Hello, welcome back to the great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

I'm Annette Grant. And together we are. Thanks for Visiting.

And this is the Hosting Hotline. If you wanna get your hosting questions answered here on the hosting hotline, go to hostinghotline.com, ask your question, and we'll answer them every Tuesday here on the podcast. And this week we're actually taking a question from our YouTube comments, and this is from Shaune Bartoo. S-H-A-U-N-E-B-A-R-T-O-O.

This is a zinger, a ringer, a humdinger. I can't wait for this question.

I cannot with you. I'll let you read it then.

I just made that up. I've never done that trifecta before.

Is that what that was?

A zinger, a ringer and a humdinger. It was so good. Alright, here's the question. I have an Airbnb. First of all, Shaune, you have a short-term rental in a small town with a huge yearly festival and it lasts a week. Is there any strategy to get a booking for that whole week? I would love that. I'm afraid I'm going to get the usual two nights stay person.

Such a good question. It's such a good example of when hosts need to think strategically and Sean is zooming out. Thinking about this annual event that happens and how he can be more strategic about how he leverages his short-term rental, his asset to make more money.

Mm-hmm. So the, the short quick answer is yes, you can force a week long stay. Airbnb makes it simple to set a minimum stay requirement for that week. And you could also do this through your dynamic pricing software, however. That quick answer is not the best answer because it is not the full story. I also almost wanna say it's like the um, default thought that that would be the best reservation. And so we are here to flip the script so we don't just. You know, we don't wanna stop teaching you on where to click. We wanna help you understand like why you're making that choice. So we could simply say, go in, create the week longs, stay, be done with it. We are not set it and forget. It's because that is not the best strategy for you. So the assumption that you're making, Shaune, is that the week long stay would be the quote unquote best scenario for your property during that festival. So here's what we wanna talk about for a week long stay for that festival. We have some questions. Do people usually attend for the entire week or are there high and low points in demand? All of you think about something similar to this in your area. We all have things similar to this. Again, do people usually attend for the entire week or are there high and low points in demand? And if your usual two night guests are consistently booking, that might reflect the actual demand pattern in your market for that event. So are those two nights the most in demand nights of the week? For those two nights days. So you might actually earn more revenue with multiple short stays at a premium versus one week long guest.

It's like, and, and Shaune, we are not, this is a great question and I have to stop myself and challenge myself to think strategically when sometimes I think it's us just subconsciously wanting a break.

No, and, and, and, and that can't actually. That's a fair and valid point, Sarah. Hey, guess what? Maybe you, yourself, this is having awareness about you and your goals. Maybe you wanna participate in this festival. Maybe it's a huge thing for the entire city, and you and your family participate in it a lot. Then maybe a week long guest is ideal in instead of having multiple two nights stays. But we're also gonna give you another one of maybe a shorter stay at a premium.

Cause that's solving for a different goal. That's solving for a goal of simplicity in your life. Where you're not shutting down your short term rental. But as long as that guest is a good guest in terms of they get in, they're happy, they, you know, there's nothing. Because that's the thing too, is everyone wants the perfect scenario and no matter what business you're in, humans are going to human. But let's just say that's the goal you're solving for then that's, that's a good solution.

And HVAC and toilets go down during week long stays.

They do.

During the biggest festival.

Hey, when you shut your place down, pipes still leak everyone, so.

Aren't we bringing it all together?

Well.

So we're gonna give, we wanna talk about, these are real strategies that, that we use. Okay?

Yes.

So we're gonna go over three of them. Number one, require that week long stay. So that works if the data shows demand for full week bookings. So you're gonna wanna know your booking window. If you don't know your booking window we have where what that is, we have other content about that. So check that out. So when does this festival usually get booked? Like when are guests booking for the festival? So you're gonna wanna know that if you're gonna require that week long stay because most likely I'm just gonna go out a limb. They're booking. Further out because they wanna secure their week long stay. So number one, require week long stay. But you need to be very aware of your booking window because if it's getting closer and you're still not booked, or you're within your booking window and you're not booked for that week long, you might blow it and sit empty. Okay. Option B, you wanna allow shorter stays at premium rates premium, and I want to challenge everyone.

Your premium probably isn't premium enough.

We are still. To this day, like in shock, sometimes when we keep pushing rate, pushing rate, we thought we've hit the premium and some event comes to town and blows that out. Our old premium, our old record outta the water. So you're gonna wanna capture multiple guests across the week. Again, that's where you're gonna wanna know what, if there is a demand for those multiple two nights stays, but each booking could be priced at a premium. Because of those demand spikes. So you might have three, two night stays, but all of them at premium rates, and you crush that week long stay because people are probably assuming a lower rate at the week long. And then option C is a hybrid approach. You'll set a minimum stay requirement initially. Also make sure it's priced appropriately with some of those premium rates. Like you still, if the weekend is when they're coming in, you wanna make sure that that, um, minimum stay requirement. You still are, have premium rates during those peak times of the festival, but as the festival gets closer, you might need to relax on your minimum night stay to capture any last minute demand at those top rates.

Let that sink in.

If you, I actually, the biggest teaching moment right now is I really want everybody to know there is so much that goes into your dynamic pricing. This is not just a week long festival. There are things like this happening in your town consistently. So these like pricing strategies, we want you to be aware of them. We want you to test them. We actually would like you to test all of these, especially let's say Shaune is gonna have his property for hopefully years and years and years. You could test different things during different years and see, um, how that fares for you. But this really should for whomever you are, wherever your property is. There are multiple strategies even throughout the year, during peak season, slow season, festival season, et cetera.

We see this all the time though. Hosts focus on rates or hosts don't focus on rates, they focus on the length of stay. But we have to remember that is what makes the coveted short-term rental gold rush. The gold rush it is because having short stays, that is a convenience and that is something people will pay for. So we want you to focus on rates not length.

And the reason we wanna think about this right now, I want to, all of us, to think about the last time you needed a one or two night stay and you paid an unbelievable amount, happily, gladly, quickly, because you wanted to secure your overnight stay in that area. I will share with you, I went to the national, the football National Championship for the Ohio State Buckeyes. Planned it very last minute because you didn't even know until right before who was going to be there. And I, I did stay in a hotel for this because I wanted to be near the stadium and stayed at a hotel with minimal amenities, minimal anything, and wowsers, they were getting premium rates, but again, I would g gladly pay that over and over again because I needed to be in that city. Very near the, the location at that time. So I want everyone to think of when you're pricing your property and you're thinking, there's no way I could get that, put yourself in the shoes of when you have done that yourself to go to a concert, a sporting event, see a family member that you really needed to see.

Or don't because there are people in it who would never, like my husband, uh, he would take a plane, train an automobile to save the dollar. But to Nick, I say to him. There are people who will, and don't take our word for it. The data proves it. The data shows it, and the data is available to all of us. So study your comps during the festival, Shaune. Review your market history. What is the average daily rate trend? And then price yourself at or above competition, especially for those peak nights. And the graphs in your dynamic pricing software will show you what is peak and what is not peak for that festival. So don't limit the guest travel unnecessarily. Minimum stays can work if that is the goal, is to get you a little break, to get you a breather. But if your goal is maximum revenue, that might not be the answer. It can risk cutting you off from high paying short stays.

Whew. So of course you can set that minimum stay, but the real win comes from knowing your market and pricing accordingly. Accordingly. That was a hard, I sounded, sounded like I said,

You're passionate.

Study your past demand, your comps, your booking patterns. Then decide we are backing our decision with data. If this one full week guest or multiple shorter stays, premium rates are going yield you the best return.

So pull up your Airbnb insights and historical booking data or get and or get dynamic pricing software. Compare length of stay, nightly rates and booking windows for last year's festival, and then decide if your strategy is best served by a long minimum stay or shorter stays with higher rates or a hybrid approach. Shaune, good luck.

Listeners, take a look at your calendar. Take a look at your big events coming up so you can use this information also.

With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

I'm Annette Grant, and together we are. Thanks for Visiting.

Talk to you next time.