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?? 

[Helen213]

I mam having the same issue, a sudden lack of bookings compared to last year.  I discovered when I tried to see where I fall in a search the AirBnBturnedoff my Instant Booking function  That means I do not show at all if  guest selects it as a filter.

I have discovera to of other hosts with the same issue.  It seems to occur if you callin for a cancellation, in my case because a guest booked a third party reservation.  Somehow I am now unreliable and have to approve any bookings.  No one at Airbnb can seem to help me get this fixed.  The advice I got from other hostsis tobe very active online and it will go away.  

I am still super angry for being punished over a cancellation that was aainst AirBnB rules!.  Give your listing a check in search, and let me know what you find out.

[Huma0]

@Helen0, never cancel a booking yourself!! Either get the guest to do it or, if they won't, call Airbnb, explain the situation, i.e. it is a third party booking, and get them to cancel. If it is an Instant Booking, that should be pretty straightforward and I've done it several times. If it is a request booking that you already accepted, but then found is in breach of Airbnb policy, you still have a good reason to ask Airbnb to cancel it penalty free for you, but you need to call them, not hit the Cancel button yourself.

[Helen213]

I did call AirBnB to cancel. and was promised no penalties as  was a third party booking.  It does not matter, I am still being punished in some way that the customer service people do not know about and I am not alone.  Many other hosts are experiencing the same issue.

I am so good about NOT cancelling, that this quarter I will achieve superhost status.  but none of this seems to matter.  I am told to be patient, we reported it to tech and you just need to wait.

I recommend all hosts to regular check the listing under in search and be sure the Instant Booking is working if it is turned on.  I got caught up with the holidays and did not check for a few weeks like I normally do so I really behind in getting this fixed.

[Huma0]

@Louise437

I was just fiddling with some prices in my calendar for early March and it was telling me that around 40% or even 47% less guests were searching for bookings than usual. That is a massive difference! It could explain why things are so slow for you.

Driving prices down 󰈂

47% fewer guests than the yearly average are searching

However, I still don't understand why you would have no bookings at all while I am still getting them as we charge similar prices (unless you have a large cleaning fee as I have none). 

Today alone, I got an Instant Booking, two requests and one enquiry, all for dates in February and March. Have you done any research on your position in the search results? You need to log out of your account and then search to get an accurate idea, or maybe get friends to have a go?

[Louise437]

Hey, 

Thanks for this. I have looked for my listings as you suggested none of them are showing up at all. I have no idea why. One of my listings does show up when you zoom right in on the map feature but not on the listings page. I have called Air BnB about this but they have not been any help. I don't know what to do to change this...

[Huma0]

@Louise437

Did you try o get a friend to search for you? Sometimes I have found it difficult to find my listings in the searches, or at least they appear very far down, but then there are countless listings in London. At the same time, other people tell me my listings came near the top. I think it must spend on the search criteria entered.

Anyway, if your listing is really not appearing at all, maybe call Airbnb to make sure there’s no technical problems because I have heard about listings disappearing from the searches before because of these.

[Mariann4]

@Louise437and @Huma0

It is just two days ago a post in national newspapers here in Norway stated that reports from booking sites showed a massive decrease in bookings in the bigger cities this season to come. As smaller regions with many having being exposed to natural disasters some years ago and now are coming back to life showed a massive increase in bookings. Trends happen. And it reaches the masses... Then everyone is doing the same trend and they still end up queueing up with their neighbour 3000 kilometres from home.

As Huma says: it doesn't explain the no bookings at all... But it might explain the decrease in searches.

Mariann

[Huma0]

@Mariann4

As I was tweaking my prices for February and March (I put them up after I have got a certain amount of £s in bookings for the month), I noticed that every date was showing that something like 38-49% less guests were searching than the yearly average, but that there were around 20% more listings than the yearly average. If that is true, obviously it's going to result in less bookings for a lot of people.

However, today I got three bookings, but sadly had to turn away one because of the cancellation policy for South Korean guests, otherwise I would have had four.

I don't know why that is, except that something must be bumping me up enough in the searches. The very nice listing I mentioned earlier seems to have no bookings for January to March even though the dates show as available and that one is priced very similarly to mine. The room is not as good but the location is gorgeous, as is the cover photo of a very stunning living room. I cannot understand why that listing doesn't have bookings when the experienced Superhost has almost 200 good reviews.

She does have a very short, three-month booking window though. So, I have guest booking one or two months ahead right now, but maybe they looked at my listing months ago when they started thinking about their trip, book marked it and came back to it now. The guest who sent an enquiry today lost the chance to book my listing for a weekend because another guest IBed it three hours later.

I think using IB is essential. I know why lots of hosts don't want to use it. I didn't. However, I have set all the requirements on it I can, e.g. positive reviews, verifications etc. and find that it's much easier to cancel an IB you're uncomfortable with so it turns out that it actually offers me more security than accepting request bookings. I don't find that IB guests are any better or worse than request guests. There are good and bad in both categories. I never thought I would be advocating IB as I was absolutely against it before I was forced into using it, but it is not as bad as I thought it would be.

[Mariann4]

Your answer gives me a few questions. I don't want to steal the topic, but if you could please explain a few things @Huma0?

1: When I search my city or other domestic cities I get the 300+ result. I get to see 18 pages of listings, then it stops. How do you see how many listings there are in London? And how do you see the increase in listings like you said: approx. 20% up?

2: South-Korea cancellation policy?? I saw it mentioned briefly in another thread. They can cancel whenever and get refund? How? Why? I don't expect a sane answer for the why...

I also have a 3 month window. Only once have I had someone book at the end of the window. I get very locked at home if I were to have a more open window as I don't have the help to clean and tidy between guests (I need vacay too...). So I tried IB this season. Didn't scare me. Got the experienced guests. But still sceptic. Might open up again when my calendar gets closer to season.

Mariann 🙂

[Huma0]

Hi @Mariann4

So, I didn't see the 20% in the search results. It was in my calendar. I think you only see these kind of stats if you use Smart Pricing. Now I know a lot of hosts are against using it and I can see why because it is always trying to push your prices down, but I keep it turned on out of interest and then adjust the prices as I see fit.

When you click on a date or dates, it tells you on the right hand side of the screen what is driving prices up or down for that particular date. E.g. X percentage more or less guests are searching than the yearly average, or there are X percentage more listings available than the yearly average. I don't know how accurate these figures are, but that's where I got them from.

RE the booking window, yes it does mean you have to plan ahead more. I block certain dates that I don't want guests to stay but there are also tools that allow you to block check ins on particular dates without blocking them for bookings altogether. Of course, if you are taking bookings well in adance like me, it does limit you and you have to plan around them.

Until you open your calendar up to a longer window, you dont really know whether guests will book that far ahead or not. I have opened it up to a maximum of nine months ahead but then get bookings right close to the end of that window, and even have enquiries from guests asking if they can book further ahead. Right now, I have bookings up until August.

[Mariann4]

Thank you @Huma0 🙂

I had some of the information available when checking my calendar.

Mariann 🙂

[Mark116]

This time last year we were about 50% or more booked for the entire year, this year, we are booked for April and a few random weeks the rest of the year, and our listing appears very near the bottom in most searches.  I really hate to turn on IB.  We're going to change the photos and start to actively play with the pricing structure and see if that helps over the next month.  Thankfully Jan-March are always basically near zero bookings, but we will need to get it sorted out soon or we will actually lose money in 2019.

[Pete28]

What continues to puzzle me is why Airbnb would think it is useful to hide the total price as much as possible during search.

All it is doing is driving away business.

I tried to book Xmas in LA <$100 and got 300+ listings of which none were actually less $100. And I need to look at each to figure that out.

I gave up. Too much bait and switch. And I have been hosting for over 2 years so I understand how the website should work.

I have emailed the top 5 execs in Airbnb and pointed this out. No answer. Just as uber has lyft, so we need to start moving to VRBO etc. 

[Huma0]

@Pete28 And this is why some guests get really annoyed and then mark the host down for value.

[Helen3]

I am wondering also @Louise437 @Huma0 whether you get quite a few European visitors and whether this has led to a drop in bookings for you as we crash out of the EU and there is massive uncertainty as what will happen post April?

My visitors are mainly from within the UK, the Far East, US and Australia but the EU visitors I have had,  have all expressed concerns about what will happen in 2019 in terms of border controls.

London is still one of the fasted growing Airbnb areas, so you have new players entering your market all the time and as you say the advent of the Plus host.