AirBnb "Family Collection" thoughts? Successes?

Question

We just qualified for AirBnb's "Family Collection" which is supposed to feature our property for those seeking "family friendly" properties.  AirBnb does have a button on their filters for trip "type" to where you can choose family.  Just wondering if anything has an opinion or experience on if this really helped on bookings?

It's pretty tough to qualify as you need a 4.8 average review score over all, and at least two 5 star with verified families, amenities, family friendly in your description etc.  If I search properties in my market and just use standard filters, I come up with over 100 properties.... If I add the "family" type, it goes to only 5!  so I guess I feel good being in the small club ha ha.... obvously, can't hurt..... but does it really do anything?  Anyone have experience that this designation made a big difference?

Michael Greenberg · Answer

All of these efforts (family collection, "performance", ANR, RevPar, Team, Work Collection, that ABB is making feels like they're trying to appease us Superhost's, but it really feels like just a bunch of "fluff".  If they really wanted to help those of us that are serious about the "business" of STR's, they would create "business" tools to help us grow, e.g., reporting, financial, bi-directly communication, pricing, etc.  That would "feel" a whole lot better.

Kathy Hansen · Answer

My target market from the beginning was families. I've been in the family collection for at least a year. I guess I should have kept better records, but I honestly can't say whether I had more bookings from families than from before I was part of the collection. I will say that if you start getting a lot of families, be prepared for the constant need to clean up crumbs, bits of paper, stickers, and other detritus from your floors from toddlers, along with smeary handprints on glass surfaces.

John Underwood · Answer

Like you say it can't hurt and doesn't cost you anything so it's a no brainer to implement it.

If you pick up a couple extra bookings here and there it will be worth it.

John D. · Answer

All of our properties are now in the Family Collection.  Hard to tell the impact.  If I had to take a wild guess, I'd say 2-3% increase in bookings, based on my habits as a guest, and someone who has spent a lot of time in my professional career working with user interfaces and their impact, not on any data as a host (as its likely too small to effectively measure). If guests are looking for "entire homes with 5-star reviews from families and essentials like a kitchen and TV" I suspect they are more likely to filter for those things specifically, rather then check the trip type = for families.

We do not qualify for the "for work" filter (our strict cancellation policy dis-allows us), but one of our quickest growing segments of renters is corporate bookings -- we get a lot of weekday bookings for corporate retreats, sales off-sites, exec planning sessions, etc. despite not showing in this filter.

Can't hurt though of course!

AirBnb "Family Collection" thoughts? Successes?

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