Hi @Jean-Marie230 - you are not alone in experiencing this. If you do a search around here many hosts in similar circumstances, including us. We don't have specific answers for our listing but here's some thoughts:
- for us our complete drop-off with reservations and inquiries via AIRBNB coincided with this fee change - so it certainly feels like it is related. For us, AIRBNB has always been a more price sensitive customer base and this new format created an unappealing/unsavory method of pricing reference, and while the 'same' total, the perception isn't the same. On VRBO we have always been able to charge more per night with less friction, for whatever reason and this remains the case.
- you reference some macroeconomic factors and these certainly impact tourism overall. I also think that winter olympic travel and world cup travel have impacted travel budgets broadly speaking.
- and if you haven't already, what is your main competition calendar looking like? If they are booked and you are not then the algorithm is working against you for some reason and so further investigation needed.
- for our area, the AIRBNB search process is really bad, it gives options well outside our geography and so we think that guests are just having a poor search experience, this pushes better matched options to farther pages were they will never be seen.This isn't the case currently with other platforms. If you haven't already, search privately/have a friend search and see what you get. The AI now puts very highly curated options in front of each guest search so no two searches produce same results, it seems. It's so highly curated that it has become nonsense.
- because of much of the above we think our ideal guest is no longer on this platform. We are booked, just not via AIRBNB which is it's own self-fulfilling issue, as the AI doesn't like this, but the point is to be booked. Do you think your ideal guest is still using this platform?
Good luck out there!
