Avoiding 1 night stay
1 night stays are a necessary evil.
On one hand, they are bad - the cleaning/laundry costs "eat" a considerable part of the revenue, it increases checkin/checkout coordination efforts, and it causes my calendar to be full of "holes" of 1 day availability, which prevents more-than-1-day reservations come.
On the other hand, many (51%) of my reservations are for 1 day stay. So, I guess, that's what the customer want. And I cannot just setup a 2-day minimum in Booking (as I did in AirBNB), because this will kill half of my reservations (although not half of the revenues, of course).
So... any ideas about what to do?
As an experiment, I increased prices in 15% and made a 2-day-minimum promotion of decreasing the price in 15% (I know, the result will be somewhat lower than the original price... never mind). After a couple of experiment month, I can say it did not really help. People pay the higher cost, but still book for 1 night (well, 1 night stays reduced to 46%, but I think this is within the measurement error).
And, this experiment has the disadvantage that when a potential customer searches for a place and enter one day just to see the price, they see the higher price. Booking will not show that there is a promo for more than one day.
Any other advice/experiments/metrics from others on this?
Hello,
Yes I am agree that one night booking is costing, we have to change sheet, change room amenities, which is in one hand it is costing but i find it good in another hand too. Because, sometimes guest book for a night but they extend their stay on arrival. May be they want to check for property, this is difficult in peak season but it's good in low season. Sometimes they come for one night but come back for next visit.
Well, I never had it that a guest wanted to extend. But being ~85% full, in most cases they will not have the possibility to do it.
We have self-catering properties with a minimum 3 night stay, and minimum 7 nights in school holidays. We take bookings on BDC, AirBnB, TripAdvisor and HomeAway.
Sometimes, we get 1 or 2 night gaps between bookings. Sometimes we offer guests the opportunity to extend their stay by 1 or 2 nights at a discounted rate - if they want it, they pay by bank transfer. Sometimes we'll change the settings on the 2 nights to allow a 2 night stay. We never offer 1 night stays.
If we are left with a 1 night gap, so be it. We use that for a deep clean / maintenance etc. At the end of this week, I have a 1 night gap so will use it to add new plug sockets with USB ports beside the beds - guests like to plug their phones at night.
Hi Shlomo
To improve my occupation, I give 10% discount for 2 nights and lower the value of the night. Do not raise 15% to discount later. I prefer to earn less, but have guests and ensure the value of cleaning and comission. There is very competitive and people go for the price.
Greetings from Colombia