Bookings down to 0% in London 2019 - any advice?

[Louise437]

I’m based in London, UK and was fully booked for all of 2018 but have zero bookings for 2019. I’ve lowered my room rate a couple of times, decreased the minimum nights and still no bookings or interest at all in the last 2 weeks. I

t’s the first time this has happened and i’m really worried as I rely on the income. I’ve had people look at my listing but not book. I wonder if it’s the new Plus homes being focussed on by Air BnB?

I’m a superhost but with a regular home (not Plus) and two other friends of mine have the same problem. What’s going on?? 

[Louise437]

Hi Helen, 

Thanks for this. It's definitely a concern of mine!! I havea  mixture of guests and, to be honest, most of my gusets come from outside the EU or they are UK citizens so I don't imagine it having a huge impact but we'll have to wait and see...

[Huma0]

@Helen3

Good question. I hadn't really thought about this and that is probably quite naive of me!

I get a real mixture of European (including UK), North American and Asian guests mostly. I do get some from other parts of the world like Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and South America, but those first three really make up the bulk.

I haven't noticed a decline in European guests but it's hard to tell as things seem to go in cycles. For example, this past year, I got loads of Italians around Easter time, Summer was dominated by Americans, loads of Germans in the Autumn and then Winter has been mostly Asians and French!

[Valerie192]

Hi Fellow Hosts, I don't mean to take over @Louise437's thread although find many similarities between her situation and mine so maybe this will be helpful. Since earlier this week, I have received one booking for mid-February but Jan so far remains completely empty! A thought occurred to me and wonder if there would be any validity in it....

Do you think a totally empty calendar (i.e. mine and Louise's) provides a "signal" to a potential booker that the listing is somehow undesirable and then fuels a bad cycle of even less bookings??

I wonder if this might be a psychological buying process - I confess I may have been guilty of that myself - i.e. when a listing is mostly booked I am more apt to select that one!

So I almost wonder if as a risky experiment of sorts, i should consider blocking off decent chunks of days in my calendar to appear much more full than I am.

What say you, fellow hosts??

[Paul1255]

@Valerie192 you could try some strategic blocking!

I did this when I first launched my listing and didn't have any/many reviews- I wanted to give potential bookers the feeling that even if it didn't look like I had many guests already stay, there were people booked in the pipeline.

Did it work? Who knows- will it make a difference, who knows!

Often guests have already plugged in the dates of their trip and if your listing calendar is open on those days you'll show in search, so guests might not even look at your calendar as a whole.

Paul 🙂

[Carole140]

Yes! I have found that days booked beget more days booked. It is a "crowd"/"sheep" mentality, which

I find silly, as the fabulous reviews speak for themselves, but yes....I really feel it's a bit of a kiss of death to have unbooked months....so I have gone and blocked off a few days here and there. Not a lot, or you're

shooting yourself in the foot. Here in Portland Or, the # of Airbnb's have increased over last year. I did so much better last year. The sharp decline began in Oct. 2018. Now, our stoopid Govt. shutdown/political mess does not help :-/.

[Susan310]

I'm seeing exactly the same thing, and can't see any obvious reason for it.  It's been going on since the beginning of January.  Until today, I thought it was just my listing but looking around here it looks like a more widespread problem in the UK.  Being a superhost with 5 star ratings clearly isn't enough now to get listed with any chance of getting booked.  

[Maria---Luis0]

Hi,

I experience the same decline with no reason. Strangely we had also a increase in page views of the property comparing to 2018.

The only reason is explaining this is the number of properties coming to the market.

It looks like there will be no end to the amount of properties Airbnb will accept. This also means prices will go down and down every year.

Many hosts cannot carry on with such low prices (it's impossible to be profitable). Besides, when the price goes down the problems with guests will go up; it's inevitable.

I don't know the impact of airbnb plus because there are no public numbers to understand the impact of this product, or the trends and the changes.

I would like to see airbnb come with statistics and facts to explain why I had reservations in Jan, Feb, Mar and April in 2018 and the first booking I got in 2019 is for April.

The airbnb increase is everywhere, but wheres ours ? 

[Susan17]

@Louise437  @Sudsrung0 @Maria---Luis0  @Susan310 @Emmanuel244 

You might find some answers here...

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Demand-down-29-in-London/td-p/910027

 https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/Multiple-hotel-rooms-showing-up-in-a-search-for-private-roo...

 https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Host-Circle/Wow-Hundreds-of-new-ABBs-just-flooded-my-market/td-p...

[Soumaya6]

Hi Hosts !

My name is Soumaya and I am a Masters student at Cambridge University living in London. I know how difficult it can be sometimes to coordinate the key handling between guests when renting your appartment on Airbnb (because I experienced it myself !) For that reason, I am offering my services as a meet & greeter for London properties. I live around the Kensington area but do not mind traveling across the city ! + I have a lot of free time and very fexible availability !

If you ever need help with check in/out, meeting guests or anything else, please do not hesitate to contact me for further details at *

****

*[Personal information hidden for safety reasons–in line with the Community Center Guidelines - to use the Direct Messaging function here in the Community Center, hover over the post profile photo and click 'Send Message']

[Alon1]

@Soumaya6 

It's not the best place to put this post offering your service as a Co-Host.

Either create your own thread here in Hosts, but since this is a global forum, a more specific place is under 'CITIES'., where there is a specific one for London.

  You can view 'Cities' as one of the threads under 'Discuss' (above)

[Joe758]

Hello. I, too have run into a major lull in bookings. I had someone request I block off September for them, so I understand that could have “hurt” my ranking, but now I haven’t gotten a single booking on any of my three listings in over a month now. I’ve lowed my prices. Sent offers. Changed pictures and titles... anyone have any other suggestions?

[Helen427]

What's changed??

 it's now 2020 & the same decline in number of bookings has occurred.

 Is there a repeat pattern of IT issues causing these issues for us across the globe?

Just wondering