Industry Conversations

VRBO just listed their partners and I don’t see Hospitable on the listhttps://www.vrbo.com/connectivity?status=Elite%2CPreferred?utm_source=marketo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mid_15976&utm_content=na&utm_term=advanced_email&mkt_tok=NDQzLVlZUS00MTAAAAGfwtd4NZNWX8DQPs29NrnBNx-7xk0cdm9iANe3PTNgc_k1CRUa7C6Df0KFGpF8wxmkeqTreaZl0xuwTWOzktps0fFY04PvTzXz9V0YUx2JyhuxqVY

Hey there,Would you be interested in joining a video call to chat about best practices for optimizing listings and revenue?I recently joined this community and thought it would be valuable to trade notes with others on the strategies you use to maximize revenue. I’m an owner (not a property manager, and not selling anything). My STRs are in the Outer Banks, NC, with one in Denver. I tend to outperform my competitors and use some creative approaches to boost revenue and ranking, but I always pick up new ideas from others.If you also feel like you’ve found effective strategies—and are open to learning and sharing “secrets”—I’d love to connect.Reply if you’re interested! I’m hoping to keep it to a small group (5–6 people max).All the best,Scott

Is it possible to generate a 1099 for my owners in hospitable?  If not what is the best way to gather this information for my CPA? I am a co-host for 3 different owners.  I have a separate checking accounts for each owner where the revenue is direct deposited from AIRBNB and VRBO.  I do a monthly ACH to each owner for their monthly revenue minus expenses (owner report here on hospitable.) Do i send the 1099 for the Net Deposited amount (after OTA fees and taxes withheld by VRBO and AIRBNB?)

Hello, I am reaching out to you to ask if a French speaker could explain the website to me, as I am having trouble understanding it and I know there is a lot of help available on it.Please contact me here: contact@sensitivehost.com

I had a VRBO rep reach out to me last week and tell me that because I use a property management system, I wasn’t able to access many of the features that would make me “more attractive” to their users.  Is anyone familiar with this issue? 

I just got asked if a couple could have a small (60) person wedding with 20 spending the night. I usually cap max at 17. Should I go ahead with this booking and up the cleaning fee as 60 may create a large mess? or should I say no thankyou?

When a guest enters one of my listings, the property literally springs to life. They are welcomed by name by an AI Avatar on the TV, rolling out a digital 'red carpet' immediately. Within seconds, guests can tell the smart home their ideal temperature, or even mention they're hungry—prompting the microwave to fire up and start popping popcorn.But my favorite automation solves the classic 'Group Amnesia' problem. We've all had bookings where the lead guest knows the rules, but the rest of the group is totally clueless, right? To fix this, I have a motion-triggered announcement that plays the night before departure. It ensures the whole group hears the checkout time and procedures, so no one is left guessing. Or if I need a vehicle moved or the trash to be taken out, I use my mobile smart remote to both program the message and set the motion trigger.When it's time to leave, guests simply load the dishwasher and hit a physical 'Checkout' button on their way out. That single press adjusts

If I’m using hospitables dynamic pricing do I need price labs? Are they similar or is there a benefit I’m missing out on by not layer with pricelabs?

We currently charge guests for our Waivo damage waivers a “management fee” of $25/booking. We are moving toward the “self insuring” route but curious what people are charging each reservation to make this happen? I don’t want to deter bookings by charging too much but I’d like to charge enough to create a fund that would actually cover damage.

Hi I am having issues logging in due to being hacked at my account for hospitable.com like airbnb

 A few years ago I used Guesty as my PMS, and one feature I really liked was their built-in listing optimization tool. It would automatically go into each Airbnb listing daily, slightly rearrange a photo, then move it back a few minutes later to keep the listing “active.” I genuinely believe this helped with Airbnb’s algorithm and visibility. I’ve since switched to Hospitable and now do this manually, but with 50+ listings it’s extremely time-consuming. Does anyone know of software that can automate this (or something similar), or have tips on optimizing listings at scale without so much manual effort?

Hi everyone — I’m curious what solutions people have found for collecting guest email addresses post-booking given Airbnb’s limitations.I’ve tested StayFi Wi-Fi hardware in the past, but it proved unreliable and caused connectivity issues for guests, so I moved away from that approach. One idea I’ve heard is sending a post-stay or follow-up message with a link to a page where guests can opt in to future promotions or property updates.For those who’ve tackled this successfully:• What methods are actually working for you?• At what point in the guest journey do you request the email?• Any lessons learned or tools you’d recommend?Appreciate any real-world insights.

We’re getting 85-90% occupancy on AirBnB. But VRBO has absolutely ZERO bookings. Listings are as identical as can be, dnyamic pricing is synced. Is anyone else facing the same issue?

We are thinking about adding a hot tub to our property. What is the best kind to get and how hard is it to keep clean between guests. Are they worth investing in?

Switched from Evolve to managing our own listings recently.  just found out that VRBO rejected most, but not all, of the pix we uploaded.  These were the exact same professionally taken pix that Evolve used.  We bought the pic files from Evolve and I uploaded the same original files they used, which VRBO had no problem with.  Now they are rejected on our listings, and probably the reason we have almost zero traction on VRBO so far.  I have a feeling its the fact that we still have listings with Evolve until we work thru the remaining reservations we had with them.  The listings are no longer public, but they probably exist through the Evolve/VRBO integration, even though none of our remaining bookings are with VRBO.  How do we get this fixed?  Evolve and VRBO both point fingers at each other.  I don’t want to wait another 2 months until we’ve finished all Evolve bookings to delete the account.

I am co hosting and struggling with whether or not to create the accounts (Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO) and then hand them off to the owners or have the owners create the accounts.  As a co host, I am doing the heavy listing as in creating and filling in all their information.  I guess it’s a client satisfaction question, but what have you issues have you run into doing it one way or the other?

I was curious if anyone else is experiencing this issue, I got a 5 day suspension on a listing after one guest left a 1star review for checkin (overall 5 stars) 6 months ago and another one leaving a 2 star review on cleanliness (I constantly get top grades here) and 1 star on value. (Overall 3 stars) I understand reviews are subjective (I can’t argue perceived value) but to get a suspension after two moderate-ish reviews seems excessive, no? What’s your experience? And am I wrong in being shocked?

With the substantial increase in commission for Airbnb, I’m now wondering whether to just eliminate some of my mark ups, given I have a price markup for every channel now. Previously they were all set off of Airbnb Airbnb is now I believe, the highest commission rate. Has anyone gone in and just leveled out mark ups given that price increase?

Hi, a strange thing is happening recently that is quite consequential. We have several properties in Durango Colorado. When I search in for Durango, Colorado, the homes are not showing up properly. They may even show up on the 15th or 16th page. When I search for Durango, CO 81301 which is the ZIP Code or other locations in Durango itself, the home show up on the first or second page. I have reached out to Airbnb several times and are not getting any help from them. They are saying things are normal and some listings show up later. However, there is some glitch that I'm not sure how to get rectified. We went from having bookings quite often to almost no bookings. Also, I am using rank breeze and our home is not showing up on the first 17 pages. I spoke to somebody from rank breeze and they also told me that for whatever reason that Durango Colorado search is not producing our home in the search results. Has anybody seen something like this occurred before? Any ideas on how to tackle th

Vrbo now lets you upload a 2-minute video for each listing: https://help.vrbo.com/articles/How-do-I-add-a-video-tour-to-my-listingYes, I’ve gone to the trouble, despite any obvious benefits… I guess just a vague hope that listings with videos get ranked higher (no actual proof of this), or that maybe it helps with guest confidence and conversion (no proof of this either). One hesitation I had, though, had to do with the “scam” that some of us have run into, where someone contacts you on-platform asking for a video tour of the property. I’ve never gotten a clear indication of what the actual scam is, other than something to do with publishing a clone listing as an imposter to yours. But it did make me wonder whether Vrbo took into account the possibility of these “scammers” scraping the videos out of existing listings, for nefarious purposes.In any case, I’m curious what others think of this video feature? Have you used it? Would you want to show yours off?Here’s a representative sample

Wondering if anyone else has run into this issue and if so, how you solved it.  It’s a new and unique one for me.A couple of our properties are fairly large (7 bedrooms).  Our market is extremely seasonal but we keep these houses booked year round.  In the peak summer season they book for thousands per night on the weekends.  In the off-season we often drop the price all the way down to $90 for a mid-week night, which we still make money on and usually convinces a small family of 4 or even a couple to book a large house instead of something else.  For every booking, no matter season or stay length, or number of people, we keep the cleaning fee the same, about $700, which means we employ our same good cleaners year-round fully booked and also encourages people to book more night in the off-season to get a better nightly overall price deal.Last week, I noticed that the weekend of 1/3/26 was still not booked at one of our large houses, which is super rare, especially since I had been moni

Hi all!I noticed one of my listing lost its ‘category’ that it was listed under. Then I started to do some digging and I can't find the help support page that used to talk about the ‘listing categories’ on airbnb. I'm wondering if airbnb is going to get away from these categories? Anyone notice something similar?

Greetings all-  I am a relatively new host (July 2025).  As i have been getting smarter on my listing optimization, I am now generally generating 2-3 times more views than " similar listings" averagingnabout 15 views per day  However- for a week in October, I went 4-5 days in a row of zero views. I had never had a zero views day nor had i ever been under the similar listing views up to that point.  Additionally I got a couple of inquiries during that time which would be impossible without a view.  I contacted airbnb customer service and was told everything was fine with my listing. And then all of a sudden I went from zero to 20 views in one day.    Since that time I have not had any issue until last week when I flatlined all week at 3 views per day despite getting 2 bookings during that time.  Similar listings were avg 10 per day.  Again I contacted airbnb and again was told nothing was wrong with my account.  As I type this at 6AM on Sunday...I show i already have 9 views today.   I

Hosting a new property and owner wants it to be as environmentally sustainable as possible. Is there a good resource to study specific to the STR world?

I have a townhouse unit that is connected to a studio, where guests can book one, the other, or both. The dividing door between the areas needs to be locked unless the the guest books both areas, in which case the door should be able to be opened from either side. Has anyone found a solution to this? I have been unable to find a smart or coded lock with a keypad on both sides.