My STR only gets booking from airbnb

[Yitzchok Carmen]

Hi All,

So I have a cabin in the smokies on both Airbnb and VRBO. I have so far had about 30 bookings and every single one has been from airbnb. Not  a single one from VRBO despite the fact that the VRBO prices are significantly lower and that I had eight 5 star reviews that were transferred over from Evolve. (I used to use Evolve before switching to self managing. interestingly with Evolve I got more VRBO than airbnb). I suppose it doesnt really matter as long as the dates are getting booked but I am uncomfortable with the fact that airbnb has so much control over my property, (esp in light of the last couple months), I feel like I need to diversify where the bookings are coming from somewhat. Does anyone know any tips to get VRBO bookings/ boost the listing or any other decent platform that will actually get bookings? I am not paying the $500 annual fee on VRBO as officially that doesnt make any dif in the ranking of your listing but I am starting to wonder if that is really true....?

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated,

Thank you!

[Patricia Steiner]

What is your guest profile?  Take a look at this recent survey on familiarity with VRBO and HomeAway by age group:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/875088/homeaway-vrbo-familiarity-in-the-united-states-by-age/

82% of those surveyed who were 55 and older were not very familiar or not familiar at all with those two listing sites. It was lower for the other two age groups but the reality is that AirBnB has twice the listings of VRBO - and therefore gets a lot more attention.  

AirBnb is also a great source for attracting Canadian guests as the company does not adjust Canadian Dollars into US. The even exchange makes US Destinations affordable.

My recommendation would be to look at who your guests tend to be and adjust your listing narrative to better reflect the desired guest profile. 

Hope this helps.