Why do I suddenly have no bookings?

[Marie70]

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  😊 

[Maria22780]

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]

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

[Rebecca2501]

I have not had the same issue but, everytime I go to the app on my phone it wants to update, and I hit yes, but it never seems to do it and asks again the next time I go on..strange

[Ange2]

@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!

[Jaspreet1]

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]

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!

[Alexandra316]

@Patricia-and-Daniela0 First, ignore Airbnb's pricing suggesitons. They will always tell you to go lower, no matter how low you are. I would recommend doing your own research on prices in your area and basing it on that.

Since you've asked, I'm going to start with the wording in your listing. The introduction should be a spot where you pique the guest's interest and tell them what's unique about your space. You shouldn't be giving them a paragraph on the location: your potential guest can see your location. Save that for the neighborhood description At best, I would reduce it to a single sentence.

Maybe something like: "Charming 100M2 Colonial style apartment in the heart of Mexico City's -Blank- neighbourhood. This cozy second floor 2-bedroom apartment features traditional Mexican decor,  hand-carved furnture, and hand-painted murals done by -blank-. Enjoy the beautiful sunny private courtyard terrace.  Conveniently located walking distace to a supermarket, banks, and many other stores and services.

Your pictures are not good: I would repace pretty much all of them. The cover photo of the mural is odd, and the second picture of the front of the building doesn't look very nice.  I would stage the terrace or entrance nicely with chairs with cusions, maybe a picher of drinks, etc: it looks abandoned in your pictures. Your spiral staircase looks amazing, but the picture you have isn't good: it looks like a photo of a photo. Take all of your pictures in landscape format. Maybe see if you can use or borrow a better quality camera: a lot of the pictures look milky due to the light. It looks like your apartment is very cute, but it could use a little staging. Put some fresh flowers on the dining table, for example, and make the beds nicely. Set the table.

If you can afford it, I would also consider replacing one of the single beds with a double or queen. Having 2 single beds only really limits the type of guest you're going to get: it pretty much rules out couples.

[Patricia-and-Daniela0]

@Alexandra316 Thank you very much for responding me and for giving me this very useful feedback! I will work on this today to improve my listing and yes I imagined my pictures weren't the best. The cover photo although somewhat original might scare guests off  I guess. Small things like setting the table and making the beds, staging each room will help I am sure. And yes I will ignore from now on Airbnb's pricing suggestion,  I didn't change my price last night and today it's back to being perfect again. Weird! Actually yes, that was our plan to rent the apartment a few times and then replacing one single bed with a double bed but we cannot afford it right now. Maybe we can put the other single bed into the other bedroom so we can host 4 people. Thanks again, have a good day! 

[Alexandra316]

@Patricia-and-Daniela0I completely understand! I have made improvements to my listing every month since I've started hosting. Making upgrades is expensive! 

No problem. I hope it helps. Your place is cute! I love the staircase and all of the traditional furniture. 

[Alexandra316]

@Patricia-and-Daniela0Also, I read your new description: it's great! Really nice. 

[Ben353]

Dear Alexandra, Could you kindly check my profile? 

To be honest I have the same issue.

It's been 2 weeks I'm not getting any booking. 

I really do not know what to do! I lowered the price and I offer discounts too.

I check the statistic and my listing has a really low number of views.

Last month all the sudden I got all the booking for a period of 5 days and in Feb it was the same.

Any suggestion to improve the number of reservations?

[Patricia-and-Daniela0]

Thank you very much! Yes I guess I will be doing the same, trying to improve my listing little by little. Tomorrow I will work on the pictures. And renting is a never ending learning process but we will get there, having some profit will let us do some upgrades to make it better. Before Airbnb when we used to rent our apartment we let our tenants have everything included in our price, cable tv, phone, ironboard and iron, mixer, coffee maker etc, they could even use our washer and dryer but sadly some of them left us with a very bad taste in our mouths after they literally trashed our place twice, broke and stole a few things, imagine spring breakers on the beach so you get the picture. So we decided to be more careful with what we are offering in our rentals. And we also have a small loft that we just finished building in our garden two months ago which we are already renting the conventional way to a friend of the airbnb guests that were upstairs, but once our tenant leaves I will list it here as well. By the way I love both of your listings, you are doing an awesome job and I can see your guests are sure happy to stay at your beautiful flat and cottage!

[Romano6]

Patrica,

• I agree with Alexandra about pictures and description. These are the best two ways to get the attention of a potential guest. If neither of these grabs them, they will move on. 

• Have you tried lowering the minimum nights? 5 nights really limits who will book. May be trying 4 for a week and see what happens.

• Is this your off season? You'll have fewer reservations during off-season.

• Are you using "Instant Book." If you turn this off, you have the option to decide whose reservation you want to accept. This will let you read reviews about guest (if they have booked before), see how long they have been an Air BnB guest, where they come from, and if they are fully verified. This might help to avoid the riffraff.

• Regarding the beds. I wouldn't change the single for a double. Since it sounds like you have room, get another single; push the beds together to create a "double." Offer guests the option to have the beds together or separated (of course if there is the room to do so). Our bedrooms have 2 single beds, pushed together, with a nightstand on each side. One nightstand goes in the middle of the 2 singles when we separate them. This hasn't limited the types of guests who reserve or ruled out couples. You can buy double sheets for when they are together and single sheets for when they are apart. A mattress bridge will cover the gap. Our guests have been very happy to be able to select how they want the beds configured. It's a bit of extra work and requires extra bedding. But just today we received an inquiry from a guest, traveling with adult children, who is delighted that the beds can be separated. 

• Do your offer tourist suggestions, such as where to ate, what museums to visit or a special event happening during their stay? In your listing, just mention that you can provide recommendations. They may ask up-front or at check-in you can make some suggestions. It's good customer service and our guests have appreciated it.

• Have you considered listing on Booking? This year most of our reservations are coming through Booking.

Good luck and hope you get some bookings soon.

[Patricia-and-Daniela0]

@Romano6 Wow, you´re giving me some great ideas too! Thank you very much! I am learning a lot of important things from you nice people! I tried to improve some of the pictures, I still need to replace the ones from the terrace but hopefully they are overall better now. My phone's camera is really not the best, it is not focusing right, some pictures end up being a bit blurry I noticed. I will try to edit them to make them better. I also lowered the number of minimum nights like you suggested and I will definitely check out Booking and maybe a few other sites as well. I think it's a very good idea to buy another single bed instead of the double bed so people are not forced to sleep in the same bed if they don't want to share it and it comes cheaper too. I followed your advise as well with the tourist suggestions and I am letting future guests know in my listing that they can ask me anytime for advise and recommendations. I am not too sure about the instant booking option though, I really prefer to have control over who wants to rent my place but on the other hand I am scared I could loose even more potential guests if I don't turn it on, but I will definitely turn it off if I list my apartment on other booking sites as well to have more control over my rentals. It's almost high season now so I hope I will get bookings anytime soon! Thank you and may you be blessed with nice guests!

[Patricia-and-Daniela0]

Oh, I forgot to ask you something. When you as a host evaluate one of your guests you get an option ( private one so the guest won't see it) to either recommend that guest or not, so other future hosts can be aware of that. 

So now I am wondering can guests do the same? I mean what if they evaluate you with 5 stars and write you a nice review but at the same time they choose the option to not recommend you to other guests. Is this a real thing or not? They could really hurt us if Airbnb allows them to do this.