Industry Conversations

Would love to see any ideas that people are already using!

I would like to be notified if a guest does not check into the home by the morning of their check out date. This way I can inform the cleaning team there will not be a cleaning today. Is this possible? 

I followed the instructions given on the Townhall to go to my Mogul business page to find the banner to take me to my profile to prepare to be matched to potential owners BUT my page doesn’t have a banner.  Can anyone else see a banner on their owner page?  I think this sounds like a great service and I am eager to be considered.  

Um...Grocery delivery taking up valuable real estate on our listingsI had heard talks in other STR groups about this, but had not seen it for myself until now.So instead of highlighting something about your listing, Airbnb is now highlighting 3rd party services. This is not something you have to opt into. Grocery delivery is just something a guest can do while staying at an Airbnb. It is not a huge deal or any big-time extra thing to advertise, as everyone knows about Instacart / DoorDash, etc.How do you feel about losing the valuable real estate section and Airbnb replacing it with "Grocery Delivery" advertising?(Not my listing, so I am hiding the host and link) 

On Monday April 14th (Pacific Time), Airbnb accidentally re-enabled the option for PMS-connected hosts to change their pricing structure.The bug remained active through Thursday, giving a window of a few days where many of you were able to switch back to the split fee — and a lot of you did (alongside some truly fantastic memes).Airbnb has confirmed with us that this was a bug. They do not intend to re-offer the ability to switch pricing structures. In fact, Airbnb is moving toward enforcing the host-only fee (15.5%) as the global standard — including for non-PMS-connected hosts across additional geographies. The split fee will be going away, the host-only fee is going nowhere. What we've heard from AirbnbI want to be transparent that some of this is based on what Airbnb has communicated to us, and is subject to unilateral change by Airbnb. Take it as informed context, but I am not in the room where the decisions

With Airbnb switching soon to fake phone numbers for guests and us how can we capture phones and emails so we can continue to communicate with our guests going forward? 

I think something just quietly changed… and I’m not sure if this is a glitch or a major rollback.I came across this reel:https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXFWGrRkdw-/?igsh=NGYyMXV0OThhbmRlThen checked my own settings in Airbnb…👉 I’m PMS-connected via Hospitable👉 And I STILL have the option to switch back to split-fee pricingThat shouldn’t be possible… right?I was under the impression that once you’re PMS-connected, host-only (simplified pricing) was mandatory. No going back.I’ll drop screenshots below, but this raises a much bigger question:Did Airbnb just quietly remove the requirement?Or is this:A UI glitch? A phased rollback? An account-level exception? Something that hasn’t “fully enforced” yet?More importantly…

TL;DROn April 13, Airbnb quietly completed what appears to be a final migration wave for remaining PMS-connected split-fee hosts — and simultaneously surfaced an opt-back option letting already-transitioned hosts switch back to split fee. No announcement. No host communication. It spread on social media. Six months into a transition that cost many of us real money in rank drops, ad spend, and pricing re-architecture, this post is an attempt to take honest stock of where we are: whether the host-only model actually delivers on its theoretical advantages in a market that still isn't fully transitioned, what the competitive and guest-perception risks look like on both sides of the choice, and what those of us who've been living with it have done to adapt. Questions at the bottom — especially keen to hear from anyone who has toggled back, anyone who wasn't migrated in October, and anyone tracking value sub-score shifts since the change.  

I’m not too confident of Smarty’s answer to this. But it’s not worth a support ticket, so I thought I’d pose the question here.I’m not able to find any documentation about the “AI Summary” that gets generated when a guest inquires or books. I haven’t found it to be very helpful, and it often raises more questions than answers, because it seems to “make stuff up” in the absence of facts and evidence.Example, here’s an Airbnb guest with 3 glowing reviews, and I use the AirReview extension to be able to see what reviews the GUEST has left for other hosts, and he’s left only glowing reviews for other hosts, and there is no indication whatsoever that this guy has any aversion to “Mold, unclean bathrooms, pests, and lack of cleanliness.”This AI Summary actually raises red flags when it shouldn’t. Is this a guest that complains? Are they going to be a problem? As far as I can tell, no. So where is the AI getting these assumptions from? Smarty says it aggregates info ab

Has anyone tried integrating OpenClaw to Hospitable via API for managing their STRs? It seems like there’s potential good synergy in responding to guest inquiries and provide assistance when necessary. Open for discussion and would like your input.

After all that big announcement and chaos, Airbnb has not made it so that you can switch back to the old host fee model of 3%!  Very interesting as they made such a big announcement for this change, yet there has been no conversation about this option to switch back.  

I just saw on a FB post  that the split fee option is back for all listings. Anyone else see this and made the change back? What does this mean for the Hospitable AIRBNB Markup? 

I manage $1.3 million in bookings  and 2200 reservations a year and I’m on many platforms. Booking.com is by far the absolute worst. I do everything you’re supposed to do, we require a deposit, we require ID verification all that kind of stuff through charge automation but somehow we still just get absolute nightmare guests. Anytime I have to interact with Booking.com‘s customer support. It is a joke. Case in point, a guest recently Booked for six people at my house, paid the damage deposit, gave the names and ages of the guests, and then 30 people showed up at my house. When I contacted Booking.com about this, they said that they cannot cancel this guests reservation without their consent, which is just incredible. Does anyone have any contact with people that actually work in Booking.com like some kind of higher level rep or someone in the PR team or something? I just don’t understand how their service offerings can be so bad.

Had our best December ever this year, with all 31 nights booked for $17.5k in total revenue. This is in the Disney market, the most saturated market in the country, and #1 on almost every guru list of "worst markets to invest in".Airbnb friends, the problem here, like most markets, is supply (in both quantity and quality), not demand. If you can operate at the top, there is still money to be made. And you don't have to have a tippy top property necessarily to operate at the top. It has to be marketable, but there are much better properties than mine in this neighborhood.It comes down to 3 basic pillars, and I'll give one example of each here, and will go into more depth on each when I have a bit more time.1) Listing Optimization - Bullet points, color. Ditch the superfluous wording (yes I'm aware of the irony) and skip to the important parts in bullet points. If you don't have color in your house, add it in your images (example in comments). Did you know you can

We currently have a doozie of a guest in one of our BNBs and they booked a non-refundable stay with us on March 13th and then tried to cancel on the 20th.  I declined since we are NOT the trip insurance but rather a host who is being asked to refund a . . . non-refundable booking. Fast forward 10 days and the guest chose to travel anyways (as would I since they sunk the cost and it’s a beautiful place) and guess who shows up?  A grumpy goose. They are demanding that the hot tub be serviced becuase it was unusable when they arrived (professionally serviced each week, so what do they mean?)  Reading the tea leaves here . . . this person is bitter due to not getting a refund on a non-refundable booking.  So they show up and have an unsurprisingly frustrating stay.  What will their review say? However, all of this is likely retaliation from them not getting to cancel the booking, so is there a way to prevent a review from being lef

Hi everyone, I’m curious — what is currently your biggest challenge when it comes to managing turnovers? Is it:• Finding reliable cleaners• Timing issues• Quality consistency• Communication I’ve seen all of these come up in different properties. Would love to hear your experience.

Hi.  Does anyone know how to get pet fees to be findable on VRBO?  We have two pet friendly rentals, but there is no clear way when guests are booking to select the pet reservation, and then I am stuck pestering guests for a pet fee.   It is noted in the property description, and is set as a fee on the listing, it just never seems to pop up as an option when people book.   

Has anyone ever gone to the trouble of asking Vrbo to turn OFF the syndication of your Vrbo listings to Google Vacation Rentals (GVR)? Any luck in doing that?The reasoning is that when multiple booking sites syndicate to GVR, it can cause duplicates if GVR isn’t able to match and merge the listing from its various sources. Another reason would be to give guests fewer choices when looking at your listing on GVR, to steer them toward your Direct site rather than Vrbo. I’ve wasted a couple hours so far trying to get support from Vrbo on this. They keep telling me random things such as I need to turn off Instant Book (bogus), or that GVR is picking up my Vrbo listings organically (also bogus). 

Our apps are out!! Hospitable hosts can list for only $5 per property for the first year on Inndirectly.com! Use coupon HOSPINN45 at check out.Inndirectly was created to make direct booking sites searchable alongside all other booking options. It's free to join and for guests to use and only $50 per property per year (just over $4 per month) for hosts to list. Here's our explainer video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhivu88Zrjo and read through our FAQ's.Our Apple App: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/inndirectly-vacation-rentals/id6759907294Our Android App: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.inndirectly.app(Don't forget the double NN's in Inndirectly when Googling us! Inn+Directly = ❤️)

What are the Pros and Cons of working with these 3 platforms? Should I play with the 3 of them? 2 of them or only Airbnb? 

📣 Co-Hosts: Let’s Share Best Practices (Billing, Cleanings, Fees, & Cash Flow)Hi everyone — I’d love to start a collaborative thread so we can learn what’s working (and what isn’t) as our co-hosting businesses grow and evolve — especially with recent platform changes like Airbnb’s host-only service fee updates.I’ll start by sharing how we currently run our operation, and I’m hoping other co-hosts can chime in with their own systems.💼 How we currently operateBilling & Bookkeeping Our bookkeeper invoices owners once per month via QuickBooks. We charge our management commission on: Gross booking amount Pet fees Extra guest fees We do not subtract host platform service fees in our commission calculations. Cleaning Fees Cleaning fees are based directly on

New STR host in the Outer Banks, specifically on the 4x4 in Corolla, would love some insight on what to leave as a little something for each turnover. I was thinking a bag of coffee from a local coffee shop or something along those lines? Wild horses roam the beach so maybe something to do with that? Would love any help!

I’m curious to hear how other hosts are offering Netflix, Hulu, etc. in their units. I am starting to hit the “scalability wall” with the way I’ve been doing it so far.The way I’ve been doing it so far has been to simply have an extra profile under each of my personal streaming accounts. The “guest profile” is named in a way that’s obvious to guests and it sits alongside the profiles for my other family members. My personal profiles are PIN-locked as needed so that people don’t rent movies, change my subscription plan, etc. Netflix is the most forgiving as far as enabling me to use a single account across 5 STRs (plus my personal home). On the other end, Hulu is the most restrictive, as far as constantly booting TVs off and having to go through the “update household” method to get them back on.Once in a while a guest says something like “Netflix/Hulu isn’t working, what do I do?” and I have to tell them to click “update household” and/or to have it send me a cod

Hosts and property managers, we'd love to have you list your properties on Inndirectly.com! Even before officially going live last fall, Hospitable believed in what we were building and supported us early on, so we wanted to give something back to the Hospitable community.If you’re a Hospitable host, we’re offering 90% off your first year’s listings which are normally only $50 per property per year ($4.17/month.) Join for free then use coupon HOSPINN45 at check out to list for just $5 per property for the whole first year.Our purpose is to help small businesses hosts regain ownership of their bookings by making direct booking sites searchable, encouraging direct guest/host connections, and helping hosts break free from total reliance on OTAs without the review games and algorithm stress. Since Inndirectly is a listing site (not a booking platform), there are no commissions, algorithms, or micromanagement.Here’s our quick explainer video:

Anyone has suggestions on advertising on social media thats pretty much hands free ?I can’t remember to post and would love to automate that task