Hi Sarah and Emilia, I looked deeper in the matter and would like to add the following. Only now I realized that the "bad" cancellation reviews were automatically generated by Airbnb itself. To me that sounds strange and dissapointing because towards for example the May 2018 Villa La Blanca guests we explained the reason of the cancelation and they accepted our appoligies. This cancellation was done 75 days before arrival. Still Airbnb add this fact to our "criminal" record. This villa belonged to somebody else and we managed this villa. Out of nothing there came a bid of 3 million USD which the owner accepted. We had no choice than to cancel the booking. I also see the Airbnb error header which says that the guest "Stayed at Villa La Blanca in Jimbaran".
The cancellation regarding Villa Juni in July 2019 had to do with the fact that the synchronization with Booking.com went wrong. Manual blocking of calendar dates in Booking.com were not synchronized. This happened because of the Booking.com extranet settings regarding synchronizing manual blockings. Unfortunately the harm was already done and we had to deal with a double booking. We offered this guest a far more expensive villa without any additional costs. Also this cancellation was automatically added to our "criminal record" by Airbnb.
The Russian guests in September 2019 was a strange case. Our staff never opened any window however the guest insisted that it must have been our staff who left a window unlocked. We went together to the police station to make a report. Somehow afterwards we were in the opinion that it was the guest to do for the insurance money. This was also the opinion of the police.
This all has nothing to do with a host not being friendly or helpful or a malfunctioning villa. Actually our Villa Limon is doing great and we have an average rating (Booking.com) of 9,0 Around 80% of our bookings come from Booking.com In my opinion is our Airbnb review record like a blacklist created by Airbnb and will follow us (the host) till the end of days. One guest even admitted that he didn't want to book because of our bad reviews.
I also believe that having great villa attendants can have more effect than a friendly host.
Villa Limon in Seminyak is doing great on Booking.com with a almost 90% total occupancy over 2019
Indirectly because of the Airbnb policy, Airbnb cuts in my opinion in its own fingers.
From our total turnover regarding Villa Limon only 2,4% is coming from Airbnb
What I want to say is that we had a top year in Villa Limon but Airbnb's part is only 2,4% only because of the Airbnb policy to nail bad automated cancellation reviews to the host. The remaining bad review from the Russians who or forget to check the windows before they left or simply went for the insurance money did the rest.
If the cancellation reviews and the Russian review only were related to Villa La Blanca and Villa Juni and not to the host, Villa Limon would have performed much better on Airbnb which indirectly would bring a lot more profit for Airbnb. I am stating this because I actually much more would prefer Airbnb to bring in guests than Booking.com We pay 18% commission for Booking.com guests. As you understand we would have made more profit also
It's a long story but I'm happy to at least let you know what my thoughts are regarding this matter.