me in @Lorina14 😊 I hope you're well. 
I'll share this thread one also. 

[Maureen693]

your bookings are down because airbnb does not vet hosts well. The  hosts who cancels on customers just get a bad mark and are not penalized finically.  Just a  X customer now but have had 2 bookings this year cancelled and airbnb held the money for months then cancelled. only to say can only give a % off my next stay , as the prices for the same area have doubled. This has happened to family members as well  one family member was in the airport to go overseas to the airbnb when she got the notice. Never again 

[Lorina14]

@Maureen693 

Sorry to hear about this bad experience, I’ve read some horror stories of hosts cancelling on people en route to their listing from abroad and they didn’t try to find another suitable place to help the guest out or Airbnb was not helpful in trying to match the guest up with a new accommodation.

It is surprising that you were cancelled on and didn’t get an immediate refund on your stay (you said they held your funds for months). As hosts we do get penalized financially and calendars dates are not allowed to be rebooked if we cancel without good cause (ie water pipe broke, or something of that nature). You can look up the Resources tab to search the airbnb policies regarding this. If this happens a certain amount of times the listing is suspended and/or the host is not allowed to be a host anymore. 

@Paula @Rebecca (community host managers) could you look into their case and see what happened and let the appropriate teams know how customer service could improve/hear their side of the story?

[Rebecca]

Hi @Lorina14 thank you so much for your tag! 

@Maureen693, I'm so sorry to hear this has happened. Have you spoken directly to Airbnb after these 2 instances? 

[Marie8425]

@Maureen693 @Lorina14 @Rebecca 

It would appear from your profile your 3 trips were positive and nothing since 2022?  Did you rebook this years trips on Airbnb?

[Helen3223]

The same situation. I think it's because booking dot com (BDC) dominates search results in google and buys up top ad spots. While I find Airbnb a much more responsive and responsible company (for example, during COVID they used emergency funds to compensate hosts for cancellations, and BDC just grabbed commission), I have fewer bookings with them with the same text and photos than with BDC. Even when you do get a hold of customer service with BDC, the problem normally is unresolved. AirBnB customer service, at least for super hosts, seems to respond within a few hours. BDC doesn't seem to care about customers or hosts as long as the commission is paid. The same complaints are reported in other hosting groups. Unfortunately, it's hard to get guests without BDC as they dominate by buying up all top searches in Google. I try to encourage others in host groups on Facebook, for example, to switch to AirBnB..