By Rowan Clifford
Author of Airbn’b’Smart and Hospitable user
Airbnb has over 5 Million listings worldwide (and growing).
Suffice to say, competition is heating up, and many hosts are feeling the squeeze.
So, does that mean you’re destined to ‘slow-bleed’ your bookings away to your competitors? Or are there proactive steps you can take to increase your bookings
Turns out there’s a number of things you can do to increase your bookings…
…one such way is by changing your Airbnb listing to reflect the seasonal changes.
Why you should change your listing for changing seasons
As the seasons change, so do the purchasing decisions we make.
Above: A study by The Weather Company found that people’s feelings are affected by the weather, and, with them, their purchase behaviors.
In the summer we want summery things. In winter we want wintery things.
Department stores have long been taking advantage of this fact as they change the entire look and feel of their stores to position themselves inline with their customers purchasing decisions.
We can learn a thing or two from these high street stores and implement them into the way we compose our Airbnb listings to further resonate with potential guests looking to book.
Before you get to learn the seasonal hacks, download our guide on boosting the performance of STR business.
What areas of your listing can you change to reflect the changes in the seasons?
There are many different areas of your Airbnb listing that can be easily interchanged to reflect seasonal changes:
Images
The imagery you choose to display your home can be adjusted to reflect the differing seasons.
Winter
Winter imagery for your listing should evoke feelings of warmth, coziness and comfort.
To make your images more wintery:
- Soft lighting
- Soft, fluffy furnishings
- Lit fires
- Comfy rugs
- Earthy colors—browns, greys, dark orange, dark green, etc.
- Less minimalism, more coziness
- Candles
- Fairy lights
Pro Tip: Using an image editor, add a little extra warmth to your images to give that extra warm and welcoming feel.
Summer
Summer imagery should evoke feelings of freshness, space & light.
To make your images more summery:
- Keep things minimal
- Bright lighting
- Big open spaces
- Simple furnishings
- Light and bright colors—white, blue, yellow, red, etc.
- Bright flowers
Pro Tip: Using an image editor, add a little extra exposure to your images to give them extra brightness and light.
Image Captions
Airbnb gives hosts the ability to add more detailed descriptions to their images with image captions.
We can use these image captions to add seasonally relevant descriptions and increase their impact.
For example:
Winter image caption—”Relax, unwind and melt into the winter evenings in front of the warm, open fire.”
Summer image caption—”Unwind into the long summer evenings in this bright communal social space.”
The images above are courtesy of our friends at the wonderful villas Casa de Anny in Boyaca, Colombia.
Title
The title of your listing acts as a big attention grabber when potential guests are searching for somewhere to stay on Airbnb. Having a seasonally adjusted title for your listing will help it resonate more with potential guests looking to book.
Winter title example
Cute, Warm & Cozy Inner City Pad With Open Fire
Summer title example
Bright, Light & Vibrant Inner City Pad Close To Grassy Parks
Changing the title of your Airbnb listing to reflect the changes in the seasons gives your listing a very different feel.
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Listing Descriptions
Much in the same way that your listing title can be altered to reflect seasonal changes, so too can your listing descriptions.
However, with your listing descriptions, it’s possible to get a little more creative.
Interweave these descriptive words within your Airbnb listing descriptions to add more emotive descriptions that’ll resonate with your guests.
How often should you change your listing to reflect seasonal changes?
Changing and improving your listing should be something that you’re constantly trying to do (regardless of season), however, when it comes to full seasonal overhauls of your listing, I recommend changing it twice a year.
Once for Spring and Summer and once for Autumn and Winter.
I suggest this for two reasons:
- Guests often book in advance—You want to be showcasing your listing in the best possible way to attract the most amount of bookings, at the best possible price, as much as possible.
- Summer and winter are more emotive—Autumn and Spring certainly conjure up much nostalgia and imagery, however, there is a lot of overlap into Summer & Winter. To keep things easier and to reduce workload, I think x2 seasonal variations (Summer & Winter) is sufficient.
Pro Tip: Make sure to save your images, image descriptions, titles, descriptions, etc. somewhere safe. This will make the listing changes pain-free and easy.
Conclusion
As the Airbnb landscape becomes ever more competitive, you, as a host, must work smart to stay ahead of the pack.
Varying your listing to reflect the changing seasons is one such way.
To learn more ways of boosting the performance of your STR business, download our guide. It’s free and useful.
I hope you can take what you’ve learned in this article and implement it on your listings to great effect.
Peace out.
Rowan.
Rowan Clifford is a serial solopreneur and founder of Airbn’b’ Smart where he writes tips, tricks and hacks for savvy Airbnb hosts looking to maximise their earning potential with minimum effort.
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