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?? 

[Mark1128]

Hi Louise.  I've experienced this a couple of times on my listings.  It seems it is the luck of the search results in some cases.  Most of mine have been related to increase in competition in my area, which results in less people looking and engaging with me on the listings.  

One of the solutions for me was to get a bit more creative on headlines and copy in the body of the description.  Also encourge prospective guests to ask you more questions, which shows engagement.

I've also found that staying active in my listing by changing a few things a couple of times a week seems to help show Host engagment in the listing itself.

Hope that helps!

[Louise437]

Hi Mark, 

Thank you for your reply and advice. I've updated my listing now and changed the price again so I hope something changes quickly! It's so odd especialyl since I've had fabulous reviews and it was all going so well... 

I'll also be taking new photos this week so hopefully that will help. 

FYI my listing is: https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/21445672?s=51

Happy New Year!

[Shaun13]

Hi, did the situation improve? I also have very few booking in 2019

[Pete28]

Our dear friends at Airbnb have been playing with pricing in web search. Everything is base price on slider and map...

[Marie82]

@Pete28 is completely right since ABB changes his price base i am notice a big drop in booking, and the sad part of all ABB compare studio apart to 1 bed so a guest seing 1 studio price think it is 1 bed as sometime nbre of bed are the same.

Not sure where ABB is going with such a pricing but big drop in booking since december, and January 

it place host in very unfortunate situation

[Mark1330]

I would like to hear more. Could you explain this a little further?

I joined this conversation because I have a home in Decatur Georgia. I can put in travel search parameters and filters (dates, # of guest, entire place, Decatur Ga, Super Host) that should bring my home up in the search. However, if it does come up in the search, it will often be way down in the search, while other homes that are clearly listed as Atlanta,Downtown Atlanta, "in the heart of Downtown Atlanta" ( a completely different and more distant area) rank much higher in the Decatur Ga search. Other Decatur homes appear high in the search, just not mine. If I search North Decatur (no difference than Decatur except zip code) I will rank high.

If I do a search while logged in, or still have the cookies on my computer, I may come up higher in a Decatiur search, If I clear everything and route my log in from another city, same thing...low in the search rankings.

Any suggestions as to rank higher? I tried removing my zip code, but that is not allowed.

Thanking you in advance for any suggestions or reports of other similiar situations.

Mark

[Mark1330]

BTW...what the??? It says I am Mark in Bangkok ,Thialand...not!!! I am in Decatur Georgia.

[Al157]

Same thing România 

[Huma0]

@Louise437I haven't noticed any decline in bookings since Plus launched. Are you using Instant Book, because I found that really makes a difference?This time last year, I had gone from being fully booked to getting no bookings at all because Airbnb was pushing IB so heavily, so I switched it on and immediately started getting tonnes of reservations.

If you are already using IB, maybe there is something else going on. I have noticed that I get more last minute bookings now than before. I was getting worried when certain months were approaching which much less dates booked than usual, and even December, which is normally one of the busiest months, was looking a bit quiet. However, those dates ended up getting booked anyway so there was nothing to worry about. Perhaps there is a bit of a trend at the moment for last minute booking?

As for changing your listing regularly to stay high in the search results, Airbnb confirmed in another post that it makes no difference either way and will not boost your position to keep tweaking your listing.

[Louise437]

Thank you for your reply and advice. I've updated my listing as a refresher and changed the price again so I hope something changes quickly! It's so odd especially since I've had fabulous reviews and it was all going so well... I use IB already so I can't see how that would influence bookings. 

I'll also be taking new photos this week so hopefully that will help. 

FYI my listing is: https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/21445672?s=51

[Valerie192]

Hi @Louise437 - let me know if you have any luck with these strategies. Last night I had two friends send me inquiries to try to increase my activity rate. And this morning I received TWO guest inquiries...one from a male who didn't read my listing that I don't host guys, but the other was a legit inquiry for a week stay next month! Fingers crossed for both of us!

[Paul347]

YOU don't host guys?  The most sexist comment I've ever read on Airbnb. This goes against the grain of everything Airbnb stands for.

[Sudsrung0]

I would have thought that was against Airbnb rules, Not accepting Males Discrimination 

[Alon1]

Huma & Louise,

I don't use Instant Book because it's not suitable for my circumstances.

Still, I haven't experienced a marked decline in bookings. On the contrary, after no bookings in January 2018, I then had the busiest year to date with over 90 bookings. 

Though I don't use IB, since it's introduction I noticed a marked increase in Reservation Requests. Moreover, It turned out that a significant amount of the requests were by those who don't even understand the option to send an Inquiry by means of 'Contact Host'.

The vast majority of my bookings are within a few days to a month prior to arrival. It means I generally don't panic. Though I've had only 3 bookings for January (3 more than last year), at present I've no bookings for February and beyond. 

Still it's not the full picture, because I have a couple of other returnees from last year who prefer not to make another booking via the website. Moreover, a booking for last week of January is already earmarked to be extended longer term for Feb & March. 

The majority of my Guests have a reason to be in this location. There are quite a lot of institutes. So I tend not to get the general sight-see type of visitor. So location is clearly an important factor.