As an Airbnb host, your success on the platform depends on getting people to book your rental. While this sounds relatively straightforward, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work that’s required to get more bookings on Airbnb and become a superhost.
The good news?
Airbnb has been around for a while, which means that plenty of people have figured out the formula for success. Better yet, they’re willing to share how they managed to boost the occupancy rates for their vacation rentals so that you can too.
If you want to see more direct bookings or instant bookings, here are some insightful tips on how to improve Airbnb booking rates using every strategy possible.
Boosting Airbnb Bookings: Proven Strategies
Before we dive into some of the specialized advice covered below, it’s important to cover some of the basics that will drive potential guests to your short-term rental. These include:
- Filling Out Your Listing: An incomplete listing could be one major reason why your Airbnb occupancy rates are so low. Make sure that you have a title, photos, a description, and all other areas of your listing properly filled out. If you’re not showing up on search results and you’re not getting the bookings you anticipated, this could be an optimization issue. We’ll touch on that shortly.
- Updating Calendar and Pricing: It’s hard for guests to book you if you haven’t made a schedule showing when you’re available for bookings. Even worse, you could end up driving away guests by having a fully open schedule when you’re not ready to accept guests and have to deal with cancellations instead. Update your calendar and your pricing as soon as you create your first listing to avoid any potential issues with the booking process.
- Being Responsive: As an Airbnb host, you’re property management. Managing your property effectively means being available to answer any guest’s questions, comments, and concerns. If you aren’t an effective and prompt communicator, it can end up burying your listing deeper in the search results according to Airbnb.
Stand Out: Enhancing Your Airbnb Listing
As of 2024, there are around 5 million hosts active on the platform and at least a whopping 7.7 million listings up. That’s a lot of competition. If you want to get more Airbnb bookings, you have to improve your listing and find ways to stand out.
While there’s no surefire way to make just any Airbnb listing a hit, there are some general rules of thumb that can greatly improve your odds of ranking higher on the algorithm and seeing your listing on Airbnb improve over time. When working on improving your listing, always:
- Come up with a succinct yet catchy title that drives engagement. Use the title to highlight the main amenities offered by your property, the location of your property, or the type of property you own. Think of your title as the opening line to a novel. If it gets readers to want to read the rest, you’ve done your job.
- The listing description is your time to shine. Tell potential guests what they can expect when they’re staying at your property, the amenities your property has (especially ones that aren’t as common in your area), and all the things they can do and see nearby. Much like with your title, keep your description detailed yet brief, if possible.
- Use keywords that will undoubtedly attract users to your listing. Guests are generally looking for keywords related to location, property type, and the features in your home. It’s important not to be too general with your descriptions. You can use Airbnb’s internal search engine to get an idea of which keywords are trending and which ones would be a good fit for your property.
Captivating Airbnb Photos: Increase Bookings
Nothing drives Airbnb users away faster than poor photos.
Poor photos could be the warning sign of a scam in the worst-case scenario. In the best case, they don’t show guests what they will be booking. This tells them that it’s not worth booking the property because they don’t want to run into the issue of the listing falling short of their expectations.
The reality is that photos are one of the most crucial aspects of your listings. When you have high-quality, reliable photos, you have evidence that your property is as exactly as it’s described in your listing. Learn how to stage your property to make it more appealing to guests, then take photos of each room and each major amenity. Only use cameras that provide gorgeous results and always shoot during the day when there’s plenty of light to illuminate your space.
If this is a lot for you to try to take on yourself, there are plenty of professionals out there that can help you. Just make sure you do your research to understand what their portfolio looks like and whether they’re a good fit for the project at hand.
Winning the Trust of Airbnb Guests
Trust is something that can be difficult to build yet is the foundation of any successful host on Airbnb.
To build trust, you first have to do two things: be a responsive host and provide an accurate and desirable stay that’s in line with what you promise you’ll deliver in your listing. If you can do these two things well, you get the most beneficial element necessary to automatically receive trust from guests: guest reviews.
Guest reviews are important because they don’t come straight from your mouth. Instead, reviews come from those who have already stayed on your property and can tell guests more about their experiences there in detail. This is more valuable than any listing description could ever be. When guests are looking into where they should stay, they’re checking out ratings and guest reviews to make sure that they won’t regret booking the property in the future.
The more in-depth reviews you have, the easier it is to land bookings.
Pricing Strategies for More Airbnb Reservations
Pricing has become a major pain point for Airbnb guests and hosts alike in recent years. Additional fees, gradual price increases, and other obstacles have caused some to turn away from certain listings or even depart from the platform entirely. Mastering pricing is key if you wish to increase your Airbnb occupancy rates, especially in today’s world.
Here are a few pricing strategies that you can use to find the perfect middle ground between what guests want and what you want.
- Always use a dynamic pricing approach to set prices. Rather than just setting a price based on what you think people might rent your Airbnb out for, dynamic pricing takes into consideration seasonal prices, the demand for Airbnb in your area, and a host of other factors that play a role in pricing.
- Use the tools that Airbnb provides to get more accurate pricing. An excellent example of this is the Smart Pricing tool, which adjusts pricing automatically based on demand.
- Take a look at what other Airbnbs in your area are going for. While you don’t want to undervalue yourself, overpricing can decrease your number of bookings.
Superhost Status: Maximizing Your Bookings
An Airbnb superhost is a host that provides an exceptional experience. Superhosts receive a badge, which can improve your placement on Airbnb search results and help you get more bookings. But how is this done? Airbnb evaluates your performance automatically four times throughout the year, paying extra attention to what your reviews are like, what your response rate is, and whether you have any cancellations. If you can stay in Airbnb’s good graces in all regards, you’re looking at one of the easiest ways to increase bookings and potentially see repeat bookings.
Enhancing the Guest Experience: Key to Success
Of course, the above begs the question, how can you enhance the guest experience so that more guests will want to stay at your property? Improving the guest experience can be done in an unlimited number of ways, so here are a few ideas that might work for you.
- Offer Complimentary Items or Packages: From small care packages to bath bombs and other spa essentials, guests love getting free goods they didn’t anticipate. Consider putting a package together for them that they’ll enjoy.
- Keep Guests Stocked Up on What They Need: Do guests have enough linens and towels? Is the kitchen equipped with all the cookware and dining ware guests will need during their stay? You’d be surprised how these simple things can change the experience.
- Check-in Every So Often: While you don’t want to pester your guests, checking in every so often lets them know that you’re there in case they need support.
Expert Advice: Improving Airbnb Booking Rate
Learning how to improve Airbnb booking rates means looking at the whole picture as a host. From your host profile to your listing to the guest experience itself, every choice you make matters. If you want to improve your listing’s visibility, understand the Airbnb algorithm, and see more booking requests, follow all of the tips above to make sure that your rental property can compete on the Airbnb platform.