How To Get Your First Airbnb Booking..

T he Holy Grail of a new Airbnb host is how to attract and secure that very first booking. When we started nearly a year ago there were not as many spaces and choice in Barcelona on Airbnb, but nonetheless it was still a little challenging to attract the type of guest we wanted and get that confirmation from airbnb through. We were lucky, no question and we could not of wished for a better start thanks to Jan and Weronika

There are quite a few things that you have to do in order to make your property stand out from the rest. The photo’s on your listing need to be done by an Airbnb photographer so that you have the Airbnb Verified tab on the images. Not only does this give confidence to a guest looking, but the images really do showcase your space.

The airbnb photographer is a free service to you from airbnb. Only book the airbnb photographer when you have everything ready to go. Also – be prepared! Have your space set out exactly as you want it to look in the photos so the guest is not disappointed. Don’t be expecting the photographer’s advice and time to play around with flowers/ bowls of fruit or light settings. If they do hey that’s a bonus but remember they are there to get a job done and be in and out.

The most important part of your listing is price. I ask guest’s regularly why they choose us and it is nearly always this (in this order) 1. Price 2. Reviews 3. Photos

But don’t go into you calendar and drop the rate for the rest of the year. You want to reduce your rate for the upcoming 4 weeks to start with. Look at rates on Airbnb for your town or city, and undercut your competition.

Okay, so you will not be making huge amounts of money and running off to book that dream holiday quite yet, but your agenda here is to get reviews, and good ones at that. Plenty of good reviews are the key to becoming an Airbnb Pro. Its hard to put a value on a review, but when your starting out it would be close to priceless.

Reviews give you and your space credibility. It will help turn lookers in to bookers. We all like a good deal or at least to feel we got good value for money, especially these days.

The reason for only dropping the rate for the initial upcoming weeks, is just to attain good reviews. With 3-4 under you belt you can increase your price then to reflect this.

Your profile photo on airbnb must be a happy one.

This is so important, potential guests looking through pages of listings will automatically be attracted to happy faces. Its a fact and it works!!

Your description is also very important. I think it better to have more information than less. This is your shot to sell yourself and come across as interesting and a person/ couple who people want to meet. If you have something funny or witty to say about yourself well put that in. People like to see a good sense of humour.

Last but not least is to update your airbnb calendar daily. A bit of a pain but this works guys, believe me!

Best of luck,

Fiona