Using Instant Booking on Airbnb

At the end of the day, if you’re renting your property out on Airbnb, it should be viewed as a business; you’re offering a service that generates revenue, and hopefully, profit. Now, a successful is one that is efficient and operates seamlessly. When it comes to Airbnb, success relies on a brilliant response rate, an effective listing, and a fantastic property.

Although, as a host, it can be difficult to master all of those; offering the best possible property is the easy part, but creating an effective listing that is appealing to travelers, and responding to every query in a timely manner can be a struggle if you’re busy. That’s why it’s important that you manage bookings, otherwise you could quickly lose control.

A great way to do that, is to enable the instant booking feature on your listings.

What is instant booking?

Instant booking is where you allow guests to book your property if they like it, without having to seek approval from your first. This is one of the best functions that Airbnb have developed, and that’s because it’s so beneficial for both hosts and guests. As a host, here’s the list of reasons why you should utilize instant booking:

Improve response rate:

Response rate is crucial to how you perform on Airbnb; after all, guests don’t want to be waiting ages for someone to reply to them when they’re eager to secure a place to stay. But, it can be hard for a host to maintain a healthy response rate, especially if there are multiple queries each day.

If you remove the need to have to respond to every guest, and just let them book independently, your response rate will shoot up. Subsequently, you’ll then be able to achieve a ‘superhost’ status (90% and above), as well as have your listing appear higher in the search results.

Attract more guests:

Guests appreciate the convenience of being able to search for a suitable property and then make a booking. That’s why so many guests filter their search results to only include listings with the instant booking enabled. Therefore, if you have the option activated, you’ll receive a lot more interest on your listings.

Increase conversion:

There’s one thing attracting guests to your listing, but there’s another thing securing a booking. Without instant booking, a guest will contact you, and may decide against your property during the time it takes you to respond. Whereas, with instant booking, if they like your property, they’ll have no time to talk themselves out of booking.

How to set instant booking on Airbnb

It’s extremely easy to activate the feature, and you’ll only need to decide your available travel dates to get started. Once you’ve done that, do the following:

Go to your listings in your Airbnb account
Select ‘Manage listing’
Click ‘Booking settings’ which is located at the top of the page
Select ‘Guests who meet all your requirements can book without requesting approval’

It’s as easy as that, but of course, this isn’t a viable option for everyone. So, if you need some help with hosting, and want access to some fantastic Airbnb host tools, don’t hesitate to contact us for more information.