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  😊 

[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.

[Romano6]

@Patricia-and-Daniela0, if I remember correctly, I believe the guest can give you 5 stars and also write a private note if there was an issue which the public won't see. Check the help section on the site for what is visible to the public.

I would encourage your guests to write a review, hopefully with 5-stars. This will look favorable to future guests.

[Alarico1]

To be honest I have the same issue.

It's been 2 weeks I'm not getting any booking. I have to admit I'm fully booked until the end of the month and 50% in April, but it would be nice to get some new inquiries.

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 in a period of 5 days and in Feb it was the same.

Any suggestion to improve the number of reservations?

[Rebecca181]

@Patricia-and-Daniela0 You have already gotten some great advice here from other hosts. Let me just add that I have stayed nearly 100% booked with mostly Airbnb guests since opening last May by accepting one night stays during the 'off' season (I live in a beach vacation area on the Oregon Coast). I only raise it to a 2 or 3 night minimum in June through August - the peak of the high season. Getting the place clean and ready for the next guest takes much less time than when I first started because I have systems in place. It is something to consider.

As others have already mentioned, a 5 night minimum stay is not reflective of the typical Airbnb guest. A typical Airbnb guest stay is 1 - 3 nights. Longer stays happen, but not as often. To me, a 4 night stay is a 'long' stay. The only one week stays I have had have not been through ABB. However, I prefer hosting ABB guests, and it is worth the extra work to clean more often (I do also charge a modest cleaning fee - this also will add to your earnings and helps pay for cleaning supplies, etc). Also, the typical ABB guest reserves 1 - 4 weeks in advance. I have had quite a few guests book months in advance, but most book just a few weeks ahead of time. 

Hopefully this information will also help you to succeed. Best of luck!

[Patricia-and-Daniela0]

@Rebecca181 Yes, I appreciate it,  your information will definitely help me as well!

Good to know, I had no idea most airbnb guests are short term guests as I have only gotten inquiries for 2 weeks so far and the ones I ended up renting to stayed for 39 days.

I changed the settings to min 1 night /max 15 nights.

Actually I don't mind the cleaning as the apartment is upstairs from where I live and I guess the less time they stay the less dirty they can leave my place anyways, hopefully lol.

Thank you!

[Romano6]

@Patricia-and-Daniela0, I agree @Patricia-and-Daniela0 regarding minimum nights. We have a 2-night min. We opened last year and 90% of our reservations were for 2 nights. We also discovered that the AirBnB guest was reserving only 1 week out or sometimes even less. On the other hand the Booking guest reserves much further out but they tend to cancel much more. 

[Ben353]

Hi Folks, 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?

I would extremely appreciate it! 

[Kristiina5]

Ben- your place has a 90 day minimum stay? Its almost impossible to get anyone suitable via airbnb as most people are looking for a short stay place

[Anna421]

Hi can someone please have a look at my apartment? My bookings have suddenly dropped off too and I need to get some ASAP! I went from being booked 6 months ahead of time and now I only have one more booking, it isn't even booked for Easter.... tanks