6 Tips to Boost Your Airbnb Occupancy Rate in 2022

You’ve done the due diligence needed to start a vacation rental property business, selected the best location you could find, invested your hard-earned money, and listed your short-term rental on Airbnb. Now, you realize that that’s just the beginning of your business.

Once you start getting bookings, you realize that Airbnb occupancy rates in some seasons are higher than others. Like typical human nature, you begin to desire more. You want full bookings all around the year.

For your Airbnb business to be successful, the occupancy rates need to stay high throughout the year. You need to recoup your investment. If you’ve gone the rental arbitrage route, vacancies will lead to losses since you’ll be paying for an unoccupied rental.

However, once you start looking for ways to increase occupancy rates, you realize it’s easier said than done. On a platform like Airbnb, you’re not in control of the search algorithms or the number of bookings you get.

You need to get into action instead of lamenting about your situation. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to increase your Airbnb occupancy rates in 2022. The icing on the cake is that most of them don’t even require you to spend any money.

Today, we look at some of these strategies. If you’re new to this, here’s the guide on how to check occupancy rate on Airbnb.

Price Optimization

The price you set for your short-term rental is one of the most influential factors that determine your Airbnb occupancy rates. Up there with the location.

Many short-term rental owners use a “once and for all” approach where they set a certain per-night rate and forget about it. Some implement variations in their pricing strategy but do it the wrong way. This is one of the costliest mistakes you can make.

How do you optimize your rates? By adjusting according to season. For example, you can have high rates during the high season since the demand is high too. Once the market becomes a bit dormant, you should lower your rates to attract hesitant travelers or holiday-goers and still beat your competition.

Optimizing your rates offers you various benefits since you increase your rental income. Other than that, your unit will appear at the top of Airbnb search results. This increases your visibility on the platform, which in turn boosts Airbnb occupancy rates.

Other than optimizing nightly rates, you need to ensure you price competitively. You can start by looking at what your competitors are charging so that you don’t end up charging way more or less. Remember your income should be able to cater for property expenses and still make you some profit.

Charging too high will make your prospective customers choose a more affordable competitor. On the other hand, a price that’s too low will raise eyebrows and make travelers hesitant to book your unit since they’ll doubt your authenticity.

Most importantly, ensure the price you settle on reflects on the value the tenants will receive.

If choosing a pricing strategy that works for you looks like too much work, don’t worry. Luckily, you can use a few pricing tools to help you automate the process.

Highlight Your Best Amenities

The kind of guest experience you offer will greatly influence your Airbnb occupancy rates. Guests value amenities that make their stay more enjoyable and memorable. You don’t want to provide basic amenities like everyone else. You want to stand out from your competitors and be above average. How do you do this?

First, you need to identify your target guests and understand their needs. Once you understand their needs you can improve your amenities to suit them.

For example, if you’re targeting the sophisticated traveler who probably works remotely, instead of just providing broadband internet, how about you get an extra fast fiber-optic connection? Instead of basically having a filter coffee option, how about you get an espresso machine?

Look at it from the guests’ perspective. Imagine you’re stuck between two short-term rentals. However, one has an espresso machine, high-speed internet, or any other amenity that makes it stand out, while the other is just basic. Which one would you go for?

This is how you provide more value for your visitors and make their stay memorable.

Once you decide on what extra amenities to provide, it’s now time to let the travelers know that you have what they’re looking for. You do this by updating your listing title and description to shine a spotlight on your best amenities. Don’t just expect people to find you. Go out, find them yourself, and explain to them what you have to offer and why they should book with you.

Don’t forget to take high-quality professional photos of the best amenities. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words. High-quality photos go a long way in highlighting your amenities and attracting more potential guests.

Target to Get Good Reviews

Airbnb reviews are instrumental in the number of bookings you get from Airbnb. Many guests make the decision whether to book or not based on what they read in the review section. Always purpose to get positive reviews from guests.

How do you get them?

• Offer outstandingly good customer services. Customers love where they’re made to feel valued.
• Answer their queries promptly. Provide all details or any information requested before they book. Also, always stay reachable during their stay. Communication is vital.
• After the stay, make the first move by providing your guests with a positive review on the platform. Airbnb will prompt them to give you a review in return.

As you can see, customer service is instrumental in increasing your Airbnb occupancy rates. Go out of your way to ensure that your guests are always comfortable and enjoying their stay. This will ensure you get multiple 5-star reviews.

To get more reviews, you don’t always have to offer a review first. After a good stay where you’ve built a great rapport with the guests, you can mention that you wouldn’t mind a 5-star review.

If you struggle giving guests reviews, you can also automate this process by implementing various tools that give you review templates. Some of these tools allow you to publish the template as a review on the platform.

Automation helps you streamline various business aspects. This allows you to spend less time on those activities you struggle with and focus on more productive activities.

Keep in mind that a list of good reviews makes your listing stand out. It’s instrumental in helping you convince guests to book a stay in your unit.

Leverage Social Media Marketing

Social media has changed our daily lives. A huge portion of the human population barely goes a day without logging into at least one social media platform. So, why wouldn’t you implement social media into your marketing strategy to boost your Airbnb occupancy rate?

You can use your social media account to market your short-term rentals. Alternatively, you can have accounts on various platforms specifically dedicated to marketing your Airbnb rentals.

Either way, you want to maintain brand consistency on platforms. For example, you can get a name for your business and use it as your brand name across all platforms.

Here are some social media practices to help you boost your occupancy rate Airbnb:

• Share useful information on your Facebook business page for potential guests to see what you have to offer.
• Open an Instagram account and work with influencers and bloggers to help you gain more exposure for your business.
• Post your rental’s high-quality images on Twitter and use hashtags related to travelers and short-term rentals.

When it comes to posting, the most basic content is photos of your rental. Start with the interior pictures then you can go to the porch and yard. Remember that the pictures should be high-quality and professional. You can use the same photos you’ve used on your Airbnb listing.

Also, stay consistent when it comes to posting content. Don’t be discouraged if your posts initially get fewer likes and shares. You have to start from somewhere and then slowly build on that. With time, more people will see your posts on those platforms. Just the fact that you’re present on social media is validation enough.

Many people erroneously think that you can only use social media to market to potential guests. There are many social media groups, communities, and forums for vacation rental owners. Join these spaces and interact with other hosts and property managers. This will not only help you gain tips on how to improve your services and run your business but also gain some referrals.

Lower the Minimum Stay Between Bookings

Most Airbnb hosts set their minimum stays to a few days. If you’re one, you may find yourself with a few days’ vacancies in between bookings. One great way to ensure your rental doesn’t stay vacant during such days is by opening bookings for single nights.

This may be useful especially when starting out. Initially, you may not have a lot of 5-star reviews. However, you may increase your visibility on the platform by making your listing applicable to every search criteria.

You can manually open bookings for single nights by following these steps:

• Select your listing on Airbnb
• Click on Manage Listings
• At the top of the page, click Availability
• Locate Trip Length and click Edit next to it
• Enter both minimum and maximum stay requirements as you’d prefer (In this case enter 1 night for minimum stay)
• If you want to create custom rules for each day of the week, click Customize by day of the week
• Enter custom rules for specific seasons or dates.

While lowering your minimum stay to one night will definitely increase property management tasks, it’ll help you get more guests. More guests mean more reviews.

Offer Special Deals

You may find yourself having a guest who’s undecided between two different listings. Your best bet at getting the guest to book with you is by sending them a special offer. While you won’t make as much money as your target, it’s a great way to get a booking when there’s a chance of losing them to a competitor.

You can follow these steps to send your guests a special offer:

• Log in to Airbnb and go to Inbox
• Open the message to the client you’d like to send a special offer
• Click Send Special Offer
• Locate the SubTotal field on the left side of the page. Enter the price you want to offer the guest. Ensure you’ve included expenses such as cleaning and pet fees, or any other costs you’ve agreed upon.
• Click Send Special Offer

Another way to offer special deals is by giving previous guests discounts on their next visit. You can mention it to them when they’re checking out after their stay. This demonstrates goodwill and also lets your guests know what to expect next time they book with you. You’ll see a boost in your average occupancy rate for Airbnb if you do this regularly.

You can also offer free nights for guests with an extended stay. If there are spare nights before the next booking, you can offer them a chance to extend their trip by a night, instead of leaving the rental to stay vacant.

Key Takeaways

If you want to be a savvy Airbnb rental owner in 2022, you ought to stop doing the bare minimum, such as just posting a few average pictures and a generic description for your listing.

In the current times, you should go out of your way to offer outstanding customer service to get multiple 5-star reviews and boost your Airbnb occupancy rate. Also, offer special deals for your customers by giving them discounts or extra free nights for long-term guests.

Automate some business processes and use Airbnb analytics to help you know your short term rental’s profitability.

Let Mashvisor Help You Take Your Airbnb Business to the Next Level

If you’ve been thinking of investing in short-term rentals, the Mashvisor Profit Calculator will help you know what to expect from your investment in any US housing market. You can use the platform to conduct an investment property analysis for any listing on MLS, off-market properties on the platform, and for any property whose address you enter.

Additionally, the rental property calculator will help you know what is a good occupancy rate for Airbnb, expected daily rates, monthly income, Airbnb cash flow, and Airbnb cap rate.

To learn more about how we will help you make faster and smarter real estate investment decisions, click here.

Originally published at https://www.mashvisor.com on November 19, 2021.