How To Drive 5X More Traffic To Your Airbnb Listing Without Being "Tech-Savvy"
Updated: May 24, 2022
Would you believe me if I told you that you could market your listing to five times MORE guests every month?
That’s five times more potential guests viewing your listing.
Five times more chances to secure new bookings.
Well it’s true, and I can prove it…
The Blue Ticket To Exponentially More Guests
Chances are, you’re currently only listed on Airbnb…
If you are listed on other platforms, then this section will be useful for you as well.
According to “similarweb.com”, Airbnb had 58,300,000 monthly active users on their website for the month of December 2020.
58 million sounds like a huge number, and it is!
BUT…
Let’s compare it to some of the other major booking platforms…
First let’s look at Booking.com…
And before you tell me about all the horror stories and scan right past this section…
First, let me outline just how powerful it can be.
Then how very different it is to Airbnb and how you can use that to your advantage with greater control over your bookings, damage deposits and policies.
At BeyondBNB.io, we actually much prefer using Booking.com versus any other OTA, as it gives us more freedom to run our business the way we want to run it, without having to contact Airbnb support staff and jump through a thousand hoops to get things done.
But I digress…
According to “Similarweb.com”, for the same December 2020 period, Booking.com had a total of 229,000,000 monthly active users.
That alone is just under FOUR TIMES MORE people looking at their website every single month!
But it gets better…
Guests on Airbnb tend to shop around more…
A LOT more…
The average user on Airbnb generally goes on 26 different pages before making a purchasing decision.
Which means, your listing has to stand out as the best against 25 comparable listings. (I’ll teach you how to do this in the next section.)
Whereas on Booking.com, potential guests are only looking at an average of 6.5 pages before making up their mind as to where to stay.
So not only are four times more potential customers looking at your property, but they’re also only comparing you to 6 other listings, as opposed to 25 others on Airbnb.
Where do you think you have the best chance of being booked?
I know my answer.
In fact, depending on the location, we get around 50% of our bookings coming through Booking.com and they’re always much easier to deal with.
See the image below for an example of the revenue we generate from Booking.com in any given month;
Myth-Busters
Now, there’s a common misconception when it comes to Booking.com…
We’ve all heard the horror stories of hosts who’ve used it and;
Had to take money in person when the guests arrived (or not gotten paid at all)
Wasn’t able to charge guests for damages, as the host wasn’t able to contact Booking.com’s customer support
Got a high number of cancellations
Had poor quality guests
In fact, all of these outcomes WILL come to fruition…
And HAVE come to fruition for me in the past when I first listed on Booking.com.
But there’s also a way to list without running into any of these issues, and having some major upsides from day one, such as;
Full control over payments
Full control over charging security deposits
Attract better guests by creating your own house rules (outside of Booking.com’s limited set)
Create your own cancellation policy and be able to enforce it without the OTA overruling it (bar extraordinary circumstances)
And the list goes on…
The first thing to be aware of is that Booking.com is NOT just another Airbnb.
In fact, they’re entirely different…
Airbnb facilitates the transaction between the host and the guest from end-to-end.
Meaning if there’s any issues that arise, Airbnb plays mommy and daddy to help mediate the resolution.
Booking.com on the other hand, merely introduces the two parties and then leaves it up to you as the host to facilitate the entire transaction.
Meaning, you have to take payments, hold, charge or release security deposits and enforce your own policies.
Can you see how listing on the platform without this knowledge could end up in a disaster?
It happens every day…
But knowing the core differences between the two platforms, and having systems in place to facilitate each transaction is the difference between success and failure.
Sounds difficult? It’s not…
Once you’ve got everything set up correctly, have policies and systems in place to help you with payments and security deposits, then it should be easier than running your Airbnb.
And with a LOT less headaches!
The First Step - An Easy Way To Double Your Exposure Quickly
Now that you’ve seen the power of expanding your market, let’s consider the first step you should take…
You may or may not have heard about another OTA called “Expedia”.
If not, I’m sure you’ve heard of “Stayz”, “HomeAway”, “Hotels.com” or “VRBO”.
Expedia is essentially every booking channel you’ve ever seen that’s not Airbnb or Booking.com.
In fact, they own over 200+ other booking channels.
Because they’re listed across so many different websites, it’s difficult to pin-point the exact number of monthly active users.
But if we tally up the monthly active users in the same month of December 2020 from;
VRBO
HomeAway
Expedia
Stayz
Hotels.com
We end up with a sum total of 87,770,000 monthly active users across the Expedia network.
This may not be entirely accurate, as it’s across all of Expedia’s channels…
But I think it would be safe to say the numbers are comparable to Airbnb’s 58,300,000 users (if not slightly more.)
The great thing about Expedia, is that it’s still easy to operate like Airbnb, but it also gives that added flexibility in terms of how you wish to operate your listings.
So as a great first step, I’d recommend listing on Expedia to get a feel for going “Multi-Channel”.
Then once you’re comfortable with the platform, move on to Booking.com.
This is a great way to double your potential guest audience without much hassle at all. And the best thing about Expedia?
We find that bookings made through their channel are generally longer and mainly well-behaved families.
Higher yielding bookings with better guests… nothing wrong with that!
If you’re in Australia, the best way to get started on Expedia is by going to HomeAway.com (not .com.au) and listing there. This will list you across all eligible 200+ booking channels.
Manage Your Listing Across Multiple Booking Channels
Now that you’re listed across multiple booking channels, it presents a problem…
If a booking is made on Airbnb, does it automatically block out those dates on your Booking.com and Expedia calendar? The answer is no.
But there’s a simple solution…
It’s called a “Channel-Manager”.
The sole purpose of a channel manager is to enable you to manage your listing across multiple booking channels.
It will sync your calendars to ensure no double bookings, provide you with a “unified inbox” so you can message guests that have come through any booking channel via the channel manager, help you manage payments and security deposits and a whole lot more depending on what you require.
As there are hundreds of channel managers on the market, with hundreds of unique features and pricing models, it’s first important to outline exactly what you need it for.
If you only need something to sync your calendars and message guests, you can choose a simple solution like YourPorter.com. I’ve used them personally and would recommend it for anyone getting started. Prices start from as little as $5 per month.
If you’re wanting a little more customization and advanced functionality, I’d recommend HostAway.com. This is what we use to offer a fully customizable experience to our clients.
Ready To Take The Next Step?
Actioning the steps above will put you well on the right track for increasing your Airbnb's traffic by 5X.
But what about using a custom pricing strategy to get an additional night booked each week at $192, yielding you an additional $10,000 each year?
Or converting more of those people now LOOKING at your listing, to actually BOOKING...
Using proven Airbnb booking conversion strategies?
If you're looking to learn more about how to maximize your Airbnb's earnings, click the link below to join me for my next free training event, where I'll go into detail on how we've helped hosts increase their earnings by up to 112%:
https://event.webinarjam.com/channel/free-airbnb-training
Best regards, Jordan Hrovat
Co-Founder BeyondBNB.io