Why do I suddenly have no bookings?

Answered!
Marie70
Level 1
Singapore

Why do I suddenly have no bookings?

Hi! 

When we first put up our listing on Airbnb, there were a number of enquiries coming in everyday. But since the last 3-4 days, there's a sudden halt in enquiries.

 

I wonder if anyone encountered the same issue recently? Is it something wrong with my listing? 

Some enlightenment from other Hosts/Airbnb would be of great help!

 

Thank you  😊 

Top Answer
Robin4
Top Contributor
Mount Barker, Australia

@Denise710 @Marie70 @Helen19 @Helen427 

 

Girls, I am now of the opinion this is a glitch in the system and the reason it has not been fixed is because it is smasmodic, it is random and they can't track down where the error is! I don't know this but I suspect it!

 

I consistently average 10-12 reservations a month, have been doing so for the past 18 months. Even when my total views for the month were down to 320-360 I would still get at least 10 bookings. 

From the last week in March this year, through all of April and into May (Over 5 weeks)  I did not get one new booking....well that is not strictly true I did get 3 bookings as a result of pre-approvals I gave back in February. Apart from that absolutely nothing! At one stage my views page showed 1 new booking for past 30 days

I got onto CX and asked them to check on the status of my listing.....were they seeing something that I was not...or had my account been subject to internal treatment by Airbnb. She assured me all was good with my account and gave me a lot of stats....some that I was not even aware of and she said it must be just seasonal!

Within a day of making that call, all of a sudden the reservations are coming again. I have had 16 Airbnb bookings and 4 Stayz bookings in the past 30 days........

monthly bookings.png

 

Now at that point, my reaction was CX probably did a bit of resetting and got the booking ship upright again.

 

But I did have an interesting enquiry though. The guest said he had tried 3 or 4 times to book my listing in that drought period and he could not get past the check-out page. As soon as he tried to submitt for payment, the site said  booking failed, try again later. They waited for a couple of weeks and were about to go somewhere elsewhere and thought they would give the booking of my place one last try and, it went through! It was accepted. I asked him if there had been an issue with his payment method and he assured me there was nothing wrong on his end, it seemed to be an Airbnb problem!

 

Now fortunately this has not cost me anything, I had plenty of upcoming bookings anyway but I have heard of some hosts here who are being devistated by a sudden lack of business so I suggest keep on badgering CX. The more we get on their backs the more likely we are to try and hget to the bottom of this....what ever it is!

 

Cheers.....Rob

 

 

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209 Replies 209

Hi Eva

Did you ever find out the reason for this? We have the same problem !

Romano6
Level 3
Florence, Italy

We have the same problem. We listed 2 apartments in Florence with Air BnB at the end of May and were busy through October. In July we listed the same apts on Booking.com, were we had a few reservations for the fall and December/January.

 

Since January 1 we haven't had a single reservation come through Air BnB. ALL our reservations are coming through Booking.com. The guests are mostly from Asia, some from eastern and western Europe, and the balance from the Americas. They are booking much further in advance then the guests did during the summer.

 

Does anyone have any insight into this? Is the Booking.com guest a planner? Is the Air BnB guest a last minute type of person? Is Air BnB available to the asian guest? What is the personna of each type of guest? Could there be something wrong with our Air BnB listings?

I'm experiencing the same problem, I'm not getting any enquiries or bookings. IIwas very busy when I first started. Now it's gone really quiet. 

Jaspreet1
Level 2
Surrey, Canada

Hi everyone I’m a new host with no reviews yet. I’m also experiencing no booking inquiries for over a week now. Can anyone take a look at my listing and let me know what I’m doing wrong hear. 

 

Thanks 

Hi I'm Shelley from Melbourne Australia

We have been renting our forest cottages with Airbnb for over a year; by in large we have done very well.

BUT!!! Over the past 7 weeks bookings have dropped away by at least 50% 

So its interesting to notice hosts from other demographics are also experiencing a turn down in bookings.

 

We are just on the cusp of listing with Booking.com, and hopeful there is a larger chunk of the population using that site. We will have to see! I believe they are a different type of guest, also reviews seem more likely to be brutally honest; Booking .com platform does not encourage hosts to review guests, therefore they have nothing to lose.

 

 

@Jaspreet1 when you mention that you are experiencing no booking inquiries for over a week, had you been having inquiries before? Or is it that the listing is brand new, and no inquiries are coming in yet?

 

Hi @Matthew285 it’s new listing but had a couple of bookings but after almost two weeks now no inquiries 

@Jaspreet1, when I look at your AirBnB profile, I can't see any listing attached right now.

Have you deactivated the listing?

 

No @Matthew285  I haven't deactivated the listing, I can see my posting online.

@Jaspreet1 I can see the listing now.

It says it is New.

When I search in the Fleetwood neightborhood in Surrey, there are 72 listings, and yours is #5 of 72, so you are high in the search rankings.

Your price certainly is competitive.

Is this a slow time of year for travel to your area?

 

Hi. I’ve been hosting in Santa Monica CA for years and have always had plenty of bookings all year round , except for the last 2 weeks I have only had 1 day booked   I checked with support that everything was ok with my listing and reviews . They told me everything is normal on my listing that it could be seasonal , but that’s rubbish, there must be something wrong on their website. I read that guests are having trouble when they try to book . Also the problem started when my phone wouldn’t take the sites update, their site wouldn’t work at all probably my phone was too old so I brought a new iPhone    The site works now. But still no bookings. I suggest we keep calling them till they put it right, it worked for someone who posted message here.  Good luck. Maria 

Emilie
Community Manager
Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Hi @Maria22780,

 

I'm really sorry to hear that you've had less bookings lately! Since this is an old post from 2018, I would recommend that you start a new conversation here 👈 so other hosts can perhaps share more suggestions with you on how to remedy this. 

 

I hope this helps. 🙂

Emilie

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Merci de jeter un oeil aux Principes du Community Center/ Please follow the Community Guidelines

@Jaspreet1 

As you don't have any recommendations yet, you could ask people you know for references so you have third party reviews on your listing.  https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/173/what-are-references-on-airbnb.  I would also suggest rearranging and editing the photos and take some photos with a warm light (overhead lights generally have a warm cast), or on a sunny day.  btw: some of the images are out of focus. Check out listings in your area and see how they present their spaces,what they charge and if they are being booked. It could be seasonal or a glut of listings. Good luck!

Thanks @Ange2 I will try that. I have tried everything, my listing is even showing in the first page. Still not sure why no one is bookin

Patricia-and-Daniela0
Level 2
Mexico City, Mexico

Hello everyone, I am Daniela, I am a new host from Mexico City and I am having some issues as well getting booking inquiries since the end of february. I don't know if this is normal because of my apartment's location as it's not in the downtown area or if I am doing something wrong here. I listed my apartment the second week of january and I have been renting it for 39 days so far but after the last guests left ( the only ones I had so far, the first booking was made for them)  I haven't gotten any new bookings. I am aware that I only have two 5 star evaluations and that people prefer renting from super hosts or places that have more evaluations but what can I do to improve this if I am not getting people to rent my apartment? I already asked friends on facebook to give me references, hopefully that will help me once I get them. When I first started I used to let guests stay for more than 28 nights but after my last experience where my guests were literally fleeing from their country and they wanted to basically move in for good and bring their whole family to live with them, buy more beds for them etc,  I changed my settings to min 5 nights/max 15 nights for this to never happen again. They finally decided to move somewhere else unfurnished and with more bedrooms. Also Airbn keeps telling me to lower my price. Funny thing is after I lower it they say my price is fine but literally the very next day they tell me to lower it again. This has been like this since I started hosting. Are they doing this with everyone, is this normal? They want me to charge nothing to get bookings ( cut my price in half!) but I really depend on this money for a living and I cannot go lower than this or I will end up renting the same price people in my area are charging for one private bedroom in a shared apartment and I am not making enough profit that way. I checked and other full apartments for two people in my area charge around the same or even more. If anyone could please help me out here, tell me if I am doing something terribly wrong, maybe change the cover photo etc, take better photos etc, I would totally appreciate it!