welcome back to my channel I'm Matt the creator of Airbnb uncovered dot com and
Airbnb super host on this channel I uncover some of the best kept hosting
secrets as well as share with you everything that I've learned after
hosting over three thousand guests kovat nineteen is on everyone's mind these
days and it's for good reason it's a serious health concern especially for
our guests it's pretty safe to say that things in the travel industry are gonna
get worse before they get better so in this week's video I'm gonna go through
some concrete actions that you can take to prepare yourself and protect your
guests this week's video is going to show you exactly what steps you can take
today to protect your guests and yourself from infection and also show
you how to protect your business during this downturn I'm going to state the
obvious here I'm not a doctor or healthcare professional in fact before
becoming a full time Airbnb host almost five years ago I was a marketer and
before that a designated accountant so today's video is advice for you as a
host and not medical or public safety direction every Tuesday I publish a new
video just like this week's video the topics I cover are all focused on
helping new hosts avoid common mistakes and become super hosts in their first
quarter of hosting if you're new to hosting please subscribe to my channel
and click on the notification valve if you enjoy this video please give it a
thumbs up so let's start with what we can do to try to minimize the economic
downturn from kovat 19 the first thing to look at is our price if the stock
market is any indication prices for non-essential items are dropping I've
lowered my prices for the next 60 days and have increased my usage of
promotions available on Airbnb these optional promotions when they're
available are shown on the right side of your calendar I've also gone in and
lowered my summer high season prices if guests are thinking about booking
summer travel then I don't want to be priced out of the market at this point
my thinking is to secure as many bookings as possible to cover my costs
with lower prices I'm hoping that I'll be able to appeal to travelers and that
they'll click online listings to learn more now the goal is to reassure worried
travelers that their health is going to be taken care of during their stay I've
created a small three and a half by five index card that outlines the extra
precautions that I've taken to sanitize my home while I normally do a very
thorough cleaning between guests I'm now taking additional steps of sanitizing
commonly touched services so light switches door handles drawer pulls the
remotes and the keys as well as fully washing linens and towels normally I
would only change my duvet cover after every second or third guess now it's
after every guests I'm also supplying guests with hand sanitizers to be used
during their stay assuming supplies will last
I always washed my linens and towels with bleach but if you're not doing that
I recommend that you start to be honest one of my worst nightmares is for one of
my listings to be the source of infection for one of my guests once you
or your cleaner are done the turnover makes sure to wash your hands for at
least 20 seconds even if you were wearing gloves the entire time since
this card will be inside my listings I need a way to communicate these extra
precautions before the guests books to do that I've taken a picture of the card
and I'm setting it as the second picture on my listing this way when a potential
guest views my listings they'll see it at the top of the page in the preview
pictures as well as when they scroll through my pictures the template for the
card is available for a free download from my website I've simply used my home
printer and some three by five card you can get these cards from almost any
office supply store or from Amazon and I'll link to both in the description
below I've laminated my cards and I recommend
you do the same the card is likely one of the first things a guest will pick up
when they arrive and they'll probably do so before they get a chance to wash
their hands you want the card to be in a format that is easy to sanitize during
this downturn we also need to think strategically if global travel is down
then where are our potential guests going to be coming from the likely
answer is from our local area well I'm not a huge fan of hosting locals because
often they're coming into the city to just the party I am going to have to
host more of them if my business is going to survive and to minimize this
risk I'm asking even more questions scheduling more time to do my turnovers
and relying on my party prevention technology that I'll explain in a future
video that's coming up soon I'm also being slightly more aggressive in
converting whatever enquiries I get into confirmed reservations this means making
responding to my guests my absolute first priority and then writing back
almost instantly I'm also making accommodations I wouldn't normally make
and another action you can take is to extend your nightly minimum stays to
attract longer term guests we also need to give pause to ensuring our own health
and the health of our cleaners according to what I've read and seen on TV which
is probably the same thing that you've seen washing your hands and not touching
your face with dirty hands is the biggest actions you can take to keep
yourself healthy I think that given our cleaning work with guests from all
around the world we're at a bit of a higher risk for this reason I always
wear disposable gloves while I'm cleaning and I change them often one of
the first things I now do after starting the laundry and the dishwasher is my
sanitation procedure wiping down door handles light switches and other
commonly touched surfaces with Lysol wipes I want to
minimize the spread of any potential germs I'm not wearing a mess and I will
not be according to the Surgeon General of the United States masks are an
ineffective tool for healthy people to use to prevent transmission and due to
the short supply the masks are desperately needed by health care
professionals what additional actions are you taking to maintain your hosting
business during the kovat 19 pandemic leave it in the comments below and let's
learn from each other the last action I'm encouraging you to take is to stock
up on key supplies for your Airbnb be sure you have lots of disinfecting wipes
paper towel toilet paper facial tissue soap bleach and hand sanitizer but I'm
saying this with a grain of salt is a community of responsible and reliable
hosts please don't go crazy purchase what you need to have a three month
supply and then leave the rest for your community while stockpiling can put your
worries at ease it does nothing if everyone around you can't protect
themselves given the potential infection rates and
the headlines on the news it's natural for guests to want to cancel their stays
and request a full refund according to health care professionals we need to
take steps to prevent the spread of infection and to not overwhelm our
hospitals so in the spirit of looking out for each other I recommend that you
offer a refund to guess who are seeking to do just that by avoiding
non-essential travel if you can afford to do so
unfortunately the nasty part of this pandemic is going to be the economic
consequences some of you will need to rely on revenues from existing bookings
out of fear of not being able to secure replacement bookings in this case you
can offer your guests a refund if your listing gets rebooked or perhaps offer a
partial refund or in extreme cases no refund at all if you really can't afford
it but in some cases you're not going to get the choice and that's because Airbnb
just changed the extenuating circumstances policy so for all
reservations booked prior to March 14th and for bookings between March 14th and
April 14th full refunds will be granted including the service fee for guests and
hosts in some parts of the world Airbnb is mandating refunds outside of what I
just mentioned so if you have a guest traveling from one of these regions they
will be refunded I'll link to the official list in the description below
Airbnb has also announced some changes to the ways that its fees are charged
and refunded for hosts who select a flexible refund policy ie providing a
full refund up to 24 hours before check-in Airbnb will not be collecting
it's 3% host fee they're also refunding the guest side of the service fee on all
cancellations until June 1st 2020 if you're curious about how Airbnb x' fees
work I did a video on that a few weeks ago and you can check it out by clicking
on the little I in the top right hand corner of this video another thing
Airbnb is doing is creating the ability for guests to be able to search for
listings based on refund policies while I think all of these actions are helpful
and provide guests with more choice and demonstrate a willingness to help I'm
still not in favor of a flexible cancellation policy even if I can earn
an additional 3% as I mentioned earlier my strategy to survive during this
downturn is to secure as much revenue as possible but I don't want these bookings
to tie up my calendar and then be cancelled at the last minute leaving me
unable to find a replacement guest and out the nightly revenue I want bookings
from travelers who are sure they're traveling and to secure this I'm leaving
my cancellation policies on strict chances are if your guest is selecting a
listing with a flexible cancellation policy
they're unsure about their travel they want options that feed this uncertainty
and being able to cancel with a full refund up to 24 hours in advance
provides this additionally it will take a lot of additional bookings with an
extra 3% to make up for just one cancelled booking that gets refunded so
for now I'd rather fewer bookings with little to no chance of cancellation over
a full calendar with all of those reservations being cancelled at the last
minute if you want to know more about Airbnb 'z cancellation policy stay tuned
I'll be doing a video on that very soon staying safe during kovat 19 is on
everyone's mind these days it's having a huge impact on our hosting businesses
and creating lots of worry and stress about maintaining our businesses but
there are concrete actions that you can take right now to minimize this impact
the first thing you can do is be more aggressive with your pricing and try to
secure additional bookings we can do this by proving to your guests that
you're taking the steps necessary to sanitize and minimize the spread of
germs be sure to have enough cleaning supplies to honor this promise
communicate this promise by using the index card that outlines what additional
sanitization efforts you've been doing to keep them safe upload a picture of
this card to your listing page to stand out from your competition you can
download the card template from my website the link is in the description
below you also want to make sure that you keep yourself safe by wearing gloves
during your turnovers and properly washing your hands afterwards do what
you can to refund your guests because if they're cancelling their travel they're
doing their part to minimize the spread of infection by canceling their
non-essential travel finally Airbnb has taken steps to alleviate the impact on
gas although I'm not certain that relaxing your cancellation policy is the
best option right now I hope that after watching this video you've taken away
some good concrete action items that you can take
right now if you did please give this video a thumbs up and rate it five stars
if you're asked if you're not already subscribed to my channel what are you
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you'll get a notification when I upload a new video I'll be uploading a new
video very soon and it's probably going to be on air BnB 'z cancellation
policies unless something more urgent comes up so until then thanks again for
watching and bye for now
you