New Year’s Eve can be highly profitable for that one day but it comes with its own issues and risks. As a company, we don’t often take bookings less that one night, and over the NYE period we may extend this to 3-4 nights depending on the property type.
If you have a booking for one night for December 31st it’s likely that it’s going to be a bit of a party, you may risk issues with your neighbour and there is always going to be a bit more of a clean-up. Getting cleaning staff who are willing to work on NYD is a challenge in itself.
We obviously want to maximize profits but keeping damages/trouble to a minimum. Often want to target families and longer stays over that period of time.
Here is what we do:
- We increase the pricing for NYE and New Years Day. On NYE the price for the listing is normally increased by 175% and on NYD this is normally set 150% increase on our normal daily pricing.
- We alter the minimum length of stay to 3-days, helping us avoid any party crews. This can be done by editing your listings Availability, then selecting Trip length click edit, then selecting Add a custom rule for seasons or specific dates
Increasing the pricing helps weed out guests that might want to use our Airbnb as a party house. It may seem greedy to guests booking but our number priority is to protect our clients’ property. By increasing the price per night may also result in a negative review, we help to compensate that by leaving a bumped up welcome pack of goodies. Hotels nearby will often increase the booking fee by up to 200% depending on the city.
We recommend doing price alterations and minimum stays as early as possible, we do ours one year in advance, giving us the best chance to get a booking over that festive period.
If you have a guest that wants to stay but you’re slightly worried, you can always increase the deposit value temporarily, and reduce this back down as soon as they make a booking, giving you extra piece-of-mind.
What you can’t do is alter the price after a booking has been made. You may want to do this for various reasons. (like Smart Pricing didn’t change enough) Unfortunately, it’s too late and the contract has been made, and you’ll have to suck it up!
Be sure to check out our guide to keeping your property safe during the New Years Eve celebrations, even though it may mean maximum profits on this day it also equals maximum danger as the chances of a party in your property is high.