Suddenly no bookings 2024

[Michele511]

I have 7 years of 5 star ratings in Santa Monica, California. Suddenly I had hardly anything in December ‘23, only one booking in January, one booking in March, then nothing at all. I’ve always been fully booked. I dont’ understand.

Is anyone else having this problem?

I would appreciate any insights!

[Michele511]

This is not the place to try to book rentals. 

[Korina13]

This is so helpful. Thank you.

[Filip12]

This is precisely what’s happening to a huge number of offers/hosts in Poland, too 😟

I’ve been a 98% fully booked superhost for the last 7 years straight, all of my offers have 400–500 reviews with an avg. of 4.99, usually fully booked 3–4 months ahead and… ever since the latest release everything went down to the drains.

Even though according to the stats, I’m at least 10% ahead of similar listings in my area in all categories, my reservations are now around only 50-60% and the future looks rather sad. The views of my offers dropped by 70%. And the fall happened almost instantly within a few days…

The market is surely saturated enough, but then the local airport breaks new records for the number of passengers every month, so the tourists are there… 

I noticed an interesting thing though: before this year, every time I did a special offer, I got booked almost instantly. This year though, nothing - no matter how many special offers I did - zero reservations. So I checked the statistics, and it turned out that the promotions also had zero or just a few views, despite doing like 40% off which meant to be sent in emails etc. So, I did the incognito search and I could only find my properties when I zoomed on them (even though I had one of the lowest prices set).

Then I used the price filter and… here’s a scary part. Let’s say my special price was a reduction from $100 to $60. When I set the price filter to a max $65, none of my offers showed up, even if I zoomed exactly 100% on them! It said that there were no offers in that price range! I had to change the filter to $105 to be able to see my offers with the total price of $60! And what’s not funny, there were listings with special offers that showed up as they should… This is a huge bug in the system, no wondering that my offers all of a sudden have no views…

I tried to report it, but the level of customer service recently is on the lowest point ever…

Another thing I noticed, my stats are showing a huge drop of performance rates in all categories (quality, value, cleaning, check-in etc.) on a single day on 12 February. But it’s a drop from 100% to 0 and back (V shape) as if I received 1-star reviews on all my listings on this single day, which obviously never happened (and it’s not reflected in my review ratio). So this is very weird, another scary bug and I’m not sure if that has any impact on my listings’ position in the search…

[Michele511]

@Filip12  That is very disturbing indeed. I agree the level of customer service has gone down.   And the agents knowledge seems limited. I hope you will continue to pursue the solution to whatever technical issue is going on. They need to get to the bottom of it for all our sake!

[Liberty2]

My last guest  was in the beginning of January, until now no bookings . I am planning to put my listing with booking . Com. 

[Sandie70]

Michele I believe it is to do with the changes Airbnb have made to their algorithm. I do not think it is a reflection of the economy. We have all weathered the dips in income and reduced bookings because of this, but this is sudden and drastic.

From being almost fully booked, I have not had an advanced booking in over a month. 

The search engine now gives details of far and wide and not the particular area you are searching for.

I have just put in a search on a very small particular area and out of 18 places, 3 meet the description of where I am looking for. 

Airbnb's response is that I am still getting plenty of views resulting in no bookings and therefore I should look at my settings. My settings have been perfect for two and a half years. 

I think it can be explained by the fact that when people are searching, they are now being directed to a huge amount of irrelevant properties that they are then forced to filter through before getting to what they are searching for.  

This is not our issue, this is something that I believe Airbnb have to look carefully at. 

As stated before it is sudden and drastic and coincided with changes that have been put in by Airbnb.

[Michele511]

I agree. And Airbnb’s business is doing very well All I know to do is keep complaining to them. Unless you have other suggestions?

[Jennifer3980]

100% agree with you.  Superhost & Guest Favorite Host here.  Five star reviews.  Summer is coming up and not one booking from Airbnb.  Views are dismal- FIVE!  I run Ads on Instagram and see huge spikes in my page views when I do.  Oddly, I've received 4 bookings come in from VRBO.  Those tend to be my older guests who like to use that platform.  But since the Guest Favorite rollout, my listing is now BURIED on page 15 (per customer service).  This is an Airbnb software issue causing this.  No amount of "you need to have professional photography, a good response rate etc" is going to fix the lack of Airbnb bringing potential guests to view your listing.  

[Zheng49]

Did a quick search on expedia and could find hotels at half your price for 4 travellers. That might explain why your listing is buried. The value proposition is just not there. 

[Risha0]

yep same here totally bad and my cabins are cheap??

[Tora-Birgitte0]

Hi! I was wondering if you have seen any improvements in your bookings since listing this query? I have exactly the same issue. Have been a superhost for many years and always filled up the summer months (I dont really list in winter). I have had 0 enquiries yet, have tried to follow the suggestions here and deleted the cleaning fee and also taken on the 15% airbnb charge myself.

[Michele511]

@Tora-Birgitte0 it is better for me, though still not as good. I lowered the cleaning fee from $100 to $50. And lowered my prices about 15-20%. I’m hoping it continues to get better. 

[Jennifer3980]

I use to not even charge a cleaning fee and oddly, that made no difference a year ago.  When I added the cleaning fee, I got bookings.  Now the advice is to remove it again?  I've run 4 different Ads lowering my June prices and the views are dead- like 1 or 2 people viewing these lowered prices.  This is definitely an Airbnb thing- lack of traffic being brought to your listing.  Why?  It worked months ago....but not now.  And we have tons of hosts saying the same thing.

[Jessica134]

I have the same experience!

I have had consistent business since 2016, but starting in 2019, they started messing with the algorithm and website every December, it has been terrible.

Since 2019, airbnb has had many glitches on the platform and in the algorithm.

This massive slowdown started in 2019, and pretty much 100% of customer service left the USA at that time.

I do mid-term and have always had a flow of guests. This is the first year that I have been empty for the last five months with not one inquiry. I created a new listing and had 1 inquiry.

I have lowered my prices and changed everything suggested.

The last thing is that their fees are too high, and guests are tired of them.

A lot of people have now rent on Furnish Finder. I don't know what to do, but Airbnb has not helped at all.

[Dee32]

Hi Jessica

 I'm curious, you said" 100% of customer
service left the USA at that time."

Where did they go? And why? I noticed a huge difference last year when I need to contact customer support. They didn't want to communicate via phone only texts and pass you around from rep to rep to rep without helping solve a problem. It went from bad to unbelievably bad.