What's a Superhost?

So you may or may have not heard the term “Superhost” being thrown around within the Airbnb ecosystem. We wanted to take a moment to explain what it is, how you get it and why it’s important (Spoiler Alert: It’s very important!).

What’s this Superhost thing?

In short, it’s a profile badge given to the top hosts on Airbnb’s platform. This badge helps show potential renters that the host offers a top experience on their platform! Guests can even filter their vacation search, limiting the results to only Superhost listings.

There’s more to it than just that though, and it requires a bit of an explanation…

Airbnb wants their guests to have positive experiences, because if they do then they’re more likely to come back and use Airbnb for their next vacation. Because of this, Airbnb ranks Superhosts higher in the organic search results than non-Superhosts. This way, guests are more likely to book with Superhosts, have good experiences, use Airbnb more and make more money!

For example – the below image are the TOP results when search for a 12 sleeper home in Blakeslee.

And when we scroll down to the last page (page 13), this is what we see.

So how do you become a Superhost then?

Airbnb evaluates Superhosts quarterly (January, April, July, October) and you must meet the following qualifications:

This tells us a few things:

• Cancellations – It’s very, very important not to cancel on guests! If you cancel one trip out of 100, you’re above the 1% cancellation rate and will lose Superhost status. One of the ways we prevent double-booking a date is by using Uplisting, managing our available dates across all booking platforms (Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com and direct through our website).
• Reviews – encouraging positive reviews and keeping disgruntled renters happy is vitally important. Maintaining above a 4.8 star can be challenging, especially if one unhappy renter decided to tank our reviews by giving a 1-star review, so we work hard to keep renters happy!
• Answering Inquiries – We take great pride in being available and answering renter inquiries immediately. By being quick to respond and attentive, it gives us three advantages.
• Superhost – Helps us become Superhosts (need a 90% response rate)
• Gets us more bookings – by answering potential guests immediately they will be more likely to book instead of looking for another home
• Ranks us higher – Airbnb wants guests to book with hosts that have high response rates (they track all of this) so by answering quickly and being attentive, we show up higher in the search results and get more bookings!

Why is it so Important?

To sum it up, being a Superhost creates a positive feedback loop that leads to more rentals and more revenue.

Being a Superhost leads to showing up higher in the search results

• Showing up higher in the search results leads to more bookings
• More bookings leads to more renters and more positive reviews
• More positive reviews leads to better search results

I think you get the point!

We see 80% of our bookings come through Airbnb so it’s crucial that we maintain this status in order to keep the revenue wheel flowing! And as always, if you have any questions about this, please let us know 🙂