How to maximize your Airbnb revenue

Are you an Airbnb host? Then you are one of nearly three million worldwide! That number makes sense when you know that it’s possible to make a profit quite easily as a host. Most hosts focus on the prices they charge for renting a room, apartment or house. However, they forget that they can enhance their results after the booking is placed.

Guest behavior is changing. Guests are spending more money during their stay than ever before. Within the experience economy, people prefer to spend their money on activities, events, and high-quality services rather than buying possessions. As an Airbnb host, you can benefit from this trend.

The guest journey has many touch points you can leverage to offer additional services and upsells that will improve the overall guest experience. In this post, we’ll explain how to maximize revenue based on the guest journey and how to implement specific touchpoints to get the most out of it.

The booking

The most important step to making a profit via Airbnb is to make sure that you actually receive guests. In this aspect, the way you list your property compared to your competitors is key. Airbnb offers a tool to set your pricing that takes various factors into account. This smart pricing feature considers the type and location of your listing, as well as the season, demand, and other elements. If you want to go beyond that there is technology available that can help you with price optimization for your Airbnb.

If you improve your rental pricing model, then the traction that your listing gets on Airbnb will grow too. Like Google and other search engines, Airbnb search places popular and updated listings higher in the rankings. It doesn’t even depend on your Superhost status! Of course, being close to the top of the page could make a big difference to your Airbnb business.

Side note: depending on if you use a PMS or not, most hosts pay a flat fee of 3% of the reservation subtotal. The subtotal is, your nightly rate plus your cleaning fee and any other fees your guests pay (excluding Airbnb fees and taxes). Airbnb states that these additional costs help Airbnb stay active and support hosts with marketing activities and host protection programs.

After the booking is placed

With guest expectations at an all-time high, as a host, it is vital to be proactive. Prior to their arrival, you can offer your guests various options and additional services to improve their stay. You can tailor these options to the type of guest. For example, knowing when your guests arrive and/or leave helps you to determine if you can offer early check-in or late check-out. If the main booker has a family with a young child, offer child-centric amenities. Another simple additional service is to have room upgrades available. You could also allow guests to extend their stay at a discounted price. Do not hesitate to proactively share these options with your guests!

During the stay

Your guests have arrived and they are ready to explore. You can help them, making their stay pleasant both in and outside the home. Guests love to receive recommendations, and how about offering extra services yourself? From offering a private chef or masseuse to providing sports equipment for rent, there are so many ways to make your guests’ experience more fun and memorable and maximize your profits at the same time. Of course, offering or recommending tours and day trips is excellent too! Build partnerships with local tour operators in the neighborhood and agree on referral fees or use existing affiliate opportunities from experience platforms like Getyourguide, Tripadvisor, or Withlocals. Did you know that you can get up to 10% commission if you refer guests that place a booking?

During and after check-out

Your guests had a lovely stay and are ready to leave. For the host, there are still opportunities to maximize profits. If there is some time between check-out and the guests’ flight, offer them luggage storage nearby. You could also offer a discount for future bookings or referrals, encouraging your guests to return next year or spreading the word about your properties to friends and family. One thing to remember with discounts – always set an expiry date. Let guests know that booking through online travel agents (OTAs) such as Airbnb, is more expensive for the guest than making a reservation directly. Last but not least: do you have multiple properties? Notify your leaving guests about this for future bookings!

Ways to communicate about your offerings

Depending on how you run your business you may decide to implement service offerings and communicate them to your guests. It’s important to keep in mind that consumer behavior changes rapidly, including the way people like to interact with their hosts.

We’ve listed some ways to implement communication touchpoints, depending on how you like to run your business or communicate with guests:

• Do you only work with direct bookings? Use a manual communication stream with an email service (such as Mailchimp) or use Whatsapp messaging. Prepare the messages in advance and set/send them at specific times during the guest journey.
• If you use an OTA like Airbnb, use the Airbnb communication features, plus additional manual streams by email or whatsapp.
• If you use a PMS, set automated communication streams through your property management system. Most of these systems have a communication feature where you can set up dedicated email and/or SMS communication streams.
• Ever thought about using a guest app or chatbot? This allows you to send your guests mobile notifications or sends automatic service offerings based on guest interactions.

Modern travelers’ behavior is closely intertwined with their smartphones. This goes way beyond traditional email communication. Therefore, nowadays it is very important to communicate with your guests the way they want at the most convenient time. That’s why a chatbot is a great tool to interact with them. A smart chatbot or guest app helps you build guest profiles based on guest behavior. Also, it helps you understand better what to offer based on guest profiles. As a consequence, you can pull specific upsells based on guest interaction, resulting in more revenue for you as a host.

Make the most of the guest journey

There are many opportunities along the guest journey for you to benefit and maximize Airbnb revenue. At the same time, you improve the guest experience. Guest knowledge is key – adjust your offering to the type of guest and the destination. Increase the average guest spend easily with the help of communication tools.– either manually, with automated email flows, or by targeting your guests at the right time with a guest app and/or smart chatbot.