Bookings Suddenly Dried Up?

[Tiya0]

Hi All,

Just wondering if anyone can help?

We started letting out our property in December 2016 and since then have received a booking at least every 6 days and now, we've had only one booking come in for the whole of March.  We have a 4.7 star rating, every guest has left a review, we have a 100% response rate, so far as I can see are still listed in the first position for Glenlivet (Scotland) and no cancellations, so I am not sure why everything suddenly dried up - particularly as we are now approaching high season.  I have recently tried lowering the price, changing titles, changing some text, updating images, changing the cleaning fees / other fees and still nothing.  We are also active on social media promotions as well - so baffled.

Would anyone be able to look at our listing and see if there's anything immediately obvious as to why this might be happening?  https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/16204105

Any insight would be most welcome as I am stumped!

Thanks in advance!

Tiya

[Linda108]

@Tiya0  It certainly sounds like you have done all you can.  Who is your target market?  Holiday travelers, travelers from one place to another, business travelers?  What is the seasonality of your area?  It could be part of the ebb and flow of your area.  I live in the desert of Southern California and believe me, I don't see any action during our summer months.

[Joanna85]

Could be the time of year as the other person said.  Where I am, it gets to be like 115 degrees in summer and I don't foresee any reasonable human wanting to do anthing here again before late September.  I was booked nearly solid since beginning of March- and May is super empty and it just might be that way.  Don't panic.  I'm sure the longer you do this, the more you can gauge how or when your 'busy season' will be!  I don't use Air BNB to pay my ridiculous rent--I just use it to have 'mad money' so I'm not really too worried about not being full.  Summertime here I'd have to run the a/c way cooler than I prefer for strangers because they aren't used to the heat, thus costing me more money than it's worth anyway!!!  Hang in there...

[Al19]

Tiya, you believe you still listed in the first position for Glenlivet (Scotland) because you make the search under your host name, make an anonymous search and you will see that you are not. Change the price daily forth and back, even dough 1 dollar, it will “move” your listing.

[Tiya0]

Thanks everyone, there is a distinct possibility that I am hitting the panic button for nothing, but just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything obvious.

I've tweaked the listing again slightly as well (and the prices) just in case!

[Al19]

I wouldn’t be surprised, if just after your posting you received a booking. AirBnb monitors the business in a very subtle way. They try to support the newcomers, to encourage them. At the beginning, I received bookings just one after the other, for about a month. Once you acquire the feeling of confidence, you are on your own. That is why the experienced hosts advise to “move” your advertisement once in a while.

[Al19]

Hi, Tiya. Come back here and tell us whether you received a booking after writing here. 

[Annette33]

@Al19 , when you click on @Tiya0 ' s profile here in the forum, you can see when she last checked in here, it was 3 weeks ago, so I doubt she is coming back now, though I hope she would!

From anybody's profile here you can also click the green "airbnb profile" link button that takes you to anybody's listing. i always do that, that gives you a much clearer idea of what the issue is. So in @Tiya0's case I clicked on "availability" for her listing and saw that she has plenty of bookings coming to her. Good for her! Tells me that her worries about not getting bookings have dissipated.

[Al19]

Dissipated because she complained about this. That is what I say: what works is the complain, not the advertisement. 

[Linda108]

Good for you, @Tiya0 to do a reality check with more experienced hosts.  That is what this host forum is all about.  You are on your way and soon you will be the one answering the questions!!

[Michelle400]

Tiya this is really interesting as the timing and experience I've had closely mirrors your own.  I have tweaked all sorts of things and now am just hoping that, come 14 April, I acquire Super Host and bookings/enquiries pick up again - because nothing else is seeming to work.  One recent guest said that my listing had not even appeared in their search on Airbnb - they found me elsewhere.  I'm still learning how to get the best as a host after being an early-adopter guest.  Because all the competitors platforms are painful to use and I would prefer to be Airbnb dedicated.  Indeed, I try to keep my prices a little cheaper on Airbnb to encourage bookings there instead of the others.

An observation I would make however, is that Airbnb is still not well known in Australia - which is where I'm getting most of my guests from at this time.  If ever I'm looking for 'accommodation somewhere' using Google, it's always Stayz that pops up first for Australian locations.  So, I'm hoping it's just a combination of early experiences that will add up to a successful venture.  As one of the Level 10 hosts replied...I'm intending to 'hang in there'!

[Al19]

This is my case too: becoming superhost after April 14th. However, I do not deposit my hopes on this, because after comparing the locations that Airbnb themselves present as "similar to mine"  I realized that even those who are not superhosts and have lower qualification than mine receive more visitors on their pages, way too more: ten, twenty, fifty times more visitors. The point is to be "well connected" and, as it seems, this does not depend on the quality of you location, but on something else. I wonder what it would be... I tried everything: "move" the listing every day, widen the offer... Whit no result, despite of the high demand at this time of the year in our city.

[Florencia0]

Don´t know why and I'm fully surprised because even making a ridiculous offer on my available dates, I don´t have a reservation. 

Do you think it might be due to the verification process? I believe it could be taught for guests that have never used the site to complete the high intensive verification process. Sometimes you are requested to verified your profile even to ask a single question to the host.

I´m not sure, just trying to guess what could it be.

[Al19]

I am sure It is nothing like this. I compare the number of visitors on the similar listings pages at the same location and I realize that my listing is simply not visible. A potential guest does not have to be verifyed to ask you a question. However, I do not receive even inquiries. It is something else.

[Florencia0]

Send me your listing ID. I will check if you are visible.