Airbnb vs Vrbo, eggs in one basket, and rankings

Nathan Speary · 2020-01-24T07:38:08-08:00

I've gots ground STR business. A few years ago I had about 40% of my bookings coming from VRBO but airBnB gained significant traction, and soon 95% of my bookings were from AirBnB with a 90% occupancy rate. Sounds good... until something with Airbnb burns to the ground and then I'm reliant on only VRBO guests. The thing is, since so many bookings now come from ABB, my Vrbo listings have dropped off the first page and onto page 15-20 so they don't get any traffic any more. I hate reliance on ABB. In the last year I have had two huge issues, 1 because my channel manager had an api issue that got my account deactivated for a few days (!!!!) until it as reactivated by the trust and safety team. AirBnB confirmed it was a problem with the channel manager that was triggering some sort of internal security flag. The second problem was last year there was some problem with the site itself and I was unable to receive instant bookings for about a month. As you can imagine, bookings tanked. What do you all think about investing in one channel and absolitely dominating it versus spreading out over multiple channels?

Luke CarlPro Member

Rental Property Investor · Tennessee Florida · Member since 2016 · 4k+ posts · 5k+ votes

6y

I had a huge blow out with Airbnb this week. LONG story that I wont tell but a guest ended up staying for free due to an airbnb error and that guest still gave me 3 stars, which was my worst review ever. Airbnb paid me for the stay but refused to take the review down. What can I do? I'm in their hands.

I will say that VRBO is taking steps. I now have an account manager that I can supposedly contact with any issues. She's already reached out to me twice. This is nice since Airbnb doesn't seem to give a damn about hosts, always takes the guests side.

I haven't answered your question although I'm not even sure you asked a question.

@John Underwood will be along soon to tell us he's 100% booked with VRBO and never gets Airnbn

and @Paul Sandhu will tell you that craigslist is where the money is

Podcast Guest on Show From Surviving on $30/Day to 30+ Properties Thanks to Blue-Collar Skills

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Paul Sandhu

Investor · The worst town to live in, KS · Member since 2016 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votes

6y

Nobody vacations in my town. I have an Airbnb ad for 1 of my properties. It only gets inquiries for people coming here for Thanksgiving weekend, nothing else. But there is a refinery here, and there is a continuous flow of contractors coming in and out of the facility for work. They don't look on Airbnb to find a place to stay. They normally check into a motel, then find out about my places and wish they would have known about my places first. It took 8 years, but now the word has gotten around about my 23 STRs. Craigslist is the main source of online contacts with contractors. Here is the first line of today's ad:

No Vacancy 1-24-20. Call to be on the waiting list. show contact info

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Jon Crosby

Investor · Roseville, CA · Member since 2016 · 893 posts · 1k+ votes

6y

Thanks for sharing your story @Nathan Speary, sounds like quite the rock and a hard place to be. Perhaps you can try do self promotions via Facebook/Google ads to the VRBO listing to try and get back balance of share and closer to page 1. Then once you have some momentum it will not be so scary to migrate away from ABB to solely focus on your VRBO/Homeaway. And heck, while you are at it, you will already have a paid campaign engine optimized for VRBO that you can turn on in the slow season to maximize occupancy.

Best of luck!

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John UnderwoodPro Member

Investor · Greer, SC · Member since 2014 · 13k+ posts · 17k+ votes

6y

I do get 90% of my bookings from HA/VRBO and about 6 bookings from Airbnb last year.

I was updating pricing this morning and it is such a pain set min stays for different times of the year on Airbnb vs HA/VRBO.

I love how I can annotate significant dates on VRBO. Airbnb seems so pedestrian after being on the VRBO/HA site.

It doesn't cost me anything to keep my Airbnb account open to pick up those few bookings that I get from them.

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John UnderwoodPro Member

Investor · Greer, SC · Member since 2014 · 13k+ posts · 17k+ votes

6y

Originally posted by @Jon Crosby:

Thanks for sharing your story @Nathan Speary, sounds like quite the rock and a hard place to be. Perhaps you can try do self promotions via Facebook/Google ads to the VRBO listing to try and get back balance of share and closer to page 1. Then once you have some momentum it will not be so scary to migrate away from ABB to solely focus on your VRBO/Homeaway. And heck, while you are at it, you will already have a paid campaign engine optimized for VRBO that you can turn on in the slow season to maximize occupancy.

Best of luck!

I put my Homeaway link in Craigslist ads to help direct more traffic to my listing.

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Ken Latchers

Hatfield, PA · Member since 2012 · 1k+ posts · 629 votes

6y

Everybody should be on all four major platforms. Booking.com, VRBO, FlipKey, Airbnb. And you should have a website because some of those people will wander over and book direct.

you should use a channel manager avoid double bookings and to provide the website. ownerreservations and smoobu and lodgify for example will give you a website as part of your subscription.

and being on all the websites you can diversify such as higher prices and or longer minimum stays. Then people will find you at different price and stay points

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Nathan Speary

OP

Member since 2020 · 9 posts · 7 votes

6y

@Ken Latchers Herein lies the rub: if you're on every platform, you're diluting your reach to a degree. In my simple example (where I'm on ABB and VRBO) my properties occupy 10 of the first 15 listings in my area on AirBnB. That's why my places have 80% booking rates in the low season (and 100% in the high season) where the market averages are 25% and 70%. But if something goes haywire with AirBnB I am totally and completely screwed.

I could take it a little further and join ABB+, and dominate my market in the off season even more... but then again, what if something happens with ABB? Just last month the entire web site crashed for about six hours!

The other side of the coin is that my properties completely and totally outperform all the other ones in the area, so... I am clearly benefitting from that.

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Ken Latchers

Hatfield, PA · Member since 2012 · 1k+ posts · 629 votes

6y

This is about reward versus risk. Being a one platform is a big risk. I've seen a lot of people have been delisted from Airbnb or VRBO and then they're totally screwed. So that is obviously not the direction to go.

again, you should be on all four platforms to a channel manager. This reduce risks and brings you other opportunities.

if you were 80% or higher occupancy, that means your price is too low, not that you are clever.

I do much better with booking.com than I do with Airbnb. This is Eastern Pennsylvania.

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Michael BaumPro Member

Olympia, WA · Member since 2016 · 8k+ posts · 7k+ votes

6y

@Nathan Speary, I have never heard of diluting reach by using more avenues for marketing. I can understand that if you are marketing a product to folks who don't buy said product, but by presenting the product in other spaces where your demographic is located, that is what makes sense.

What I am expecting you mean is even though you are EXTENDING your reach, you dilute your single site stats due to people using Booking.com vs VRBO to book. You get less overall bookings on VRBO. That could cause your listing to move down due to less activity, thus it could compromise your VRBO bookings. Is that what you are meaning?

I have our place listed on AirBNB and Verbo. Like @John Underwood, I get the vast majority of my bookings through Verbo. Right now I have 6 bookings from VRBO/HomeAway and one through AirBNB. Also, I get many more fraudulent requests through AirBNB than Verbo.

So, having said all that, I kinda thought you wanted to get more bookings away from AirBNB? It is possible that your listing on AirBNB is far more used due to the type of property. Does it cater more to couples/adults? @John Underwood and I's are more focused on families which is where Verbo seems to be more used.

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Airbnb vs Vrbo, eggs in one basket, and rankings

Airbnb vs Vrbo, eggs in one basket, and rankings

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