{"id":2038,"date":"2020-05-05T08:31:27","date_gmt":"2020-05-05T08:31:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog?p=2038"},"modified":"2022-10-03T12:19:59","modified_gmt":"2022-10-03T12:19:59","slug":"changes-to-make-with-your-airbnb-after-the-lockdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/changes-to-make-with-your-airbnb-after-the-lockdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Changes to make with your Airbnb after the lockdown."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>This article is all about what the lockdown and coronavirus have taught us about how we should be running a short-term rental business.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-advanced-gutenberg-blocks-summary\"><p class=\"wp-block-advanced-gutenberg-blocks-summary__title\">What this article&#8217;s about:<\/p><div class=\"wp-block-advanced-gutenberg-blocks-summary__fold\"><svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" viewbox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\" stroke=\"currentColor\" stroke-width=\"2\" stroke-linecap=\"round\" stroke-linejoin=\"round\" class=\"feather feather-chevron-up\"><polyline points=\"18 15 12 9 6 15\"><\/polyline><\/svg><\/div><ol role=\"directory\" class=\"wp-block-advanced-gutenberg-blocks-summary__list\"><li><a href=\"#you-must-be-able-to-accept-direct-bookings\">You Must be able to accept direct bookings<\/a><ol><\/ol><\/li><li><a href=\"#you-must-use-multiple-channels\">You must use multiple channels<\/a><ol><\/ol><\/li><li><a href=\"#no-matter-how-simple-you-must-have-your-own-website\">No matter how simple, you MUST have your own website<\/a><ol><li><a href=\"#give-your-listing-a-name\">Give your listing a name<\/a><ol><\/ol><\/li><\/ol><\/li><li><a href=\"#seriously-consider-google-and-facebook-ads\">Seriously Consider Google and Facebook Ads<\/a><ol><\/ol><\/li><li><a href=\"#create-a-facebook-page-it-takes-15-minutes\">Create a Facebook Page (It Takes 15 minutes)<\/a><ol><li><a href=\"#active-facebook-pages-bring-your-property-to-life\">Active Facebook Pages Bring your property to life<\/a><ol><\/ol><\/li><\/ol><\/li><li><a href=\"#longer-bookings\">Longer Bookings<\/a><ol><li><a href=\"#how-do-we-achieve-this\">How do we achieve this?<\/a><ol><\/ol><\/li><li><a href=\"#this-strategy-works\">This strategy WORKS<\/a><ol><\/ol><\/li><li><a href=\"#but-keep-it-ethical\">(But keep it ethical)<\/a><ol><\/ol><\/li><\/ol><\/li><li><a href=\"#other-reading\">Other Reading<\/a><ol><\/ol><\/li><\/ol><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Firstly let me preface this by saying that I take coronavirus as we all should take coronavirus extremely seriously, and nothing in one what I say in this article should negate the seriousness of the situation or virus, and we should at all times be putting our health and the health of our guests first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;d rather watch the video that goes along with this article, you can check it out here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"400px\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9gBqRNVfnEw\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>However, it\u2019s absolutely true to say that they did those of us in the short term rental business have had things taken completely out of our control &#8211; and I don\u2019t know about you but I don\u2019t like it when the government does this, but I like it even less when businesses of which we are the customers (people get confused by this, but they make <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/bloghow-to-make-more-money-from-your-short-term-rental\/\"   title=\"money\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">money<\/a> from us) do it for us!&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>This is what we\u2019ve had to put up with:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog10-ways-to-market-your-airbnb-that-are-guaranteed-to-work\/\"   title=\"Bookings\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">Bookings<\/a> arbitrarily cancelled all over which we have no control<\/li><li>Lack of support from many of the online <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog8-top-online-travel-booking-websites-compared\/\"   title=\"travel booking\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">travel booking<\/a> companies<\/li><li>1000s of $ and \u00a3 in refunds.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>And to make matters worse, In the UK, in particular, if you\u2019re in the property business certain circumstances dictate that you may not receive any compensation by the government for the lack of business, which might well harm your family\u2019s <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/bloghow-to-maximize-short-term-rental-income\/\"   title=\"income\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">income<\/a> substantially.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>So this is serious stuff.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This article is all about what we can do about this both now and in the future to take more control of our businesses, and be less reliant on the online travel agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"you-must-be-able-to-accept-direct-bookings\">You Must be able to accept direct bookings<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignfull size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/accept-direct-bookings.jpg\" alt=\"Airbnb After The Lockdown\" class=\"wp-image-2043\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/accept-direct-bookings.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/accept-direct-bookings-300x120.jpg 300w, https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/accept-direct-bookings-768x307.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It astounds me, but hardly anyone listing on Airbnb, <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blogairbnb-vs-booking-com-which-is-better-for-hosting\/\"   title=\"booking.com\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">booking.com<\/a> Expedia, etc, has any form of their own booking portal from which to accept bookings from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>This is just crazy!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let me give you an example of this: on one of the <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog10-amazing-tips-on-promoting-my-airbnb-listing-on-facebook\/\"   title=\"Facebook\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">Facebook<\/a> groups, I\u2019m a member of, recently I saw a post by a lady who had received a booking for 10 nights for key workers, yet because Airbnb had blocked her off at her calendar, she couldn\u2019t accept them, when of course you could easily have done so if you have your own, independent way of managing your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"you-must-use-multiple-channels\">You must use multiple channels<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s absolutely essential that if you\u2019re in the short-term rental business that you are able to manage <a href=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog20-ways-to-increase-your-bookings-airbnb\/\">bookings in a more agile way and your diary isn\u2019t just tied to one channel as it was with the example of the Airbnb<\/a> lady before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, it\u2019s true to say that some people are worried about hosting on other channels because Airbnb has its much-touted host guarantee program. But it\u2019s very possible to manage and mitigate this risk by yourself if you\u2019re shrewd and think about things carefully. For example, I take up to \u00a3500 per booking as a deposit, and this literally wiped out bad behavior overnight for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But let\u2019s address the question of how do we manage bookings on a separate channel to just being reliant on one booking system:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are many ways around this problem. They called channel managers, and essentially what they do is give you a centralized diary of your bookings so that you can take bookings for multiple channels if that\u2019s what you want to do, and of course your own bookings to this as well. I know that in my own <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/bloghow-to-target-business-travellers-on-airbnb-booking-com\/\"   title=\"business\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">business<\/a>, I literally doubled overnight when I started using a channel manager which was linked to almost 50 booking websites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I use <a href=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/bloglogify-lockdown\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Logify<\/a> and they&#8217;re excellent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"no-matter-how-simple-you-must-have-your-own-website\">No matter how simple, you MUST have your own website<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The third point I would make is this: almost nobody has a website and a branded name for their property. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Typically on Airbnb listings will be something like <em>\u201cluxury apartment in the center of Manchester<\/em>&#8220;, or <em>\u201cquiet retreat in the Cotswolds<\/em>&#8220;, or <em>&#8220;villa in Thailand which accommodates eight people&#8221;<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whilst they\u2019re catchy titles what they don\u2019t do is enable you to brand your listing in a way that it can be picked up on for, example <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tripadvisor.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">TripAdvisor<\/a>, Google reviews, or give you a name that you can use as a website domain<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"give-your-listing-a-name\">Give your listing a name<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignfull size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Copy-of-Copy-of-accept-direct-bookings.jpg\" alt=\"Airbnb After The Lockdown\" class=\"wp-image-2046\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Copy-of-Copy-of-accept-direct-bookings.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Copy-of-Copy-of-accept-direct-bookings-300x120.jpg 300w, https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Copy-of-Copy-of-accept-direct-bookings-768x307.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>If your listing has a name, rather than just a catchy title, this means that you can buy a domain which is either a similar or an exact match to your property\u2019s name and that means you can put up a basic webpage with some photos, an email and a phone number. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This can be done very very easily, and we also do this on behalf of clients for less than $100. You <a href=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blogcontact-page\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">contact me<\/a> for details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What this means is, for example, if someone googles your property name or indeed looks it up on Booking.com or any of the other websites and the sees availability in the future they can then find your property because it\u2019s got a name and a website and the phone number and you can then accept the booking (of course if it\u2019s a key worker booking for the moment) manually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"seriously-consider-google-and-facebook-ads\">Seriously Consider Google and Facebook Ads<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This brings me onto the whole idea of advertising your property independently of other online travel agencies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If done right running Facebook and Google ads can be extremely profitable and dramatically reduce your payments to online travel agencies because you\u2019re taking the bookings yourself.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you think about it in an average year, you may well be <a href=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog12-awesome-tips-to-stop-paying-ota-commission\/\">paying the online travel agencies thousands of pounds or dollars in commission<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, just how many adverts that money would buy on Google or Facebook? A lot is the answer!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"create-a-facebook-page-it-takes-15-minutes\">Create a Facebook Page (It Takes 15 minutes)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Coming onto point 5 once again (and I know this because I\u2019ve checked) the number of people with a Facebook page for their property is extremely low.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a great way of marketing your property, and there are also several clever tips to get people to like your Facebook Page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>One of them, for example, is when people logging onto the Internet in your property<\/li><li>You can have them do this through a service which requires them to sign up through Facebook, or even an email address, which can prove very useful when you\u2019re conducting any direct marketing activities you may choose to do. <\/li><li>One such example is called <a href=\"https:\/\/flamingowifi.com\/\">https:\/\/flamingowifi.com\/<\/a> <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"active-facebook-pages-bring-your-property-to-life\">Active Facebook Pages Bring your property to life<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>More generally, people really like active Facebook pages, one of the images I posted of my property went viral, as I mentioned in another post, and got over 3000 likes, and well over 900 shares. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a great way of marketing your property, and you can target like your ad campaigns to people who live in your area who may want to have family stay, for example, or under current conditions, key workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"longer-bookings\">Longer Bookings<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/long-bookings.jpg\" alt=\"Airbnb After The Lockdown\" class=\"wp-image-2047\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/long-bookings.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/long-bookings-300x120.jpg 300w, https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/long-bookings-768x307.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m sure most people would agree that the longer the bookings they have the better. Longer bookings mean less <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blogcleaning-tips-for-your-airbnb-the-simple-way\/\"   title=\"cleaning\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">cleaning<\/a>, less hassle, and generally less administration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have two or three properties, I would highly recommend keeping one of those properties just for Long bookings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"how-do-we-achieve-this\">How do we achieve this?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>There are a number of different ways we can do this. The easiest way is to simply <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/bloghow-to-price-your-airbnb\/\"   title=\"price\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">price<\/a> the booking at such a high price per night that it won\u2019t be booked for single nights.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, if your average nightly price is \u00a3100 or $100, then price it at \u00a3300 or dollars, but then on the online travel agencies or indeed on your own website if you have booking functionality enabled, <strong>discount this back down to \u00a3100 or $100 per night<\/strong> for people who are staying for <strong>30 nights or longer<\/strong>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"this-strategy-works\">This strategy WORKS<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve tried this and it works really well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It works especially well if you have a channel manager where you can move the booking to different room types. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So for example, if you have someone who does book your long-stay apartment for two nights, for example, using a channel manager you can easily move them to your short-stay properties (of course assuming the properties are of similar quality) and this means you keep your long-stay property just for long stays.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"but-keep-it-ethical\">(But keep it ethical)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>There are of course very subtle ways of doing this involving canceling <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/bloghow-and-why-to-build-great-relationships-with-your-airbnb-guests\/\"   title=\"guests\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">guests<\/a> who get in the way of long-stay bookings, <strong>but I personally don\u2019t do this, as I don\u2019t think it\u2019s ethical and not fair on the guests.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the projects I\u2019ve got going on at the moment is \u201cA branded a box \u201cwhich is a <a href=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blogautomate-your-airbnb-in-5-easy-steps\/\">step by step course on how exactly to create a brand is your Airbnb<\/a> or short-term rental business. If you\u2019re interested in this please <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blogcontact-page\/\" target=\"_blank\">contact me<\/a> and I\u2019ll be sure to let you know when it\u2019s ready.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"other-reading\">Other Reading<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Financial Times: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/9d092b78-7045-11ea-89df-41bea055720b\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">How Airbnb hosts are fighting back against Covid-19 fallout<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article is all about what the lockdown and coronavirus have taught us about how we should be running a short-term rental business. Firstly let me preface this by saying that I take coronavirus as we all should take coronavirus extremely seriously, and nothing in one what I say in this article should negate the &#8230; <a title=\"Changes to make with your Airbnb after the lockdown.\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/changes-to-make-with-your-airbnb-after-the-lockdown\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Changes to make with your Airbnb after the lockdown.\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1232],"tags":[486,484,1689,1690,1691],"class_list":["post-2038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-booking-platforms","tag-airbnb","tag-booking-com","tag-coronavirus","tag-lockdown","tag-longer-bookings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shortrentalpro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}