Coronavirus Support for Short Term Rentals & Airbnb Hosts

An Open Letter From Rankbreeze

Airbnb SEO & STR Pricing Tips

For the moment, the main reasons for booking your properties have shifted. You need to connect with these new desires on why someone would stay at your property in this time of lowered travel and physical distancing.

If encouraging quarantine guests is on your primary goal then you need to consider how they will keep themselves entertained. After all, they’ll be in your place for 14 days, right?

If you are in a traditional vacation rental market and a drivable distance from major cities, think about using words such as “calm”, “serene” and “retreat” because it’s likely going to connect with this person more. We are in some crazy times after all.

Don’t be afraid to offer multi-week discounts directly on your titles as well.

Reduce all your length of stay rules, provide flexible cancelation policies and optimize for shorter lead times because people are still searching on Airbnb and those areas increase your search visibility.

For more specific revenue management tactics, please see our response plan at the very top of this page and also the quotes from our friendly experts below.

Cleaning Tips

It’s important to keep your cleaning staff and future guests safe, so at the moment, the Centers for Disease Control is advising STR managers to wait 24 hours after each guest’s stay to begin cleaning.

For additional resources, here are some of the best ones we’ve tracked down:

What The Experts Are Saying

We’ve reached out to a few friends and users of Rankbreeze on how they plan to navigate this situation.

We’ve asked them two questions:

1) What advice can you provide to save, maintain or increase reservations during this unique moment in time?

2) What will the 2.0 version of your STR rental business look like?

Let’s have a look at what they have to say!

What advice can you provide to save, maintain or increase reservations during this unique moment in time?

Now is the time to be creative, don’t shut down your business, evolve it!

I am taking the time to get to know the rental avenues for medical professionals who have 3mo+ contracts and am learning about location rentals, which is rentals by the hour for productions.

We are all blessed to have inventory, homes as tangible goods; we just need to learn new ways to utilize them.

Zeona Mcintyre
ZeonaMcintyre.com

What advice can you provide to save, maintain or increase reservations during this unique moment in time?

Demand has shifted from travelers and vacationers to people who need a place out of necessity, think medical professionals, people who are stranded, people who want to isolate or people looking for a substitute office.

The best thing you can do to attract these people is to think about their needs, where you can find them and how to serve them and market to them.

What will the 2.0 version of your STR rental business look like?

I’m looking to have more control over my business and be less dependent on OTAs like Airbnb.

Jasper Ribbers
GetPaidForYourPad.com

What advice can you provide to save, maintain or increase reservations during this unique moment in time?

The same best practices apply: make it easy for the guest to choose your listing. There’s a million tips and tricks, but if you respect your guest’s attention, you’ll be a winning host.

Today, with Coronavirus, you should be lowering your pricing so low the guest doesn’t even need to negotiate with you because they know based on the reviews and optimized listing how great a deal you’ve listed. Make it easy for the guest to choose your listing.

What will the 2.0 version of your STR rental business look like?

Version 2.0 is in progress now with a focus on tools. I’ve released the Airbnb Title Generator last month, soon I will put out an Airbnb Revenue Calculator. More to come!

Danny Rusteen
OptimizeMyBnb.com

What advice can you provide to save, maintain or increase reservations during this unique moment in time?

Diversify, be flexible and be patient are my tops tips in this unusual situation we are all experiencing at the current time.

To initially try and encourage as many bookings as you can change your listing description / title to meet the current market by talking about the high standard of cleaning in your property, the fast and unlimited wifi, etc.

Also consider offering long stay discounts. If you are not seeing enough income through short term rentals currently consider diversifying and putting a longer term tenant in your property for a few months.

I recently just transitioned my very first Airbnb property into a long term fully furnished rental for a nurse needing to self isolate from her family for the next few months This was a win/win for both of us.

What will the 2.0 version of your STR rental business look like?

We need to learn from our current experience and ensure that we are offering flexible options to meet all situations such as transitioning to longer term rentals if the tourism market is quiet.

Ensuring you are receiving the best return on investment by being flexible with your services is going to put you and your clients in the best position long term.

A positive outcome for the STR Industry will be that if you can ride out the current situation with your business you will find there will be less competitors in the marketplace when visitors start coming to your local area again.

A lot of property owners will choose to stay with long term options or other alternatives and therefore there will be less STR’s in the market. Prices can be corrected back to a level where it makes for operating a profitable STR business. Hang in there!!

Julie George
MillionDollarHost.com.au

What advice can you provide to save, maintain or increase reservations during this unique moment in time?

There’s been a ton we’ve done to adapt. For the masses: I recommend anyone with a short term rental research to understand revenue management.

This is the most crucial step in responding actively to changes in supply and demand. There are many more tips on the YouTube channel.

What will the 2.0 version of your STR rental business look like?

New direction for us is to acquire new STRs in smart ways on the back end of this crisis and to do a lot more bookings directly.

Sean Rakidzich
Airbnb-Auto.com

What advice can you provide to save, maintain or increase reservations during this unique moment in time?

Be pro-active, flexible and agile.

Rebalance your portfolio as needed. If you need to switch to medium and long term rentals, then be swift with that decision and do your best to amplify your property to local partners (local rental platforms, corporate housing, medical staff, etc.)

Reach out to as many partners as possible and formulate strong relationships because everyone is in an uncertain situation right now and everyone is open to new partnerships.

For your rentals on Airbnb, you need to make sure your offer is clearly stated in the title and cover photo. For example, “Two Week Discount”, “Boardgames”, “Private Gym”, “Pool Table” and any other offers that would stand out for these new guest desires.

What will the 2.0 version of your STR rental business look like?

When the dust settles, Airbnb will still be there. Short term rentals and vacation rentals have been around for hundreds of years (since the first hunting lodge in 1624) and will continue to be.

Things that last a long time have a tendency to continue on, even in these uncertain times.

How our industry will change is still unknown as we wait for the reaction of travelers. We do, however, expect folks to continue social distancing for a while. Redefine your target markets, understand how the guest persona is evolving and focus on activities that provide positive value for the world and your business.

Kelvin Mah
Rankbreeze.com

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