Stay curious and keep a pulse on the changes in the short term rental market.

In its relatively tiny lifespan, the short term industry has changed enormously. It’s so new that it’s constantly morphing into the next version of itself. And yet, as a host, when your focus is consumed by the day-to-day demands of actually welcoming guests into your space, it’s easy to expect the circumstances around hosting to remain the same.

The short term rental industry is kind of like the iPhone. We know that in the grand scheme of things, the product is still relatively new, and that it has already been through massive renovations since it first came out. And yet, we can’t really imagine our lives without smartphones now, even though, yes, you remember a life before 2007. And similarly, you (and everyone over the age of 16) remember what it was like to travel before the era of Airbnb.

With all of these fast-paced technologies, our mind tends to flatten all of the iterations that came before, and instead overlay our own blanket definition of what an iPhone or Airbnb is. And if you’re a host who experienced substantial success in the past, those glory days—even if they were just a few years ago—are likely to be your personal definition of what Airbnb is and determine how you expect it to work. Or if you’re newer to hosting, tales of those glory days may have been the springboard that led you to make the investment and leap into hosting when you did.

The trick is to keep a pulse on the changes in the short term rental market. And most importantly, maintain a curious mindset around discovering what’s working today to keep your place booked. That includes actively updating your listing and experimenting with new changes, and then using your Airbnb data to see what works best.

So many Airbnb hosts fall into the set-it-and-forget-it mistake with their own listing. Months and then years slip by without updating a thing, and then hosts are scratching their heads, wondering why bookings are down.

Meanwhile, the short term industry and guest expectations have continued to evolve. And the competition has updated their photos, leaned into the most popular current amenities, and leveraged the app’s latest features. Their listings look new and modern while the unattended ones look comparatively stale. And no one is looking to book a stale vacation.