A Guide to Being The Perfect Airbnb Host

Our tips on Airbnb for hosts

Airbnb is an extremely effective platform for getting your property booked-out during the holidays. It can be used exclusively to obtain high occupation rates and income levels.

The main advantage that Airbnb has over its competitors is its Host Guarantee insurance policy (although this is not strictly speaking a guarantee), which offers compensation in the event of any breakage/damage caused by guests to the property. This guarantee automatically benefits all hosts who host their property through the platform.

Finally, Airbnb is undoubtedly one of the most intuitive and user-friendly rental platforms, whether you are accessing it from a computer or from the Airbnb app, which enables you to manage all of your reservations from a smartphone.

As a private landlord, it is undeniably THE platform to be on.

How do I sign up to Airbnb ?

ESTIMATE MY INCOME ON AIRBNB

Signing up to Airbnb couldn't be easier. All you need to do is create your profile, simply describing yourself and adding your profile picture.

As a future Airbnb host, you must then create your advert on Airbnb from within the host space.

We encourage you to follow a few tips when creating your ad on Airbnb to ensure it is successful:

  • Make sure you have professional photos of your property, as this will boost the click-through rates for your ad and bookings.
  • Translate your ad into several languages so you obtain more viewings on the platform and to make your offer more appealing. An advert in English is an absolute must these days!
  • Define your rental conditions: we advise you to keep them fairly strict to avoid being penalised in the event guests cancel their booking.
  • Ensure you list all the facilities that your accommodation has available.

How does Airbnb work?

Once your ad has been created, from within "my airbnb account", the Airbnb host space allows you to manage your ad and reservations. There are three main elements you need to be aware of:

  • Availability: the Airbnb calendar enables you to change the dates to display when your accommodation is available or booked. The calendar also allows you to define the price per night for your property.
  • The Airbnb email account allows you to communicate with guests, to send them a pre-approval that they can accept or reject, as well as enabling you to accept their reservation.
  • The link to your ad enables you to modify the content, conditions or even set it to "hidden".

How much is/are the commission/fees for the Airbnb service?

In its infancy, Airbnb struggled to find hosts to list their ad on the platform, which explains why their fees are so low.

Indeed, Airbnb only takes 3% commission on the bookings made!

All you need to know about succeeding on Airbnb: our Airbnb tips

Here are our tips, the result of our extensive experience, to succeed on Airbnb:

Optimize your Airbnb ad and really think about how best to present your property

An Airbnb is not just a simple property. You need to put a lot of thought into ensuring your property is comfortable, well-equipped and has a certain individuality.

  • A coffee machine, kettle and hairdryer have become must-haves on Airbnb. That is to say, it is important to have the standard equipment you would expect to find in a tourist accommodation.
  • The fact that guests have a comfortable sofa bed to sleep on or ensuring that the accommodation doesn't have a major defect/complexity of use will also be an additional benefit as well as being an expectation of guests.
  • An empty or sparsely furnished and decorated apartment will attract less attention and these kinds of flaws will remain in the minds of guests.

Think about the quality of your property and ensure you make it as comfortable as possible!

Appeal

As we said, ensure you ad is appealing. The more clicks it gets from the Airbnb search results, the more prominent it will become to potential guests.

Professional photos and carefully worded ads are essential investments (especially in terms of time).

Airbnb reviews

You can access your Airbnb reviews from your dashboard. They are essential: the more positive reviews you receive, the more bookings you will secure.

An Airbnb review is based on the following criteria:

  • Precision: does your ad reflect the reality of the accommodation?
  • Cleanliness: is the accommodation clean?
  • Communication: did you respond to your guest's questions? Are you attentive to their needs?
  • Arrival: was the guest met on time? How did they rate their check-in?
  • Location: is your accommodation in a good location?
  • Price/quality ratio: is the booking experience fairly reflected in the price?

For each stay you are in fact scored on your organisation and logistics (cleanliness, check-out, communication, etc.) as well as on the accommodation itself. You need to be extremely conscientious to achieve the best possible scores.

Airbnb Superhost

True success on Airbnb is about achieving the status of Superhost. To become a Superhost you need to meet the following criteria:

  • Have an average score (overall evaluation) of 4.8 or more
  • Have a 90% minimum response rate, which means that you respond to your guests within 24 hours 90% of the time
  • Host at least 10 groups of guests or more per year
  • Have never cancelled a booking, except in the event of force majeure

The advantage of being a Superhost is simply that you are identified as such on the platform and appear more frequently in search results than other adverts.

If you are lucky enough to have a property in one of the cities we serve, then let us be your dream host! Our Airbnb management service secures, manages and optimises Airbnb bookings for our hosts.

If you have a property in Vancouver, Whistler, Kelowna, or Tofino, definitely get in touch with us. Otherwise, we hope that our tips will come in handy in helping you achieve success on Airbnb!

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